iBooks - How to sync books between Mac and iPad/iPhone?

[desertman]

Hello Forum,

Is there a way to keep epub books synced that I have added manually to iBooks on my Mac, my iPad, and my iPhone?

I anyway know only one way to get an epub into iBooks on iPad or iPhone - by sending the file via email to myself and then telling Mail to open the attachment in iBooks. On my Mac I do this by dragging the epub onto the iBooks icon. But now the reading position does not get synchronized between the devices.

Is there a way to keep reading positions of such books synchronized?

Greetings - desertman

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Hello Forum,

Is there a way to keep epub books synced that I have added manually to iBooks on my Mac, my iPad, and my iPhone?

I anyway know only one way to get an epub into iBooks on iPad or iPhone - by sending the file via email to myself and then telling Mail to open the attachment in iBooks. On my Mac I do this by dragging the epub onto the iBooks icon. But now the reading position does not get synchronized between the devices.

Is there a way to keep reading positions of such books synchronized?

Greetings - desertman

Yes, you can, by syncing via iTunes on your computer. The iBooks library on your computer will be used for syncing. So, add a book to the iBooks library on your computer, it should appear in your iTunes > Books sync settings.

I had to experiment with the bookmarks question. Yes, bookmarks will sync between devices when you're reading a non-iBooks Store ePub (although sync may not be instantaneous). If you close the book on one device, it will open in the same spot when you open the book on the other device. It seems you have to close one, then open the other - if both are open at the same time, this doesn't seem to work - however, setting a new bookmark would achieve something similar.

 

[desertman]

Yes, you can, by syncing via iTunes on your computer.

Thanks for this information.

However, since I am one of the many Apple customers where wireless syncing usually does not work (my iPad and my iPhone rarely show up in iTunes when not connected with a cable, and Apple was even after several hours of Apple Care phone support not able to fix this) this is not very practical.

In my opinion it is really poor that this does not work directly via iCloud/internet (as it does for my Kindle books between my Kindle and the Kindle apps on my iPad and my iPhone).

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Thanks for this information.

However, since I am one of the many Apple customers where wireless syncing usually does not work (my iPad and my iPhone rarely show up in iTunes when not connected with a cable, and Apple was even after several hours of Apple Care phone support not able to fix this) this is not very practical.

In my opinion it is really poor that this does not work directly via iCloud/internet (as it does for my Kindle books between my Kindle and the Kindle apps on my iPad and my iPhone).

Is there anything impractical about syncing with a cable rather than wi-fi? That's one reason alternate routes exist.

Perhaps the question you should have asked was, "Can I get iBooks to work exactly like Kindle?" If you had, I could have saved myself some time and effort.

In response to the revised question: iCloud will soon have new capabilities. At that point, you should be able to add those ePub files to iCloud and access them on all devices. http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/icloud-drive/

 

[desertman]

Is there anything impractical about syncing with a cable rather than wi-fi?

I would say the necessity of a cable for synchronization is less practical than wireless synchronization - similar to a wired network compared to a wireless network. Most people would probably agree that a wireless network is more practical.

iCloud will soon have new capabilities. At that point, you should be able to add those ePub files to iCloud and access them on all devices.

Thanks again for the information. That is great to hear. I hope it will include synchronization of the current reading position in iBooks.