Apple announced today at its quarterly Retail store meetings today that it will be providing its employees with free iBooks beginning next week. The initiative is referred to internally as “iBooks Discovery.”
The move comes ahead of the launch of both OS X Mavericks and iOS 7. Mavericks will be the first Mac operating system to feature the iBooks app and iBookstore, so Apple is providing their employees paid titles for free as a way for the employees to further familiarize themselves with iBooks. This, in turn, will allow the employees to be more experienced with iBooks as they introduce the Apple book reading service to Mac users for the first time.
Apple previously launched a similar program for employees to become familiar with App Store apps. The program, called “Apps Discovery,” gave employees paid apps for free that were available on Apple Store iOS device demo units.
Other current Apple Retail Store programs include the push to sell more iPhones in-store, and a newly updated Apple Store app, which sources say will act as a foundation to push free iTunes and App Store content to customers while they are in the store. Apple has also provided it’s retail employees with access to both OS X Mavericks and the iWork for iCloud beta. iOS 7 still remains off-limits to retail employees.
