Why is Calibre so difficult to use?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by larsh

Calibre is not as user-friendly as an Apple product.

Mainly because it is made by nerds, not by software designers with a sense of usability :-)

If you think that itunes or ibooks (Apple products) are made by people with sense of usability, we should agree to disagree And BTW, I'm a software designer

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by larsh

Calibre is not as user-friendly as an Apple product.

I think you have "user-friendly" confused with calibre not being as pretty as Apple products. While usability can be debated, I guess your statement of opinion is true enough.

My daughter recently called from college. We have only used Sony ereaders and she had never started or used calibre prior to this. It took me about 60 seconds to explain to her (and about 60 second for her to accomplish) how to convert 3 books from ePub to Mobi and place those three books on her roommates Kindle. Because of Apple's "walled garden" if her roommate had an iPad instead of a Kindle the process would have been much longer.

Apple does well with their apps but woe to the Apple user that needs to go outside Apple's ecosystem to accomplish something.

Originally Posted by larsh

Mainly because it is made by nerds, not by software designers with a sense of usability :-)

It is fine to be an Apple fanboy or a calibre fanboy and your first statement was sensible enough but this last statement is just plain nonsensical and adds nothing to the conversation.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

Because of Apple's "walled garden" if her roommate had an iPad instead of a Kindle the process would have been much longer.

Very, very little longer, actually. Once you have the Kindle App installed on the iPad, just save the books to disk from Calibre, and then drag and drop them onto the Kindle App tab in iTunes.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Very, very little longer, actually. Once you have the Kindle App installed on the iPad, just save the books to disk from Calibre, and then drag and drop them onto the Kindle App tab in iTunes.

I have no doubt you are correct but having never used a Kindle or an iPad I was unfamiliar with either but the Kindle allows for direct transfer like most basic ereaders so there were no hoops to jump through to prepare the device.

Maybe I'll pick-up an iPad 3 when it comes out so I'll no longer be in the dark.

[copyrite]

It just has a little bit of a learning curve.... and the hidden riches in the program once you figure it out are worth every bit of the 'hassle'. Kovid has to be one of the most responsive program authors I've come across in my meager internet wanderings.

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by larsh

Mainly because it is made by nerds, not by software designers with a sense of usability :-)

You mean a sense of usability that allows Groups in Contacts, but not the ability to actually create Groups in the device? Nor the ability to take the number from an incoming call and create a contact in a specific Group? Nor the ability to to move a contact from one Group to another?

Or how about not including a native To Do list?

Or started without the ability to create Folders of apps?

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

Calibre might not be able to send books to iphone directly but it can send files to itunes that is the software that you are supposed to use with your iDevice.

1.) So why are you complaining about calibre instead of Itunes or your iDevice.
2.) Needing to convert a format to read on your device shows the limitations of your device and format choice.

+1

go moan at apple, not here!

[jmaejr]

Originally Posted by larsh

Calibre is not as user-friendly as an Apple product.

Mainly because it is made by nerds, not by software designers with a sense of usability :-)

Calibre is 10 times better than ANY Apple product, the fact you can't figure it out is not the fault of the developers...I wonder how many people moan and groan about Photoshop being too hard to use.

The light switch up is on...the light switch down is off, unless it's a dual switch...

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by jmaejr

The light switch up is on...the light switch down is off, unless it's a dual switch...

Depends on the country.

Not all use switch Up = On. Some use Up = Off.

Stop being so US centric.

[jmaejr]

Semantics, dialect, region, country, planet aside my point was that Calibre is as simple as operating a light switch

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by jmaejr

Semantics, dialect, region, country, planet aside my point was that Calibre is as simple as operating a light switch

Well, I think that's to stretch the reality a bit

[HarryT]

Your light switches must be pretty complicated .

[theducks]

One thing I notice:
New people that try and force Calibre into doing things their (old) way seem to have the most problems.

[MacLake]

Originally Posted by jmaejr

Calibre is 10 times better than ANY Apple product, the fact you can't figure it out is not the fault of the developers...I wonder how many people moan and groan about Photoshop being too hard to use.

Come on, such Apple bashing is really childish, as well as blaming the Cailbre developers for not implementing every feature one may find useful.

Apple makes great hard- and software, great design and easy to use. Sometimes they omit some features and you can’t configure everything. But Linux is also not everybody’s cup of tea. You can’t blame the users for that.

Calibre is a very useful program, but its user interface could be improved, and we should help the developers in dong that instead of just complaining. Nevertheless also in this case you shouldn’t blame the users for criticizing the usability. I’ve heard such complaints from VLC developers when I told in their forum that their settings GUI was very hard to use.

[Whackatagin]

Calibre good, versitle....Apple insular.