Hi Sarah, OK, I'm not sure why the automatic downloads feature is not working for you and Will. I just tested this by going to Settings > Store on my iPhone 4 and turning on the switch for Automatic Downloads of iBooks. Then I went to the iBooks Store on my iPad, and "purchased" a free book, "Three Little Pigs" by AudibleBooks. The book loaded on my iPad and also automatically downloaded to my iPhone.
Incidentally, to make this thread more interesting, I'll just state that the sample book is apparently one of four children's books that Audible has authored to make use of the multimedia options that were added to iBooks a year ago. They're apparently testing this format and issued these as free books since the start of the year. There are also 10 paid "Read Along" books. They're not purely audio books, because they're aimed at children who are learning to read (or being read to), so there is both text and pictures. On the iPad there's an "Audio Options" button after the buttons for "Library" and "Table of Contents", and before the buttons for "Brightness", "Search", and "Bookmarks". This is where the "Appearance" button, which allows font size, font type, theme selection, and brightness appears for most iBooks. Double tapping "Audio Options" brings up a pop up menu with a volume slider and two buttons under the "Read aloud" heading: "Turn Pages", which can be double tapp ed and set to either "Manually" or "Automatically", and "Start Reading". These books are not designed to be read from the text with VoiceOver. VO works, but there's a pause after every word. What's happening is that the words are getting highlighted, one by one, as the story is read out, and that's why this sounds choppy if you try to read through the text selection with VoiceOver. There are illustrations included with the "Read Along" series books, as you can determine by reading the descriptions and review comments of the other offerings from AudibleBooks. The illustrations are not described, the way the images are in "Winnie the Pooh", which was featured for about a year as a free introduction to iBooks when the first generation of the iPad launched. (This ebook hasn't been free for some time -- it shows up as $10.99 now from Penguin as the publisher, so don't try to get it as a free download.) I think that the app could be improved if low-vision users wanted to provide feedback. At present, the "Read Along" series is quite usable on the iPad with VoiceOver if you use the "Audio Options" control to start to "Read aloud" and set it to automatically turn pages. (If the page turn is set to "manually", the reading stops at the end of each page, waiting for you to move onto the next page, which you could dow with the page chooser at the bottom of the screen. If you really want to stop reading, a better option would be to set page turning to be automatic, and then to double tap the "Audio Options" button, and double tap "Stop Reading" in the pop up.) There are no options for adjusting letter sizes on the page, because the reading is done automatically, and the words are highlighted. But a low-vision parent might want to be able to follow along with the highlighted words on the text if he or she were reading the book with a child. Also, on the iPhone although the pop up worked to start reading, I couldn't get rid of it when I double tapped "stop reading". I left it to read, then quit the reading by navigating to the page chooser and change the page, and then getting out to the other controls. Anyway, sorry for the digression. The bottom line is that the automatic download feature works for me if I turn it on in Settings > Store. Maybe someone else can chime in with their experience? And also, I did find this test of one of the free "Read Along" books by AudibleBooks (spelled with no space between "Audible" and "Books") to be interesting. If there are any low-vision users on the list, they might want to provide Audible with some feedback to improve the accessibility experience. These iBooks seem designed for the iPad, but also work on the iPhone. They could just work better on the iPhone. HTH. Cheers, Esther <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free! Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
