Yesterday’s “iBooks 2.0 and iBooks Author announcements were another evolutionary step toward Apple’s total domination of digital content creation and delivery,” Jason D. O’Grady writes for ZDNet. “The problem is that Apple is artificially limiting its new publishing poster child — iBooks — to iOS in order to squeeze every last cent out of consumers that it can.”
“Back in September 2011, I chose Amazon’s Kindle app over iBooks for one simple reason: it’s available on the desktop,” O’Grady writes. “I know that there are a whole generation of keyboard cutters coming up in the ranks, but I’m not one of them. My iPad will never fully replace my MacBook Air with it’s glorious keyboard, USB ports and external mouse. At least not in the foreseeable future.”
O’grady writes, “Apple makes its money from selling hardware (iPhones, iPads and Macs) and it sells software (apps, music, movies) mostly as a way to move hardware. Apple’s answer to students with MacBook Airs, of course, is to buy an iPad!”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Damn that greedy Apple for giving away iBooks Author, iBooks, and, for that matter, iTunes U for free. Wait, what?
The technical term for Jason O’Grady is irrelevant old fart.
Many people who use the word “never” when talking about Apple end up being wrong. Many OS X applications have migrated to iOS and, eventually, many iOS apps and capabilities will migrate to OS X devices. They form an ecosystem.
Only a day since it was announced and some people are already complaining that it doesn’t do this or that and it isn’t on Macs, etc. Two days ago, we didn’t even have it. Patience is a virtue that has largely been abandoned in our society.
It’s all part of the stupification of America. Everything is “my this” and “my that” and “give it to me NOW!” More and more people behaving like spoiled children. It is truly ironic that such an excellent company (Apple) is prospering in such a dumbed-down, degenerate society. Maybe there’s hope for us yet!
Apple appreciates feedback from it’s consumers, I’m sure.
I’m guessing it pleases you to call others stupid, dumb degenerates when they want features that aren’t currently available. We’re not your shrink, so we can’t explain why you find such pleasures. And also, we don’t necessarily fit in your generalizations.
If there is a mandatory waiting period before making suggestions, I wasn’t aware of it and didn’t get the memo.. sorry 😉
(i.e. abuse your children all you want.. we don’t necessarily want to engage in such activities that give you a boner when you hit things)
On the other hand, if this crude and childish remark is addressed to me, fill in the blanks.
I already filled in the blanks with your terms “stupid”, “dumb” and “degenerate” to Americans… just fighting fire with fire.
Mind you, you’re the one who assumed that my comment was directed at you. It wasn’t. And it doesn’t please me at all to see grown people with responsible jobs acting like spoiled children. On the contrary!
I’m an American and you were pompous with your generalization on a forum I happened to be placing suggestions in.. go figure someone gets offended by it.
You’re an American? You’re a certified moron!
Who wants to read a book on the Macbook screen?
WTF?
It is highly likely that the only way Apple could get the four major textbook publishers to release the family jewels on any device is if they could be assured that they would be hard locked to one device. My Kindle downloads are often on 5 devices and occasionally lent out wirelessly across the planet. The issue is less Apple’s financial calculations than the those of the Big Four. The can sell individual textbooks for $14.99 and know that they cannot be passed on or resold. That’s probably the only way the deal pencils out for them.
You gotta drink the apple koolaid faithfully to believe that iBooks is really “free.” Sure, you get a $5 app absolutely free with a $500-$800 hardware purchase. You can argue that the deal makes sense for many people, but O’Grady’s right that it hurts to buy a MacBook Air and be expected to buy an iPad as well.
What a lot of panic for nothing. I have no doubt it your books will be coming to Mac near you at some time, of Apple’s choosing, in the future. Study history. That’s what Apple does. Might take a year or two, but it your ability to read your books on the new Mac will be coming.
And, although lots of people here still think Apple won’t do it, I have been saying for a very long time now that we will be seeing touch screen Macs in the future, or at least some way to do what we can now do on the current touch screens. At that point, Predrag’s reasoning will be mute.
I expect this change sooner rather than later.
You’ll see iBooks on the Mac once there are Macs with multi-touchscreens (I’m sure there’ll be in future iMacs if not MacBooks.)
I just checked for the ability to read iBooks on OS X because I would like to have FileMaker 12 Book on by second monitor rather than having to balance my iPad while learning something in FM. iBooks on OS X would sell books.
BookReader works very well: http://macbookreader.com/wp/
Downloaded the free version and waiting for the books
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/filemaker-me/id532231582?mt=11
author to confirm it is not DRM protected and should work on BookReader.
Just compared Michael Rocharde’s free iBook “Themes ain’t wot they used to be!” on the free copy BookReaderLite and on my iPad. The BookReader is far from producing the clean output displayed on my iPad – the Text is often overlayed or misplaced and many of the graphics are misplaced and misshapen with related text on different pages.
I haven’t seen these kinds of anomolies. You might try your comparison with some commercial epub books to see if the same kinds of problems are there.
Barbara Gregorich’s The Fox on the Box has the same problems as does, Gloria Lapin’s Little Comics for Little Readers is simpler and better done by Book Reader Lite. Is Book Reader Lite less functional than the full Book Reader. Apples iPhone User Guide is very readable in Book Reader. To me Book Reader Lite has problems with the more complex books from iTunes so reluctant to buy the full version until I hear more from the authors.
The reply to my Post to the Book Reader web site is:
These books have fixed layout for iOS devices screens. BookReader tries to render them somehow, but is not always successful. The lite and full renderers are the same, so if you have to render the books with the fixed iOS devices, do not buy BookReader. Sorry.
Post Link: http://macbookreader.com/wp/forums/topic/book-reader-lite-inadequate/#post-981
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ibooks is gonna be included with the next update of osx