iBookstore Adds Language Support

The latest iTunes Producer Guide, version 2.8, indicates that a number of new languages are now supported by iBooks and the iBookstore using the ePub 3 format.  iBooks 3 and iOS 6 are required.  These are:

Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, Dari, Hebrew, Japanese, Khmer, Kurdish, Lao, Malay, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tajik, Urdu, Uyghur, and Uzbek

(Unfortunately neither Pages nor iBooks Author can do the vertical layout and phonetic guides used in Chinese/Japanese books, and both have bugs with RTL scripts that make them normally unsuitable for Arabic, Dari, Hebrew, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Sindhi, Urdu, Uzbek, and Uyghur.) 

Some info on creating ePub 3 with vertical text is at

http://www.slideshare.net/liz_castro/writing-epub-3-tokyo-ebook-expo

http://epicsword.pixnet.net/blog/post/38345625

2/16/2013:  I have reports that despite what is written in the iTunes Producer Guide, the iBookstore will still not accept books in Arabic and other RTL scripts, even if the stated conditions are met. 

iBooks 3 Adds Support for Chinese/Japanese/Korean

At the Apple event Oct. 23, 2012, a new version 3 of iBooks was announced, including vertical layout and correct page turning for CJK scripts.

Support for embedded fonts has apparently also been added, as this feature has been put into a new version 2 of iBooks Author.

OS X 10.8.2: Japanese Display Issue Addressed

Apple has issued a supplemental update to 10.8.2 which "Resolves and issue that may cause certain Japanese characters to appear incorrectly in Mail."