iBooks & iBooks Author

I want to find out a bit more information about iBooks and the software that I'm going to be using in order for me to start generating ideas and develop my brainstorming further. I am interested in doing some brief research into iBooks author as the results should allow me to distinguish how much scope I have to play within the program - is there any thing that the program isn't capable of doing?  What scale of interaction can I go to?

Alongside doing this I'm now starting to gather the content for my iBook under the category 'Volcanoes'. I am so happy I received this category! It's something that when you first hear it, it immediately sounds interesting and now I'm doing some initial research into it.

iBooks Author
iBooks Author is an application created by Apple to enable anyone to make their own iBooks and submit them to the Apple iBook store. They can be ready on iPhones, iPads and Apple Macs.

As well as allowing you to do the obvious - put text and images on a page - iBooks Author allows the user to 'interact' with the book to a greater extent than the regular iBook may allow. iBooks that have interactions in them are referred to as 'enhanced' iBooks.

According to Apples information page on iBooks Author, it's capabilities include:
http://www.apple.com/uk/ibooks-author/

- Use of prebuilt templates

I'm about 80% sure I will not be using a prebuilt template, as I would design my iBook from the ground up within their software and then design individual elements. I need to start looking into design styles.

- Add text
- Add shapes
- Add tables
- Add charts

All basic. standard elements, similar to Apple Keynote.

- Add widgets

The widgets panel in iBooks author

Widgets will allow me to implement significant interaction and animation into my iBook to help strengthen it and make it more interesting

Widgets include: importing Keynote presentations (which can include animations themselves, built within Keynote, interactive images (zoom into them, pan throughout them), image galleries (navigate through a set of pictures without having them all on the page), scrolling sidebars (allow users to briefly browse a side note without them leaving the page), 'pop over' (clickable points on an image where more information can pop up in a box), add media (add video & music and embed from external sources e.g. YouTube), chapter reviews (option to create a multi choice quiz at the end of a chapter to enable the user to check what they've learnt), 3D images (ability to view a 3D image from all angles, with added controls to navigate), and the ability to add your own HTML models. 

There is also option to choose between a Portrait or Landscape iBook. I'm likely to be going with Landscape, as it seems more of a natural way for someone read - kind of like a double page spread in a magazine - and will give me more scope to experiment with page layout as well as use larger images/graphs/interactions etc.

Now I've looked into what the software I'm going to be using is actually capable of, I can ensure that whilst brainstorming and developing ideas I am not planning to design & create something that is impossible to pull off within the means I have.