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kindle app DESTROYS ibooks imo

R

robinfish

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
34
0
We couldn't find some books today on the ibook store so we decided to try the kindle app. Not only does the kindle app have more books, but on average it seems like books in paperback are about four to five dollars cheaper than in ibooks. Plus the app itself is much more smooth and less laggy. No loading pages forever, etc.

Just one mans opinion....if you don't need to convert and import books...I highly recommend kindle over ibooks. Ill never buy another ibooks book again, that's for sure.
 
Wow, are you an amazon employee or something?

I disagree, for one, you barely talk about the apps themselves. The kindle app is very "unpolished" and doesn't have fancy curls or the great highlighting.

Secondly, the prices of the books and the iBookstore selection are not at all in any way related to the apps themselves.
 
iBook app is better (except maybe for annotation/notes?) but the kindle bookstore has a far, far better selection.
 
Disagree with your thread title and some of your OP.

Kindle app (looks like) was thrown together hastily. iBooks pwns the living crap out of it...it's beautiful, elegant, and feels polished...Kindle app has none of those qualities. It's like Amazon said "oh ****" when they heard Apple was getting into the eBook business and decided to put together an app quickly so as to save some of their market share, which will undoubtedly dwindle within the next few years (because of the iBookstore).

Now as for selection...Kindle has way way better choices for books, but the unpleasant reading experience (in comparison to iBooks) somewhat nullifies this advantage. I've found the books (Stephen King) I've wanted thru iBooks, and if you give it time, there will be a massive influx of titles in the store, onc Apple closes out all its deals and once publishers are less hesitant to push out their content.

:p
 
akm3 said:
iBook app is better (except maybe for annotation/notes?) but the kindle bookstore has a far, far better selection.
Click to expand...

True. I prefer the iBook app but the book selection needs to be increased.

Last night, I had four authors that I was looking for and none were on iBooks but all four offered kindle versions.
 
It depends on if you have a Kindle. I own a Kindle 2, and have the Kindle applications on my work PC and my two Macs at home. The one great feature of the Kindle and its applications is the syncing between them. If I read to page 57 on a book and then reopen on my Kindle or another system, it goes to that page.

I can make notes and bookmarks which cross the systems too. I think iBooks is a little too late here. When many folks want a book, they check out Amazon. Currently, I don't see anyone thinking of iBooks by default, except the die-hard Mac fans. This is going to drive more authors and publishers to Amazon first, not to Apple.

iBooks may be more polished, but I'm not sure everyone needs a polished ebook reading application. You open the ebook and read. I think the Kindle app is more than enough.
 
Kindle app can't do epubs right? It only displays books purchased through Amazon?

Can someone confirm?
 
I have both apps on my iPad, but for the moment I prefer Kindle. Yes, the iBooks app is slicker and managing books is easier, but once you are actually reading the book, I think they are pretty much the same. Books are cheaper on Amazon and the selection is much better. Also, I have Kindle on my MBP but as far as I know, there is not a corresponding program for iBooks (please correct me if I'm wrong). I like having access to my library on both my iPad and MBP.
 
I have both, and am currently reading books that I have in both. I prefer the kindle app for the sepia color, I get less tired reading in that color, however for everything else, the ibooks app wins hands down. The polished interface is beautiful and well pagination alone is worth its weight in gold. The "x pages left in this chapter" feature is nice too.

Overall, the only reason the ibooks app might seem slow is because it actually does something. As long as you dont change font size or weight, and just read, there is nothing slow about it and its a very well done app. as it should be.
 
I'm also using both. I like the iBooks application particularity its "look up feature". The bookshelf is a really pretty UI element. I like the upcoming "PDF collection view".

That all said, Amazon had a large head start with Kindle and selection is much larger, review numbers are larger etc. I'll continue to use them both, gradually going more with iBooks as it builds.
 
I use them both and found after loading my iBook shelf with many books its pretty slow to load.

Both my wife and I have found a few books that were unavailable on the iBook but were available on Kindle. That means, for now, Kindle wins.
 
robanga said:
I'm also using both. I like the iBooks application particularity its "look up feature". The bookshelf is a really pretty UI element. I like the upcoming "PDF collection view".

That all said, Amazon had a large head start with Kindle and selection is much larger, review numbers are larger etc. I'll continue to use them both, gradually going more with iBooks as it builds.
Click to expand...

I am using the Nook (B&N) reader. Barnes and Noble has tons of inexpensive ebooks.

And then there's uBooks, which will read all those old format books that you've had on your hard drive for years. It's not as smooth, but it's free, and reads everything from epub to pdf.

Does anyone recommend the better app?
 
I use iBooks, Kindle Reader and the B&N Reader. Which I use determines which has the book and the price. B&N is besting Amazon.com so far, surprisingly, in both price and selection of the books I have had interest in. Some other considerations.

My preference is to read in iBooks in the two page landscape format. So if prices and availability are equal I will buy the iBook.

My wife and I both have iPads. We are able to sync books bought at iTunes and B&N but not Amazon.com. So, if we both want to read the same book Amazon.com draws short straw and we choose between the other two.

B&N has the 14 day lending feature. We have not used that mainly because we don't know anyone to lend to.

Bottom line is it is nice to have choices. Borders will be coming to the iPad soon as well. You can't say that with the dedicated Kindle, Sony, Nook and Kobo readers.
 
