Apple: 1 million new iBooks customers each week since iOS 8 launch

[MerciaMcMahon]

If you buy a DRM free book (it is the publisher not Apple that chooses to apply it, same as on Kobo and Amazon) then you can use the epub anywhere. You find the epub on your PC at /iTunes/iTunes Media/Books.

The GigaOm article omitted the important statement that the 1 million new users was boosted by each new sign up getting ten free books:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2015...-users-a-week/

So the prize for the correct answer goes to FizzyWater. The prize is ten free ebooks if you buy yourself a new Mac or iPhone.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by MerciaMcMahon

If you buy a DRM free book (it is the publisher not Apple that chooses to apply it, same as on Kobo and Amazon) then you can use the epub anywhere. You find the epub on your PC at /iTunes/iTunes Media/Books.

The GigaOm article omitted the important statement that the 1 million new users was boosted by each new sign up getting ten free books:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2015...-users-a-week/

So the prize for the correct answer goes to FizzyWater. The prize is ten free ebooks if you buy yourself a new Mac or iPhone.

yes, I'm aware of that. I've purchased a couple of freebies from Apple just to see what it was like. However, I don't see a way of tell what has DRM and what doesn't.

[MerciaMcMahon]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

yes, I'm aware of that. I've purchased a couple of freebies from Apple just to see what it was like. However, I don't see a way of tell what has DRM and what doesn't.

Thanks for pointing that out. I had never noticed before that DRM was not mentioned on iTunes. I likewise have only ever purchased a couple of freebies. I was mistaking it for Kobo. So I checked Amazon and Nook and they don't tell you if it has DRM either.

[soulfuldog]

Amazon, Kobo & Google all tell you if a book is DRM free. On Amazon it states in the product details "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited" if there is no DRM, in Kobo again under product details it'll state next to download options if its DRM free or Adobe DRM, and Google Play has a bit that states: Content protection: DRM protected or DRM free.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It still doesn't have the selection that Amazon has of books that I might legitimately be interested in. On the other hand, it also doesn't have the pages and pages of drek that I have to wade through with Amazon.

You can never have it both ways. It is either a broad/deep catalogue or it is limited selection. Doesn't matter if it is all books or a specific genre. The big pile of bad books will always be in the majority for each and every publisher if considering all published books.

[speakingtohe]

I think it is naïve to think that a lot of people are going to get excited about downloading a book, free or not, on their new IOS device.

If they read, chances are the are aware of the possibilities, but even so do they care.

I bought an IPhone last week, and probably will take it back, although trying to give it a decent trial. Not going to read any books on it though.

Helen

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by MerciaMcMahon

Thanks for pointing that out. I had never noticed before that DRM was not mentioned on iTunes. I likewise have only ever purchased a couple of freebies. I was mistaking it for Kobo. So I checked Amazon and Nook and they don't tell you if it has DRM either.

A lot of ebook stores don't say which books have DRM and which ones don't. That's the big reason I stick with one that I know I can format shift.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

You can never have it both ways. It is either a broad/deep catalogue or it is limited selection. Doesn't matter if it is all books or a specific genre. The big pile of bad books will always be in the majority for each and every publisher if considering all published books.

Sure, you can can have both a deep catalog and a well maintained/useful search feature. It takes a bit of work, and perhaps doesn't match some companies business model, but it is possible to do.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Sure, you can can have both a deep catalog and a well maintained/useful search feature. It takes a bit of work, and perhaps doesn't match some companies business model, but it is possible to do.

The key point is the search feature. And no matter how smart it is, it will not cover everybody's tastes and likes. What you consider a useless book is different than what I consider useless. If you like certain topics to read about that I won't touch, then they are all useless to me. No matter what quality they are of.

[Tarana]

I don't buy any more books at all from Ibook because Voice Dream (a really GREAT text-to-speech app, can't access anything in the Ibook library, whether DRM'd or not. You have to convert a book to a non-DRM'd epub for these TTS things to work. A big issue for me since as my vision problems continue to worsen.

As to what they consider a new customer, their criteria some years ago was either $8 or $10 (price of an average paperback). I'm sure it hasn't changed, I just remember it wasn't a free book.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

The key point is the search feature. And no matter how smart it is, it will not cover everybody's tastes and likes. What you consider a useless book is different than what I consider useless. If you like certain topics to read about that I won't touch, then they are all useless to me. No matter what quality they are of.

Sure, but the other hand, if searching for SF turns up page after page of porno and PD books, then that's not terribly useful. One of Amazon's issues, IMPO, is that they have gone from pointing you to books you might want to buy to pointing you to books that _they_ want you to buy. There is a lot they could do with search that would make it much more useful. But that's not what they are focused on at the moment.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Sure, but the other hand, if searching for SF turns up page after page of porno and PD books, then that's not terribly useful. One of Amazon's issues, IMPO, is that they have gone from pointing you to books you might want to buy to pointing you to books that _they_ want you to buy. There is a lot they could do with search that would make it much more useful. But that's not what they are focused on at the moment.

I've never found Amazon's recommendations particularly useful. Not sure why, but they just can't seem to figure out what it is that I may want to purchase. And this applies to all of the time that I have been an Amazon customer (more than a decade).

Shrug.

[DiapDealer]

I remember back in the good old days when mail-in book search requests and recommendation abacuses turned up nothing but hundreds and hundreds of titles that I couldn't wait to spend my hard earned money on. It's a damn shame these new-fangled computerty book stores came along and ruined a perfectly good way of searching for anything and everything under the sun that one might want to read. Heck, I practically wore out the recommendation drawer on my library's card catalog myself (couldn't wait 'til the third Thurs of every month; when the new recommendations got added). Man, those were the days. Nothing like the limited, slow, crippled, narrowly defined, crapppy search/recommendation engines of today!

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Man, those were the days. Nothing like the limited, slow, crippled, narrowly defined, crapppy search/recommendation engines of today!

I wonder if one day we will look back with nostalgia at these "fancy" recommendation engines? Maybe we can do the whole "In my day we had to walk to school up hill both ways with hot potatoes in our shorts to keep us warm" sort of thing.

[murg]

Originally Posted by Anthem

I wonder if one day we will look back with nostalgia at these "fancy" recommendation engines? Maybe we can do the whole "In my day we had to walk to school up hill both ways with hot potatoes in our shorts to keep us warm" sort of thing.

Yeah. I remember. We had to walk barefoot ten miles to school in a driving snowstorm. It mostly wasn't too bad, until we got to the frozen lake. That was interesting because we couldn't tell if the ice was thick enough...