“When iOS 12 launches this fall, it will introduce a newly redesigned iBooks app simply named Books,” Ryan Christoffel writes for MacStories. “Though the reading experience in Books is largely the same as before, the rest of the app is drastically different, offering the biggest app redesign on iOS since last year’s App Store.”
“Modern design is a clear centerpiece of Books, but the app also includes new features, big and small, that make it feel all-new,” Christoffel writes. “From tools that borrow from Goodreads, to more robust collections, to dark mode, and much more.”
“Apple could have easily taken the look of apps like Music and Podcasts and slapped it on Books, and it would have been fine,” Christoffel writes. “The company did nothing of the sort, though; instead, Apple Books offers one of the most drastic departures from existing iOS design norms available on the platform/”
“From its design to the myriad of feature improvements, it’s clear that Apple Books was crafted by people who love reading. None but avid readers would beef up the likely-underutilized collections feature, nor create such a useful Reading Now hub, nor go to the trouble of designing an app that feels so unique. Apple left alone what needed to be left alone – namely, the reading experience – while leaving no stone unturned in improving the rest of the app. The finished product is impressive,” Christoffel writes. “Books is a love letter to readers. And just like last year’s new App Store, it proves once again that fresh, unique app design is alive and well at Apple.
Tons more, including copious screenshots, in the full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: We cannot wait until Apple’s Books lauches widely with iOS 12’s release!
It works well, besides the ever-present lack of formatted Braille, meaning the VoiceOver users always read Plain Text. No italics, no bold, nothing. Just a desert of plain text.
Devin Prater Assistive Technology Instructor certified by World Services for the Blind JAWS certified
>
I found iBooks way to hard to find the content I wanted. Apple has this thing for huge graphics and frustratingly few selections visible at any one time. How about being able to flip through a lot of selections and THEN seeing a blowup with more graphics and info on your select instead?
Anyway that’s why I buy Kindle books on Amazon. Amazon is a bit cluttered but I feel more likely to blunder on to something I might like there, and usually do.
Having a nice, data dense, list view option is something that I advocate, in general. Online retail websites, for instance, too often show only a dozen or two items at a time without actually providing enough data to compensate for the wasted paging. Same for the MacOS finder – I never use Icon view or Cover Flow. I am a List view guy who also appreciated the addition of Column view. More data, easier to scan, and more useful to me. If I am searching through photos or vides, then icon or cover flow may be useful. Otherwise, no.
Apple needs to consider this when constructing its websites. Offer users the option to trim the graphics fat and focus on the important data. It also speeds things up – even in the age of “broadband” internet, I have found that people have increased the sizes of web pages faster than my internet connection speed has advanced. Web access has generally slowed down over the past decade because of all the useless fancy graphics and intrusive advertisements packed into every page.