“We are thrilled by Apple’s special event and the release of iBooks Author. The next revision of MotionComposer will come with a new export capability that will create Dashboard widgets – ready to be integrated in a Textbook.”,says Matthieu Kopp, Aquafadas’ CTO.

“Working with Dashboard widgets is the way Apple has chosen to integrate HTML5 in iBooks Author. The possibilities will be countless, from Interactive maps, to animated sequences that will boost the interactivity in these new epub books.”

MotionComposer has been designed from the ground up to be a very easy tool to learn and we believe that it will feel like the right tool for the users of iBooks Author. It relies on very familiar and user-friendly concepts such as slides, states, actions. There is no complex timeline to learn. We are excited to see what teachers, students and publishers will do with MotionComposer.

MotionComposer is available from Aquafadas web store. The upgrade featuring Dashboard export will be a free upgrade.

Example of integration :

Some exemples created by MotionComposer :

We have designed a digital advent calendar this Christmas. The application is free and called “One Day One Christmas Gift”

Download the application for free on iTunes and all through December 24th you will receive a daily surprise! This is an original idea allowing you to discover Aquafadas software and our creative innovations on digital publishing.

As in a traditional advent calendar, the application allows you to wait for Christmas Day while receiving a daily gift. This can include a fun game, free applications or discounts on our desktop softwares. Discover the Aquafadas software family: digital comics, photos, video and animation creative software, digital publishing

system will all be available through! One day One christmas gift.

Application is free on iTunes, download and start discovering Aquafadas solutions this Holiday season.

MotionComposer is now available on the Aquafadas Website for 149 USD / 109 Euro.

De plus, l’export au format EPUB 3 conservera – autant que possible – les enrichissements du document original. Ainsi les diaporamas, les vidéos, les sons et la lecture à voix haute pourront être exportés au format EPUB 3 en un seul clic.

Visionnez notre vidéo de présentation:

Téléchargez notre premier exemple de réalisation: (Directement sur votre iPhone avec l’application iBooks )

http://bit.ly/qSG2xX

Watch the demo video:

You can download an exemple of EPUB 3 file at this link or if you scan this QR code:

http://bit.ly/qSG2xX

L’émission a pu aborder les enjeux de l’édition papier ainsi que les nouvelles solutions offertes aux éditeurs notamment pour les livres pédagogiques.

Merci à Frédéric Martel et à Mathias Megy pour leur accueil.

Vous pouvez réécouter l’émission sur le site de France Culture à l’adresse suivante :

Adding Newsstand support to your existing kiosks (or new kiosks) is as easy as:

• making sure you pick a Newsstand enabled template
• make sure you configure your app for notifications
• create subscriptions because Newsstand is really targeted at apps with subscription models. Creating a subscription is almost as easy as creating an in-app item.
• check the Newsstand option in the AVE AppFactory template and customize some behaviour.
• submit an update to Apple.

Our plugin for windows, features:

• View your interactive content directly on your iPad or iPhone by sending it from InDesign over your WIFI network.
• Manage your digital publications in a repository together with your media assets, and quickly access all your digital projects.
• Automatically add enhancements, such as guided reading, article reflow or fullscreen images to your documents with a few clicks by using our sophisticated document analyzer.
• Choose from a wide range of enrichment widgets (scrollable table of contents, deep-zoom images, 360° image viewer, and more) or create your own HTML component and host it in the document via our sophisticated HTML viewer.

Which also includes AVE AppFactory, a software application to generate apps for the iPhone®, iPad®, and Android™ based devices. And our online Publisher Portal, AVEpublishing, helps our customers to manage, sell, and distribute their apps, including marketing and sales analytics.

Take part now of Aquafadas’ pre-release program

The app presents the classic Brothers’ Grimm fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood illustrated with each word highlighted synchronous with the spoken text. Trying to find the little rabbit hidden on each page by tapping the screen adds even more fun.

The app keeps kids immersed in reading, learning, and playing repeatedly and for hours through its content and seven interactive games.