I have both ibooks and kindle. At the moment, i have about 75 books on kindle and only the lonely, default Winnie the Pooh book on my empty ibooks shelf. I absolutely refuse to purchase my books for a third time just so i can have them in the ibooks app. It's a shame, too because i love the way the ibooks app looks with the wooden bookshelf and the book covers prominently displayed in color.
 
skidbubble said:
I have both ibooks and kindle. At the moment, i have about 75 books on kindle and only the lonely, default Winnie the Pooh book on my empty ibooks shelf. I absolutely refuse to purchase my books for a third time just so i can have them in the ibooks app. It's a shame, too because i love the way the ibooks app looks with the wooden bookshelf and the book covers prominently displayed in color.
Click to expand...

The book covers in Kindle app are also in full color. iBooks is no better in this regard, though it does have that wooden bookshelf behind them. :)
 
skidbubble said:
I have both ibooks and kindle. At the moment, i have about 75 books on kindle and only the lonely, default Winnie the Pooh book on my empty ibooks shelf. I absolutely refuse to purchase my books for a third time just so i can have them in the ibooks app. It's a shame, too because i love the way the ibooks app looks with the wooden bookshelf and the book covers prominently displayed in color.
Click to expand...

http://nyquil.org/archives/1235-Converting-Amazon-Kindle-For-PC-Books-Now-Possible.html

:)
 
opticalserenity said:
Wow, are you an amazon employee or something?

I disagree, for one, you barely talk about the apps themselves. The kindle app is very "unpolished" and doesn't have fancy curls or the great highlighting.

Secondly, the prices of the books and the iBookstore selection are not at all in any way related to the apps themselves.
Click to expand...

You can enable the "page curl" in the Kindle app. ;)
 
I think the thread title is more than a bit overdone!

Like others here, I have both the iBooks and Kindle apps on various devices. Personally, I don't much care which one I'm using to read particular books, so far at least. I am very impressed by the many little touches of elegance of the iBooks application, I must say. It's very, very tough to beat Apple on UI.

Basically I'm used to taking books in whatever shape they're in, including ratty old used copies without their covers from a library's annual 10c sale. So probably I will never do a feature-by-feature comparison of book-reading apps, even though I am thrilled that they exist. If I were doing a research project and so having to focus on bibliography and footnotes all day long, and how to navigate back and forth through multiple books efficiently, probably I would be a more discerning critic. Just reading for the love of reading, either the Kindle app or the iBooks one seems to work for me.

Shopping preference: I'm more used to shopping for ebooks on Amazon so at least for awhile I may still tend to go there without thinking through my options, I guess. Especially since I'm often web browsing when I decide I want to see if there's an ebook version of something mentioned on a site I'm reading. However, I am curious to see more of what's in the iBooks store, so I am trying to remember to prowl around in there even when I'm not looking for a particular item. What I've bought from the iBooks Store so far has downloaded quickly and the whole process seems more or less like buying a movie or music album. I like the option to get a chapter into my ibookshelf first and then buy it later if I want to, just by clicking in the designated place on the freebie.

I usually also have a couple audiobooks I'm listening to. Sometimes I end up flipping through various devices, launching Kindle and iBooks, wondering what the heck I did with some book I was "reading" -- before remembering that it's actually in some iPod's iTunes library and I was listening to it, not reading it. And last week I went looking for a book on my laptop when it's actually the hardcover book that I own, duh.

Maybe I need a vacation from all this technology...
 
I don't have a Kindle, but was prompted to buy a book using the Kindle app initially due price (seriously was about 5x as expensive on iBooks). This was after already reading a book on iBooks. The Kindle IMO has two big advantages - 1) sepia, and 2) the UI elements move out of the way in reading mode.

Not intending to alter opinions to the contrary - my thought is the whole page curl + book motif is pure cheese after the initial novelty wears off. Elegant maybe... in a victorian mcmansion kinda way. I'm probably totally insane for thinking this though. I do understand why Apple did it though, as a transitional measure to a new medium.
 
While I have been able to load my DRM-free ePubs from O'Reilly into iBooks, it has been mostly worthless to me otherwise so far. Every time I do a book search it comes up with empty results. My wallet is open and Amazon has been getting my purchases via the Kindle app.

I really like the Sepia page color option in the Kindle app. I hope the iBooks app adds that (well, and some books in the store would be nice too). And iBooks doesn't take notes. I know it will with the new version, but until I have the new version it still counts as a demerit. A downside for the Kindle app is that I can't load mobi files I've gotten elsewhere (but it's not really a big deal for me, since I don't really need it).

At the moment, Kindle has the edge for me.
 
There will never be an iBooks for Android app. That's it, end of argument. If I ever decide to go Android, I'm not boned.
 
Hmmmm, seems like most people are talking about the stores not the app. Well I haven't used either store yet so I prefer iBooks as I can load my personal digital books into the app. i can't do that with the Kindle app so from my perspective

iBooks app DESTROYS kindle imo
 
what is the point of book apps such as iBooks and Kindle?

TO READ BOOKS

would you rather read a crap book in a fancy app, or read virtually any book you want in an app that is basically the same? I know what id choose. Kindle over iBooks any day.
Do i care if my kindle app is not "fancy" as some guy said earlier? no, i just want to read best-sellers, not the junk that goes in iBooks.

And by the way, i dont see how ibooks is any more fancy than kindle. Yes it includes pictures, big deal. any respectable book does not include pictures

Kindle DESTROYS ibooks
 
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