[scottjl]

Originally Posted by frabjous

I didn't say they only market it as an ebook reader, but they definitely do market it as, among other things, an ebook reader. If not, then why is iBooks featured, e.g.,:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/



Decent support of those 500 ebooks. Geez. It's clear that it will support certain kinds of books and not others.

As I pointed out, it certainly reads many epub files well. If it doesn't read your files well, maybe you should take it up with Apple's tech support. They are certainly in a better position to help you than anyone on this forum.

They shouldn't have to buy applications for doing things that Apple advertises that it can do natively.

And I pointed out it read some 500 epub files that I have just fine.

I never said anything like that.

No, what you did say was:

People are going to expect to get decent ebook reading support out of the box. They shouldn't have to buy another application, and when, e.g., a perfectly valid ePub doesn't display right on the iPad, the customer may well think it's a problem with the book rather than their software.

And I have pointed out several times that iBooks does seem to read many ePub files just fine, after they download iBooks that is.

People have to meet the obligations that they advertise that they meet yes. People do not have to meet obligations that they do not advertise.

I'm sorry, I didn't read anywhere that Apple promised to read 100% of everyone's epub files and have them display 100% correctly. Again, you might want to contact Apple's tech support and not this forum. AFAIK MobileRead has no affiliation with Apple.

I don't expect Granny to do it. I expect her to be able to do it if she had the expertise. Perhaps the Woz was right in saying that this is a device for grannies and children. It is not a device for the intelligent user.

You might want to point Granny at the Apple Developer Program. She can join for $99/yr, develop any application she wants, and even sell it on the App Store! Anyone else can join as well. I think most intelligent people can pick up programming skills.

Abject silliness. How dare someone in the US want to be exposed to another language? Next thing we know, people might actually try to think for themselves! Apple used to be a company interested in education. How can we use tools to educate people about the world when it won't even display other language? Or technical mathematical formalism?

Then you might want to look for a device that is marketed at this time in another language, or one that is marketed as supporting mathematical formulas. The iPad isn't marketed as either, but please, provide links if I'm wrong.

No. Please read my posts. In comparison to the Sony, the ipad is better in terms of what characters it supports natively. Sony is terrible. But at least Sony gave people a way around it: if you want a different character, embed that font. Apple, as is their modus operandi, takes away that ability, and in general takes away your choice as a user.

Apple can't take something away if they never gave it to you to begin with. The device is a week and a half old. Maybe instead of complaining on this forum you could take your complaints to Apple and help them improve their device. Or get granny to write a better ePub reader application.

They are definitely pitching it as something for students, and students would be using it for reading. But really, if you're coming into a thread comparing the iPad to the Sony Reader, reading should be the focus of the comparison. If the issue is which is better for watching movies on, you won't hear any disagreement.

Well, I seem to be reading on my iPad just fine, and I think some other people around here are as well.

But there is a large segment of the population--the segment perhaps which is both most technologically savvy, and stands to be one of Apple's largest client bases, which is left out. I mean, a device like this could be great for higher-ed. But not if it's so limited in such capacities.

You might want to take this up with Apple's Marketing department, and the iBook development team.

I'm not "hobbyist". I'm a college professor. I don't know... I have this crazy idea that if I post something to my course website or distribute an ebook to my students that uses mathematical symbols or a characters from foreign languages, and am willing to actually provide the fonts necessary for displaying these things (not expecting the device to have them natively), then, maybe, just maybe, a device marketed to students should be able to display it. Or... (even!) failing that... if I want to write the software that will display it myself, I should be able to provide it to my students freely, both on my end and on theirs.

You had better make sure that all your students have readers capable of support embedded fonts, because Apple isn't the only one who doesn't.

I'm just going to make a blanket statement here, the iBook application (not to be confused with the iPad, which is a piece of hardware) does not support embedded fonts. This is a known limitation at this time. If you require this feature, then I suggest one or more of the following:

1. Make a request to Apple to support this feature in a future release of iBooks.
2. Make this request to developers of other reader applications such as Kindle, GoodReader, Kobo, etc. that they support ePub files and support embedded fonts within ePub files.
3. Do not buy an iPad for reading these files, but a different device which supports these files at this time.
4. Enjoy reading on your other devices.
5. Complain elsewhere, we've heard it already.