Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mavericks iBook app

For those having problems opening books due to the Apple ID issue:

Delete the book (but obviously not from iCloud) and then re-download. Should open fine after that.
 
RedRaven571 said:
I bought a $1.99 book (a Jack Reacher novella) and downloaded it but when I go to open it, I get a message that tells me I can't open the book because it wasn't purchased with the Apple ID I'm signed in with (even though it is).

Anybody else have this same problem?
Click to expand...

That's interesting. I bought the same Lee Child novella and it downloaded and displayed perfectly.

Good story, btw.
 
For me, purchased books from any device are syncing across all devices but manually added ones are not.
 
I wish Apple would let me sync my legally purchased epub books across devices.

If they just focused on making services that works for everybody, they'd get more users and eventually more users at their stores too. This pointless "bonus" for only syncing what was purchased at their stores is not helping them at all.

If they want the money, just make it an option for the higher iCloud storage plan. "If you upgrade your iCloud plan, you'll get the option of syncing your files through iCloud and the best part? Your purchases from our App Store would not count toward your new iCloud's storage limit.".
 
mixel said:
My iBook purchases say they were bought using a different apple id, so they can't be opened. .. They obviously weren't as I'm logged into the same one on my phone/iPad where they work fine.

Definitely needs a little more work.. I hope this doesn't end up being a persistent bug. :O
Click to expand...

Having the same issue.
 
MikhailT said:
I wish Apple would let me sync my legally purchased epub books across devices.

If they just focused on making services that works for everybody, they'd get more users and eventually more users at their stores too. This pointless "bonus" for only syncing what was purchased at their stores is not helping them at all.

If they want the money, just make it an option for the higher iCloud storage plan. "If you upgrade your iCloud plan, you'll get the option of syncing your files through iCloud and the best part? Your purchases from our App Store would not count toward your new iCloud's storage limit.".
Click to expand...

Or add an "iTunes Match" service for ebooks.
 
mixel said:
My iBook purchases say they were bought using a different apple id, so they can't be opened. .. They obviously weren't as I'm logged into the same one on my phone/iPad where they work fine.

Definitely needs a little more work.. I hope this doesn't end up being a persistent bug. :O
Click to expand...

Like you and others here, I had the same issue. I resolved mine by authorizing my computer within the iBooks app in Mavericks.

Open iBooks
Click on the Store Menu
Select Authorize this computer

I got the message that this computer was already Authorized, but all my Books opened up just fine afterwards.

Try it and let me and everyone else know if it worked for you too!

-rp-
 
rcperkinsjr said:
Like you and others here, I had the same issue. I resolved mine by authorizing my computer within the iBooks app in Mavericks.

Open iBooks
Click on the Store Menu
Select Authorize this computer

I got the message that this computer was already Authorized, but all my Books opened up just fine afterwards.

Try it and let me and everyone else know if it worked for you too!

-rp-
Click to expand...
Aha, yep, that worked for me too - but only when i de-authorised it first. Just authorising when it already thought it was didn't do anything at all for me. :) Thanks for the solution!
 
Nightmare

iBooks for Mavericks is a complete mess. If you have a large collection of personal .epub files, not necessarily from the iTunes store, you are in for a world of hurt.

First, all of your files will be taken out of iTunes and their management will be brought over to iBooks. This is not an issue. However, iBooks lacks even the simplest of metadata editing, so you won't be able to change pictures, genres, names, authors, dates of publication or anything else.

Second, the files will be moved from your iTunes media folder to an obscure folder in your (now hidden) library.

Something like: /Users/~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

They will be renamed from human readable, intelligent files into a 32-digit alphanumeric string. That .epub file will no longer be a file, but rather a folder full of .css files, html files, iTunes artwork files, iTunes metadata files, images and other content.

So if you have a copy of an .epub from Google, perhaps "Alice in Wonderland.epub" you will now have a folder in the above location called "C9F7853D6AC32AD3E43416BB47054D36.epub" that is filled with files.

From all appearances, instead of parsing the .epub, iBooks is converting it into a 'web page' of sorts. This also means that spotlight is now totally useless when searching for anything with an .epub extension. It also means that a spotlight search will now return a LOT more useless hits for short searches, especially if you have a large reading library (over a thousand here).

The parsed files are also significantly larger than the original .epub. Only an issue on machines with limited space, but still unnecessary bloat. My 3.7 GB library is now 6.58 GB, for example.

The reading mode is very limited, and there is no option for 'single page' in full screen. Overall the program is quite slow and extremely basic.

Obscuring, renaming and decoupling the users content within the context of the Finder is the worst possible solution. I highly recommend avoiding iBooks if at all possible. And if you are one to manually back up only select portions of your documents, I would also throw caution at you.

I'm glad I have a manual backup off site, because iBooks completely destroyed my book library.

And a final note, once you initialise iBooks, you can no longer use iTunes to manage your library, nor can you import books into it.

Stay far, far away if you don't use the iBookstore exclusively!

:mad:

Update: Did some more digging. iBooks is unzipping, not parsing, the .epub files and creating folders out of each one. Hence the increase in space. However, the folder organisation was actually already present in the original .epub file. Still, it doesn't excuse moving, renaming or taking up more space....
 
