Quote:
Originally Posted by OtinG
Years ago I bought one book from Apple, quickly determined iBooks was a waste of my time, and returned to buying books from Amazon. iBooks, now called Books, seems to me to be the unwanted stepchild that Apple doesn't really want but feels it has to keep around. They never gave it the library/store of books it needed to compete in any meaningful way. It kind of reminds me of the tepid response both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had to the infant internet in the mid-1990s. Neither could figure out what it would be good for as far as making profits. MS blew it off at first, Apple came out with the pathetic garbage they called Cyber Dog, and it was a mangy dog to say the least. Thankfully they put a bullet in Cyber Doggie's head and put him down for good. I really think Jobs, and subsequent Apple leadership, have failed to understand the eBook industry. I only use Books to view an occasional PDF, and I hate PDFs with a passion. If I have a user manual to read then I might use Books, or I might use another PDF app. None of the apps do well with a PDF though. But as far as eBooks, my Books library of ePubs is static at only one.
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I don't necessarily know that the issue is they don't understand the eBook industry. If you will remember, Apple was ready to make a big push into the eBook market in 2009, but after losing the anti-trust case, they basically said "screw it, we don't need this hassle" and just put up a minimal store.
I was hoping that when they announced they were revamping the ebook store that they really were going to do something innovative. I think that the current store is in line with the Apple model, make things as easy as possible for the vast majority of the customer base. My problem is that by definition, none here are like the vast majority of the Apple customer base.
I would actually use the store if they had a much bigger catalogue. There are aspects of the Book store that are much better than any of the other book stores (Amazon, B&N or Kobo). For example, when I search for Roger Zelazny I actually get Roger Zelazny books, not every book that has "the next Roger Zelazny" in a blurb on the back. I can easily filter by language so I don't have to wade through the German and Spanish language releases. I like the way they handle series and make it really easy to buy the next in the series.
Really, a lot of that is the incremental improvements that Amazon hasn't bothered doing for the past 10 years.