Amen. It is absolutely the right size for reading. Kindle is too small. Other iPads are too big. It is the Goldilocks iPad.
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Apple Working on Redesigned Books App With 'Simpler' Interface and Overhauled Store
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Amen. It is absolutely the right size for reading. Kindle is too small. Other iPads are too big. It is the Goldilocks iPad.
actually I can think of a few things that would improve the user experience. Better meta data in the store for example. the subject listings are all over the place and some are just flat wrong. which is sad cause the Library of Congress already has a system of great subject listings. and they have author name standards so that you don't have things like Christopher Hart How to draw dude getting mixed up with Christoper Hart porn fiction dude. And with better subject listings (and genre listings) they could make it possible for us to sort our books by subject/genre without having to build our own collections. many users would love that.
they could also take a tip from Files and make it more diverse in terms of formats. many users would love to have cbr/cbz compatibility, even Kindle format compatibility. and if they could add support for rented ebooks so folks don't need a separate "overdrive" etc app.
and then theres linking between books, better note taking etc that many students would love to have
.I have no problem reading reviews on Amazon and buying my books in iBooks
This. I do this whenever possible. Unfortunately about 1/3 of my book purchases are on Amazon because Apple does not have the book. It irks me to no end that the Kindle app does not support the iPhone X. iBooks looks and works so much better on the iPhone X.
excited about a "Reading Now" section! A lot of my technical books looks the same and it's easy to lose track of which one is the current one I'm reading. and please, please, please allow me to mark books as read!
Whenever I hear about Apple proposing to "improve" one of their apps I like, make it simpler, I get suspicious and worried. This is based on historical precedent, in example OSX, Pages, iMovie, iTunes, etc. ...
Nevertheless, perhaps this portends an improvement. An interface highlighting a book one is currently reading could be a benefit, although this is largely the case now as that last read moves to the top of the list. However I am also mindful of their customer unfriendly UI in ATV that helpfully displays that last played (rather, purchased) at the top—BUT soon usurped by all else they wish to sell you. Something far nicer would be an interface displaying what YOU wished there, even wall to wall advertising if so.
In any event, I'll close by noting that overall I like the current version of iBooks. One feature among others that is particularly nice is how easy it is to highlight a passage of text in a well thought out and beautiful fashion. One can only hope any and all changes will actually be improvements.
[doublepost=1516915658][/doublepost]Apple's "simplifications" sometimes remove controls I used. Then I have to dig to get them, mostly, back. Completely uninterested in simplification, very interested in usability and getting it to do what I want. Oh, and put my audiobook library through another disaster like the iOS7 loss of chapter scrubbing and I will look hard at Pixel and even Samsung before I replace my 6s+.
After changing the iBooks app to simply be called "Books" in the iOS 11.3 beta that released to developers yesterday, a new report out today by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg states that Apple is preparing to revamp the internals of the iPhone and iPad app as well.
In an update coming in the next few months -- potentially with the public release of iOS 11.3 in the spring -- Apple will redesign Books with a "simpler" interface aimed at highlighting books you're currently reading in a "Reading Now" section.
On the store side of things, Books will gain a marketplace that looks like the new iOS App Store that debuted in iOS 11, tying more of Apple's apps in together aesthetically. There will also be a dedicated tab for audio books.
According to Gurman, this major update to Books is Apple's move to take on Amazon and the Kindle digital book market again. The Books redesign will come nearly five years after Apple and five publishers were found guilty of conspiring to inflate the prices of e-books to weaken Amazon's dominant position in the market.
In its preparation to fight against Amazon in the e-book market, Apple last month hired a senior vice president away from Amazon's Audible business. The VP, Kashif Zafar, had also previously worked at Barnes & Noble on its Nook e-reader. His new title at Apple is "Global Head of iBooks," and he'll help Apple with "general management responsibility" across the company's global digital books unit.
Article Link: Apple Working on Redesigned Books App With 'Simpler' Interface and Overhauled Store
This only interests me if i'm allowed to delete old books. I dont use ibooks because of this reason.
Biggest issue with iBooks is simply that reading on an iPhone or iPad, or even a Mac, is just not the most pleasant of experiences. I bought an iPad mini a few years ago because I thought it would be a great device to read on, but starring at a backlit LCD screen for a prolonged period of time was killer on my eyes. I ended up buying a Kindle Paperwhite, and absolute love it - eInk is just so much more natural to look at. I highly doubt Apple has any interest in creating an eInk ebook reader, it's such a niche market it just wouldn't make any sense for Apple to try and enter it.
After changing the iBooks app to simply be called "Books" in the iOS 11.3 beta that released to developers yesterday, a new report out today by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg states that Apple is preparing to revamp the internals of the iPhone and iPad app as well.
In an update coming in the next few months -- potentially with the public release of iOS 11.3 in the spring -- Apple will redesign Books with a "simpler" interface aimed at highlighting books you're currently reading in a "Reading Now" section.
On the store side of things, Books will gain a marketplace that looks like the new iOS App Store that debuted in iOS 11, tying more of Apple's apps in together aesthetically. There will also be a dedicated tab for audio books.