Last edited:
meteparozzi said:
Update: Did some more digging. iBooks is unzipping, not parsing, the .epub files and creating folders out of each one. Hence the increase in space. However, the folder organisation was actually already present in the original .epub file. Still, it doesn't excuse moving, renaming or taking up more space....
Click to expand...

Yikes, I'm seeing this as well. However, I'm not seeing them take up more space. I'm seeing the old .epub being replaced with the expanded folder.
 
From iBooks to iPad

**DOH! Thought that it worked....but it didn't...only worked to drag the original epub to iTunes directly into the iPad**

I think I have figured it out...but what a pain in the ass...


You have to open both iBooks and iTunes
Connect your iPad
Click on the Books link on the iPad

Then drag your books from iBooks to iTunes window.
(This also works for epub files that have not been added to iTunes/iBooks yet.)

While I love having iBooks on the Mac, this sure made it a lot more difficult to get the files onto the iPad.
 
Last edited:
meteparozzi said:
iBooks for Mavericks is a complete mess. If you have a large collection of personal .epub files, not necessarily from the iTunes store, you are in for a world of hurt.

First, all of your files will be taken out of iTunes and their management will be brought over to iBooks. This is not an issue. However, iBooks lacks even the simplest of metadata editing, so you won't be able to change pictures, genres, names, authors, dates of publication or anything else.
...
Click to expand...
Not being able to edit the metadata is rather bad. I've gotten epub files that have all sorts of bad metadata this includes errors on books in the iTunes store.

From what I've read, I suspect I'm going to install iBooks, write up a bug/misfeature list and then remove it and revert my iTunes library. And then wait for Apple to fix the issues.
 
Bear said:
Not being able to edit the metadata is rather bad. I've gotten epub files that have all sorts of bad metadata this includes errors on books in the iTunes store.
Click to expand...


I know it should work in iBooks but you could always edit metadata with Calibre....
 
Original epubs are still there

I know several mentioned that when the books are imported into iBooks that the files were expanded.

At least in my case, all of my collection of epubs still exists in the iTunes folder under iTunes media (Books folder).

So, I guess all is not lost
(Now I know where they are for my new iPad next week!!! - too bad getting them on there is going to suck!)
 
importing ebooks

Please DISREGARD my previous suggestion - as I found another suggestion on this forum (Courtesy of jaugust - Thank you!) which works perfectly. I have pasted it below:
____________________________________________________________________________________

Originally Posted by jaugust View Post:
I like the rest found iBooks to be a dog of an zoo from Apple. I found a fix that allows you to go back to the management of books under iTunes while still enjoying the Mavericks update minus iBooks. (Who really wants to read books on a screen)

I have done the following and now have iTunes looking after my books once again!

1.) Kill the bookstoreagent service using the Activity Monitor.

2.) Delete the file for that service: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/bookstoreagent

3.) Use AppCleaner to get rid of iBooks.

4.) Restart iTunes and you will find the Books tag return under library.

5.) Import your books again with all the metadata intact.

I have done it and it works, iBooks has been banished to the bit bucket never to be used ever again.
 
Last edited:
koolaid-drinker said:
I have found the location where ibooks stores the books and plist at.

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/
Click to expand...

This was really helpful, I formatted my Mac a few weeks ago and did a backup of the iTunes folder just to find out it didn't contain books so I had to enter my Time Capsule and extract them from that folder! Thanks
 
vizspurs said:
Through trial and error - figured out how to import my epubs and Pdfs to my iPad after installing Osx Mavericks on my 2012 Macbook Pro.

- Open folder with epubs & pdfs
- Open iBooks (on your computer)
- Open iTunes
- Drag ebooks (epubs & pdfs) into iBooks library.
- This will automatically show up in iTunes
- Sync iTunes with your iPad
- And Presto, just like before - the same result, but a different method!
Click to expand...

seems to be working, thanks
 
Even shorter method:

- Open folder with epubs & pdfs
- Plug in iPad, open iTunes on Mac and open your iPad's 'books' tab.
- Drag ebooks (epubs & pdfs) into your iPad's 'books' tab.
- They will transfer to your iPad.
 
IBooks app really is a mess. Trying to import initially failed as not enough space left on Primary device. So I told it to use my external Disk.

Then import failed at one point due to machine locking up (no idea why. GM was rock solid on my 2009 MBP, but locked up 5 times on my 2009 Mini). So I tried to add the files again and its only showing some of the files in iBooks.

HOWEVER on my 2009 MBP, all the files that were added to the iBooks library on the Mini have appeared. So right now I'm making a backup of the library and then I'd like to nuke the files and start over.

Does anyone know the safest way to do so?
 
Arizor said:
Even shorter method:

- Open folder with epubs & pdfs
- Plug in iPad, open iTunes on Mac and open your iPad's 'books' tab.
- Drag ebooks (epubs & pdfs) into your iPad's 'books' tab.
- They will transfer to your iPad.
Click to expand...

Hi Arizor - thanks for the tip, always looking for new ideas - however, I had no luck dragging the files into the iPad's books tab. Wondering if you tried it on Osx Mavericks?
in saying that, I'm able to do it the way I suggested above. Thx again.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back