iBooks

Download Apple’s new Swift app development curriculum from iBooks Store

Apple on Wednesday announced a new app development curriculum targeting U.S. high school and college students who are eager to learn the secrets of mobile app development with the Swift programming language.

Titled “App Development with Swift”, the new curriculum is now available as a free download from iBooks Store. It's an extension of Apple’s existing K-12 Everyone Can Code curricula, which has been downloaded 430,000 times.

Noting that the app economy and software development are among the fastest-growing job sectors in America, Apple CEO Tim Cook says his company is thrilled to be providing educators and students with the tools to learn coding.

“Community colleges play a critical role in helping students achieve their dreams, and we hope these courses will open doors for people of all ages and backgrounds to pursue what they love,” said Cook.

The full-year course focuses on app design and development with Swift, the company's modern programming language. It includes various Swift Playgrounds exercises and Xcode tutorials, as well as homework projects, a teacher guide with solutions, grading advice and more.

Starting this fall, the following community college systems serving nearly 500,000 students nationwide will teach the new curriculum, among others:

Alabama Community College System Columbus State Community College Harrisburg Area Community College Houston Community College Mesa Community College San Mateo Community College District

Houston Community College will be opening an iOS Coding and Design School to teach the new curriculum.

“We are thrilled Apple is offering this incredible opportunity to advance student learning, which will especially help us bridge the gap in computer science training for minorities and women,” said Houston Community College Chancellor Cesar Maldonado.

“We can’t wait to see what these students will do and already have local businesses offering mentoring and internship opportunities.”

Apple says that select high schools will teach the curriculum as well. At many campuses, local businesses will also offer students mentoring and internships, added the firm.

More than a thousand schools across the US plan to teach with Everyone Can Code materials in the fall. Feel free to check out Apple’s existing free coding materials on iBooks Store.

New Apple videos highlight enhanced iBooks for George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire

Back in September, publisher HarperCollins debuted on iBooks Store exclusive Game of Thrones digital books featuring interactive content. Today, Apple began promoting these enhanced edition iBooks in last-minute holiday push with a trio of new videos published on its YouTube channel.

Comprised of five individual titles, these interactive iBook exclusives are available individually or as a $39.99 bundle from iBooks Store.

How to fine-tune the skip and replay intervals for audiobooks in Books

If you consider yourself a fan of the spoken word and bank on Apple’s own Books service to listen to your favorite books, you might have been frustrated by some of the app’s design choices before. Especially when it comes to manipulating the play time of your audiobook on the fly, be it on your Lock screen, in Control Center or on Apple Watch, the experience can be inconsistent and altogether suboptimal at times.

What all those interfaces have in common however is a nimble skip forward and skip back button, both of which are pegged at a pretty arbitrary plus and minus 15 seconds per touch.

This brief tutorial is going to remind you of a trick to customise those buttons and better fit them to your skipping habits by shortening or prolonging the time jumps. After all, what’s the use of 15 second skip intervals in the middle of a J. R. R. Tolkien marathon?

A Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition with bonus interactive content hits iBooks

The first book in George R. R. Martin's “Game of Thrones” fantasy series was published twenty years ago today. Celebrating the anniversary, publisher HarperCollins and Apple released interactive “Game of Thrones” digital books on the iBooks Store today.

Representing “an amazing next step in the world of books,” The Guardian reports that the enhanced electronic books bring “a world of additional content” such as sigils, family trees and glossaries.

Apple launches new iBooks account on Instagram, releases new Harry Potter book

Following launch of the widely popular and incredibly active Apple Support account on Twitter earlier this year, Apple has now created a brand new account on Instagram. Dedicated solely to iBooks, it shares book quotes, spotlights authors and reviews, promotes new arrivals and more. At the same time, the iPhone maker has now released the script for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on the iBooks Store (also available from Amazon and other retailers).