On August 24^th, 2011, Scott Kelby released KelbyMediaGroup’s first Pad-only magazine, Light It. The magazine for professional and amateur photographers is dedicated to the topic of lighting. Rainer Heckmann (Aquafadas) discussed the conceptions behind Light It, challenges in the creation of Light It, and why KelbyMediaGroup selected Aquafadas as their partner, with Scott Kelby, President and CEO of Kelby Media Group; Dave Moser, COO; Felix Nelson, Creative Director; and Dave Korman, Senior Premedia Specialist.

Light It is a digital-only magazine. Why don’t you publish it as a print magazine as well?

Scott Kelby: I think the future of magazine publishing is digital, and I personally now prefer to read magazines on my iPad to reading the print editions, which is something I never thought would happen (which is saying a lot as a person whose entire career has been built on print publishing). Also, because of the economies of iPad publishing, you can try new things, experiment, and even launch new magazines without the massive risk normally associated with print publishing. When I hear print publishers talking about pricing, and that the printing is only a small part of their overhead, it lets me know they’ve got serious problems they’re not likely to overcome, but the reality is—the printing and distribution costs for print are pretty significant, even if they don’t want to admit it.

What makes Light It stand out as a photography magazine, and what separates it from others?

Scott Kelby: I think its singular focus [on lighting] really helps it stand out. Also, I think because the magazine is filled with articles from the most popular instructors in the world today really makes it stand out. The people that our readers will be learning from are all pretty much household names in the world of lighting (and the few that aren’t are about to be).

When you planned Light It, what were your design goals for Light It?

Felix Nelson: Our design goals for Light It Magazine were pretty straight-forward. We wanted a clean, elegant layout that was both easy to read and visually appealing. The main goal was to create a digital publication combining the look and feel of a printed magazine with the features of a digital-only publication – including instant accessibility.

How do you envision tablets to change publishing and teaching?

Scott Kelby: It’s already changing publishing, and everyone’s struggling to adapt. I think the biggest hurdle to the acceptance of digital magazines is the navigation. Each magazine comes out with its own scheme, so you have to learn each ones scheme just to read it, and I think that’s a real problem. As soon as I open a mag, and it has a page that teaches me how to use it, I close it immediately. I want my digital magazine to work like a real magazine—only better. I shouldn’t need a tutorial. It should be intuitive, and that was a guiding principle behind “Light It magazine.” It has to be simple and intuitive, or they won’t read it. I won’t read it. I don’t have time to learn how to read a magazine. Who does?

What were your ideas of how you would use the possibilities of the iPad, for instance integration of other media than text and images, and user navigation? How did you envision Light It to be different from other digital magazines?

Felix Nelson: It was important that we didn’t over-complicate the reader experience, although it was extremely tempting to add a number of bells and whistles. It’s easy to get caught up with the endless possibilities when adding iPad functionality to a magazine, but we tempered our enthusiasm keeping the user experience top of mind. We carefully selected features that would enhance rather than interrupt the reader’s experience such as pinch and zoom, hyperlinks, and embedded video. I believe this easy-to-use, intuitive format is what sets Light It Magazine apart from other digital publications.

In addition to Light It you produce Photoshop User Magazine, and many training books. How did you integrate the production of Kelby Media Group’s first digital magazine into your workflow?

Felix Nelson: As a well-seasoned publisher of training materials, books and periodicals, introducing a digital magazine into the mix was a very natural addition to our current workflow.  In the end, it takes the same amount of time, effort, and personnel to create the content for a digital publication as it does a traditional print magazine. The workflow is essentially the same for editing and design, we simply had to omit the print process and budget time to the backend in order to convert our native InDesign files into something that could be used to produce the App itself. That’s where Aquafadas came in.

What were the main reasons you selected Aquafadas’ system, and not one of its competitors? In your opinion, what makes Aquafadas’ system stand out of the crowd?

Felix Nelson: We researched several products, programs and software, and quickly realized how complicated the technology and programming is, even though we wanted to keep the features simple and intuitive. We decided on Aquafadas because they provided solutions for the specific features we were looking for, but also because they offer powerful, user-friendly features that we hadn’t initially planned on. With the Aquafadas system we were able to create a magazine app from our native InDesign files, using their plug-ins, the AppFactory software and Avepublishing.com – all in a very short amount time.

