Free Book (iBooks) - The Great Bridge

[koland]

The Great Bridge ($14.99 Kindle), by David McCullough, is free in the iBooks store. This is one of the Agency publishers, so the book should not be at different prices in different stores (especially not from Apple!), so be sure to take the extra step to leave a note as well as report the price.

Book Description
This monumental book is the enthralling story of one of the greatest events in our nation's history, during the Age of Optimism -- a period when Americans were convinced in their hearts that all things were possible.

In the years around 1870, when the project was first undertaken, the concept of building an unprecedented bridge to span the East River between the great cities of Manhattan and Brooklyn required a vision and determination comparable to that which went into the building of the great cathedrals. Throughout the fourteen years of its construction, the odds against the successful completion of the bridge seemed staggering. Bodies were crushed and broken, lives lost, political empires fell, and surges of public emotion constantly threatened the project. But this is not merely the saga of an engineering miracle; it is a sweeping narrative of the social climate of the time and of the heroes and rascals who had a hand in either constructing or exploiting the surpassing enterprise.

Click HERE to get the free book from iTunes.

[elmoglick]

I've downloaded it about 10 times, but it always crashes iBooks on my iPad2. Has anyone else had any luck?

[koland]

I've downloaded it to my pc, but not transfered it yet. I'll try via dropbox first, then try digging up my cable.

[koland]

Ok, I pulled all three into iBooks via dropbox. Opened all three, scanned thru to last page (slider), went back to chap1 on each.

for this one, I briefly flipped thru. No problems. Any page in particular?

(oh, and I have an iPad 1 w/ max memory, wifi only).

[robslp]

I downloaded 2 of the books so far and no problem opening them or downloading them. I selected sync from iBooks under the settings tab.

[elmoglick]

Turns out that there's an issue with the iBook DRM and the Jailbroken iOS 4.3.3... Should be a patch eventually, like there was with 4.2.1.

[koland]

ah. Mine is not jailbroken, so ....

[TimW]

Actually this book is $14.99 at every US store EXCEPT for Apple. Is that a violation of the agency agreement or does the agency agreement only work in Apple's favor?

[rdfry]

Originally Posted by TimW

Actually this book is $14.99 at every US store EXCEPT for Apple. Is that a violation of the agency agreement or does the agency agreement only work in Apple's favor?

The price can't be less than what Apple is selling it for. So yes it only works in Apple's favor.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by rdfry

The price can't be less than what Apple is selling it for. So yes it only works in Apple's favor.

That would be another reason to hope the class-action suit against the publishers and Apple is successful. If nothing else, it will shine some light on the agency agreement and perhaps some attorneys-general will finally take action.

http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/cl...-agency-model/

[koland]

Originally Posted by rdfry

The price can't be less than what Apple is selling it for. So yes it only works in Apple's favor.

There is, no doubt, the same "no lower price" language in all the contracts (if not, it would not be a true Agency agreement -- the PUBLISHER is selling it and the price is not supposed to be dependent on the retailer (who is only an Agent, not a retailer, for these publishers).

Here, the publisher has set a different price depending on the agent, which is supposedly not allowed (of course, if there are no penalties in the contracts or no retailer/agents willing to push the violation, then the publishers can do what they want). At some point, the publishers will figure out that they can afford to be missing from the Apple iBooks store, since their books are available on many other apps on Apple's platforms, while at least some (if not most) book customers are both aware that their books are locked into Apples hardware with iBooks (and not even portable to their desktops). The Jailbroke/DRM scuffle in the iBooks store may push even more people to avoid buying there (not to mention cause yet another investigation into Apple). I'm just waiting for Apple to require an iBooks update and have that update not run on the original iPads (just as I can't use an original iPhone with iBooks, despite it being identical in capability to the iPod Touch that will run iBooks).