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Apple's iBooks Platform Seeing 1 Million New Users Per Week After iOS 8

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Apple's iBooks platform is seeing an average of a million new users per week after the company's decision to ship iOS 8 with the app pre-installed, according to Apple Director of iBooks Keith Moerer, who spoke today at the Digital Book World Conference.

Apple's decision to ship iOS 8 with several new apps pre-installed, including Podcasts and iBooks, was somewhat controversial because pre-installed default apps are unable to be deleted from a user's device. At the same time, though, default apps that come automatically installed introduce the content to a range of new people who might not have otherwise discovered it in the App Store.

digitalbookworld.jpg
iBooks Director Keith Moerer at the Digital Book World Conference, image courtesy of David Lamb​

Before iOS 8, the iBooks app had to be searched for and downloaded from the App Store, putting it on par with several other App Store-based e-books apps like Amazon's Kindle app for iOS. Pre-installing iBooks made it "so easy" for new users to try iBooks for the first time, said Moerer. Family Sharing, also new in iOS 8, helped to improve customer acquisition as well.

According to Moerer, iBooks consumption on phones is also on the rise since the launch of the larger-screened iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. "We are seeing more of our book sales starting to come from the phone," he told the audience at the conference. Moerer also highlighted the company's commitment to establishing relationships with creative professionals, including authors, and noted that indie publishing is one of iBooks' "biggest growth areas." Foreign publishing is also expanding, with Spanish-language publishing becoming a larger part of Apple's business in the United States and Japan seeing a lot of growth.

Moerer commented on the overall e-book market, saying that while Apple has noticed a slowdown in "other digital media businesses", the company is content with "our place within it" and still has many opportunities for growth through leveraging other content from iTunes, including movies and music.

Competing book stores were also a subject of discussion, with Moerer pointing out that Apple does not charge for publishers to promote books, unlike other stores like Amazon. "We accept no co-op payments, no pay for placement," he said. Apple is most focused on supporting artists big and small, according to a statement relayed by Gigaom:
Whether an author chooses to self-publish or work with a small or large publisher, I'm very proud that our business terms are the same. The same 30---70 split applies to a self-published author as well as an author published by the very biggest house. Because we're not a publisher ourselves, we work very closely with publishers and we view them as partners. We view what we do as an expansion of our support of print professionals on the hardware and software side and the way we run our other media businesses.
Click to expand...
Apple's iBooks Store has gotten the company into hot water in the past, as Apple was found guilty of conspiring to fix the prices of electronic books. As a result, the company was subjected to a penalty of $450 million and forced submit to anti-trust monitoring.

iBooks has remained a major focus for the company despite its troubles, and along with making the app a default iOS app, Apple also introduced several new iBooks features in iOS 8 like an auto night mode, new organization, and more. OS X Mavericks also saw the introduction of a Mac-based iBooks app that allows users to read books on their Macs.

Article Link: Apple's iBooks Platform Seeing 1 Million New Users Per Week After iOS 8
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/15/apple-ibooks-1-million-new-users-per-week/
A

advancewarsbest

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2013
120
77
I'm just glad we can put them in folders, I hated not being able to hide Newstand in a folder.

I Wondered if Apple would ever have a toggle in the the settings menu to hide the built in apps. A bit of a compromise, they still come built in by default but the user can ultimately hide those apps, without being able to completely remove them.
 
ActionableMango

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,612
6,907
Apple's decision to ship iOS 8 with several new apps pre-installed, including Podcasts and iBooks, was somewhat controversial because pre-installed default apps are unable to be deleted from a user's device. At the same time, though, default apps that come automatically installed introduce the content to a range of new people who might not have otherwise discovered it in the App Store.
Click to expand...

The obvious compromise is to ship the apps by default but allow users to delete them. In cases where the app code provides core functionality, allow users to hide the app.
 
B

BruiserB

macrumors 68000
Aug 9, 2008
1,731
705
I wonder if the larger phones are helping? I never really had much luck trying to read on my 5S, but it's a much better experience on the 6 Plus.
 
iHack13

iHack13

macrumors regular
Jun 10, 2009
152
709
city of octoberfest
iBook? Thats my most hated app which I dragged into my Apple Junk Folder , next to Newsstand , Gamecenter and Photobooth.

Right after I realized that all my PDFs couldnt be opened by another App, once they got imprisoned in iBooks. I had to eMail them to myself and reopen them in Documents by Readdle... (do that for lots of PDFs and you start hatin')
 
nepalisherpa

nepalisherpa

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2011
2,258
1,330
USA
J

JPark

macrumors 6502a
Jun 5, 2006
662
158
I have a folder called crApps that I use exclusively for Apple's preloaded but unwanted apps.
 