According to Gurman, this major update to Books is Apple's move to take on Amazon and the Kindle digital book market again. The Books redesign will come nearly five years after Apple and five publishers were found guilty of conspiring to inflate the prices of e-books to weaken Amazon's dominant position in the market.
In its preparation to fight against Amazon in the e-book market, Apple last month hired a senior vice president away from Amazon's Audible business. The VP, Kashif Zafar, had also previously worked at Barnes & Noble on its Nook e-reader. His new title at Apple is "Global Head of iBooks," and he'll help Apple with "general management responsibility" across the company's global digital books unit.
Article Link: Apple Working on Redesigned Books App With 'Simpler' Interface and Overhauled Store
I would be happy if they just let me move PDFs I save to a new folder instead of copying them there. When I open "Books", I don't want to see everything I have, just the new things I need to place in a folder, LIKE IT USED TO BE. The way it is now, I don't know whether I have moved all the files to the proper folders, unless i go there and try to see what's missing. I have totally stopped using the app because of this. I have to save all my PDF surveys and checklists there, but since I can't easily move them to the proper folder, I just leave them unsorted and use search if I need to look something up. It is very frustrating and I wish Apple would have a feedback button to let them know.
Books you can only read on Apples ecosystem...
Messages you can only send within Apples ecosystem...
Facetime that you can only view within Apples ecosystem...
Apple peer payments that you can only send to those in the Apple ecosystem...
I see a pattern here with things that should be universally available cross platform
Even Tim Cook said they were going to open up some of them but reneged on that promise.
What point is a walled garden If I can't do all those things with those in my family that don't have Apple devices like me.
I can't even use an nfc tag to open up apps or urls because Apple hasn't yet opened this up. All I can do is open the App first and then scan the tag, but only then on later devices 7+ and iOS 11, where as the iPhone 6 has NFC in it. Talk about planned obsolescence.
Messages you can only send within Apples ecosystem...
Facetime that you can only view within Apples ecosystem...
Apple peer payments that you can only send to those in the Apple ecosystem...
I see a pattern here with things that should be universally available cross platform
Even Tim Cook said they were going to open up some of them but reneged on that promise.
What point is a walled garden If I can't do all those things with those in my family that don't have Apple devices like me.
I can't even use an nfc tag to open up apps or urls because Apple hasn't yet opened this up. All I can do is open the App first and then scan the tag, but only then on later devices 7+ and iOS 11, where as the iPhone 6 has NFC in it. Talk about planned obsolescence.
Thank goodness for this! We all know what a real iBook looks like. Granite's iBook G3 Clamshells
Apple software design lately seems more like less features, and harder to navigate or let the software do what you want. Back in the day, like when iMovie was released it was so simple anyone could used it without being confused.
Hopefully they work out the bugs and improve UE. Annotation with Apple Pencil is a pita. If you have a PDF and made some annotations, these will often hide after swiping a page back and forth and will only reappear after closing the document or changing pages several times.
Also, when you want to make an annotation you have to tap onto the document to get to the tools bar but instead of showing that, it often goes to the next page instead.
And, if you annotate, you always have a really big pen selection bar at the bottom which overlays above your document so you can’t see the bottom lines. And if you then zoom and drag the document so you see what you want to see, the document will slightly move back.
iBooks isn’t really Apples best try at user experience.
Also, when you want to make an annotation you have to tap onto the document to get to the tools bar but instead of showing that, it often goes to the next page instead.
And, if you annotate, you always have a really big pen selection bar at the bottom which overlays above your document so you can’t see the bottom lines. And if you then zoom and drag the document so you see what you want to see, the document will slightly move back.
iBooks isn’t really Apples best try at user experience.
Good. iBooks is a disaster. The UI was made by an intern and never updated. Organization is pathetic. Stuff seems to vanish out of my iBooks all the time (I'm using the iBooks cloud option). Category navigation (of my self-made categories) is brutally pathetic.
The reading experience itself is mostly OK. Getting to the thing you want to read is the problem. Oh, and getting back to your library is difficult; at least on my device the swipes sometimes don't seem to work, or turn the page, or whatever. I eventually find my way back to my library, but it's an error-prone process.
The reading experience itself is mostly OK. Getting to the thing you want to read is the problem. Oh, and getting back to your library is difficult; at least on my device the swipes sometimes don't seem to work, or turn the page, or whatever. I eventually find my way back to my library, but it's an error-prone process.
The biggest fights that I have had with iOS are with the damn iBooks app. Getting updates takes FOREVER! Some 'books' won't update, some 'books' won't download. It's a hot mess...
They never put a lock button on iTunes to prevent accidental deletion of playlists.
Would've taken all of 10 minutes.
-Don't expect miracles.
Search for a Nook DRM removal tool. There's a number of them out there that will strip the DRM and convert to epub format which should be usable by iBooks.
I didn't post any links because I haven't used any of them and can't vouch for them.
Apple Product Feedback
iBooks for iOS https://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks_ios.html
iBooks for Mac https://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks.html
Have you tried using files? That is the appropriate app for that!