What were the key specifications, selection criteria, and expected benefits a digital publishing system had to comply with to be considered for Kelby Media Group?

David Moser: Kelby Media Group was one of the first Photoshop and photography training companies to embrace electronic media several years ago and we have continuously sought after new technology, – reviewing each application as it emerged, and adopting what fit our needs.

Because we work in imaging, our needs are different from most education-driven businesses. When we made the decision to go completely digital, most everything we found seemed to be focused on the text delivery. Aquafadas excelled in the creative space where others failed. We’re so visual, and our audience is so visual that we needed a system that would deliver an enhanced visual experience.

Besides functionality, which other criteria were important in your decision making process?

David Moser: The user experience definitely drove the decision, but the workflow was a valuable side benefit. With the AVE AppFactory, we were able to easily integrate our existing workflow into the realm of digital publishing, which gave us an extra time saving benefit we hadn’t planned on. That was the icing for us.

How easy or difficult was it to make the switch to digital-only and create the interactive features in Light It?

Dave Korman: It was not difficult. As a matter of fact it was very simple and the challenge was the same as always, the end product. I am super impressed with the interactive features of Aquafadas Digital Publishing System and I love the full screen option for every photo.

How did you experience working with additional media types, such as video, and creating interactive user navigation, which you don’t have to care about in a printed magazine?

Dave Korman: I was super excited about it! After fourteen years of traditional print, being able to incorporate creative rich media was fantastic!

Photographers are naturally very visual, and that audience not only demands high-fidelity images but also excellent design and outstanding overall quality. How does Aquafadas’ system help you to live up to such high standards and expectations?

Felix Nelson: One of the key factors, and probably the biggest reason we choose Aquafadas over its competitors, was the amazing quality of the final product. Once we saw how well their products performed, we knew we made the right choice. The image quality and the features were second to none, not to mention that we could create an app ourselves, all in-house, without a huge learning curve.

The app we created for Light It Magazine, using Aquafadas Digital Publishing System, speaks for itself. It’s functional, intuitive, extremely visual, but most of all, it does what its supposed to do – teach the reader all about lighting, in a simple, easy to read format, right on their iPad.

What were the main differences you experienced in your work when you created a digital-only magazine? What where the main changes and challenges?

Dave Korman: When I first saw the iPad I knew the face of print was about to change drastically, so when this came to fruition, I was really excited to be able to work on the cutting edge of technology. I sat down and thought about he difference it would make in the workflow. In this day in age so much design must be prepared for both print and web that the simple answer was to attack it as if it were as a web based application. I had to break the old traditional rules of printing, using RGB native images and various orientations, but the main challenge was the same in the end – the layout and design of the magazine itself.

Can you tell us about the learning curve of Aquafadas’ digital publishing system? How long did it take to become familiar with the tools?

Dave Korman: It only took me a couple of weeks to work through the program. By week four, I had utilized every aspect of the application. I feel the interface is user friendly and a designer such as myself can pick it up very quickly.

What do you like most about Aquafadas’ products, what are your favorite animation features, and what’s the number one feature you’d like Aquafadas to add to their tools?

Dave Korman: I have worked with a lot of digital publication products, and Aquafadas’ animation features were simply awesome. I really look forward to highlighting and bookmarking functions, but I would love a feature within that would allow advanced image editing power within the interface.

Do you plan to publish Light It, and maybe other magazines, on other platforms, such as Android?

Scott Kelby: Absolutely. Right now, the iPad has such a massive base, and the tablet market for Android is still very, very small, so it’s not our top priority, but that may change in a few years, but I do think it will be years. Every time a new tablet comes out, the press rushes to call it “The iPad Killer” and so far, nothings even come close. They have a long way to go to really challenge the iPad, and part of their hurdle is the iTunes store. It’s a part of our lives already.

And what about your current print magazines, do you plan to publish any of them on the iPad as well?

Scott Kelby: As for our current print magazines? The future is digital, so there will be a digital version of everything we do going forward. There has to be. The cheese has been moved.

Do you think printed magazines will disappear eventually?

Scott Kelby: I think the strong ones will survive for quite some time, but any magazines without a really strong base will either go digital or die.