HobeSoundDarryl

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Feb 8, 2004
12,245
15,624
Hobe Sound, FL (20 miles north of Palm Beach)
BornAgainApple said:
Didn't MS get sued by the EU for something like this with Internet Explorer?
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Yes but around here it's perfectly fine when Apple does something like this, extraordinarily wrong when anyone else does. Did you not read the rules? Laws should exclude Apple when they work against Apple or be changed to support Apple when they don't align with what Apple wants. Patent law is "outdated," "stupid," etc when a patent works against Apple but brilliant, "sock it to them Apple" when it's favorable. Court decisions against Apple beg for legal system overhauls, "judge should be removed," etc but court decisions for Apple are celebrated as victories of our superior justice system. When a ruling is simultaneously for Apple and against Samsung on some points and for Samsung and against Apple on others, only the Apple ones are celebrated and the Samsung ones are completely in the wrong. Get with the program man! ;)

Same applies for analyst quotes who are geniuses and/or quoted to no end when they say nice things or show growth exhibits for Apple but are "morons", "stupid" and "never right" when they say or show anything the other way.

All ;)
 
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T

thekeyring

macrumors 68040
Jan 5, 2012
3,485
2,147
London
If comments on here are at all representative of the majority of users, it would be great for iOS 9 to allow default apps to be hidden/removed/replaced with third party ones

After all, doesn't allowing iCloud Drive in your app also make it easy to save to drop box, one drive, etc?

Plus, apps can export widget and keyboards, so maybe it's not that unlikely.
 
Rogifan

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,142
31,198
BornAgainApple said:
Didn't MS get sued by the EU for something like this with Internet Explorer?
Click to expand...

I wasn't aware iOS had 90% of the mobile phone/tablet market. I had a nook before I got an iPad. I still use B&N's app, not iBooks. Competitor apps certainly aren't difficult to find, install and use.
 
pdaholic

pdaholic

macrumors 68000
Jun 22, 2011
1,842
2,550
I've been using iBooks alongside the Kindle app. I actually find the vertical scrolling in iBooks to be a more pleasant reading experience, and I wish they would incorporate that function in the Mac iBooks app. Though I have found iBooks to be more expensive than the Kindle equivalent.

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thekeyring said:
If comments on here are at all representative of the majority of users, it would be great for iOS 9 to allow default apps to be hidden/removed/replaced with third party ones
Click to expand...

Wish Apple Maps could be replaced with Google Maps! I would love to be able to go from Yelp straight to Google. Not gonna happen though.
 
A

avanpelt

macrumors 68030
Jun 2, 2010
2,956
3,877
I have yet to see what the definition of "users" or "customers" is in this instance. The MR article says 1M new users per week and the linked Gigaom article says 1M new customers per week. What do they mean, exactly? My guess is that there are 1M new *potential* customers every week (i.e. upgrading to iOS 8). I seriously doubt that they have 1M new people buying something from the store each week.

----------

Which guy is which in the picture? The guy on the left looks young and energetic. The guy on the right looks like a tired corporate suit. Keith Moerer doesn't have a profile picture on his Linkedin account and a Google Image search for Keith Moerer comes back with a bunch of pictures of Craig Federighi.
 
himanshumodi

himanshumodi

macrumors 6502a
May 18, 2012
643
881
India
I wonder, does just the fact that iBooks is already installed help Apple take away customers from Amazon - where the kindle app has to be downloaded.

eInk display is the only reason i buy ebooks. iPad and iPhone are better for books with illustrations. I am sure that everyone who also owns a kindle and is reasonably invested in it would much rather download the kindle app than a book from iBooks.
 
HiVolt

HiVolt

macrumors 68000
Sep 29, 2008
1,649
6,050
Toronto, Canada
JPark said:
I have a folder called crApps that I use exclusively for Apple's preloaded but unwanted apps.
Click to expand...

It's funny how people always rag on the various Androids that include crapware apps from either the carrier or the manufacturer that you can't remove...

Apple is no different in this regard, but people somehow forget about this.
 
nagromme

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
Should have been preinstalled all along: it's a repository to save PDFs from the web and email. (And one you can organize and sync in nice ways.)

Oh, yeah, ebooks too. But I borrow most books from the library, and Apple doesn't currently support that. So I'm stuck with the Kindle app and its horrible typography and years-old bugs with basic functions like page turning and sync.

I do like that the Kindle app will allow narrower margins. iBooks wastes a lot of space on phone screens.
 
R

RedOrchestra

Suspended
Aug 13, 2012
2,623
3,237
DON'T DO IT - don't get started on the iBooks App, you'll forever lose control of the books to Apple. Use the Kindle App for Mac, buy only Kindle ebooks (same price, better / more selections) and if you want to switch to an Android phone or tablet, later, your books move with you.

No truer words than those from Hotel California;

'We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you just can never leave!'
 
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