New from Apple's WWDC: iBooks - Page 4

kjk · 06-08-2010, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluebaize

I hope they get iBooks out quick, like now - if it's ready

I also hope that PDf support has a zoom function and one that stays when you turn a page too.

Watching the keynote now...definitely has zoom (and search), but the zoom didn't stay when he turned to a new page.

charleski · 06-09-2010, 01:24 PM

Just thought I'd link this blog post from the Design Director of NYTimes.com.

If we're to believe the cryptic comment from 'Steve' (about two thirds of the way down), then this is being fixed.

kjk · 06-09-2010, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charleski

Just thought I'd link this blog post from the Design Director of NYTimes.com.

If we're to believe the cryptic comment from 'Steve' (about two thirds of the way down), then this is being fixed.

ahahahaha...I don't really think I'll believe that one..but Jens Alfke, who used to work at Apple (now a Googler) makes a reasonable point:

Quote:

Keep in mind that we’re talking about a _phone_ here. When the iPhone came out, it was amazing enough that it could merely render web pages decently, unlike its predecessors. Now 3 years later we’re down to nitpicking about hyphenation and tracking. The progress is pretty great, and I see the limitations as temporary.

I hope he's right. With the new screen technologies coming out for mobile devices, it would be a shame not to take full advantage.

TheMooch · 06-09-2010, 02:08 PM

I wonder if this will open the door for accessing Overdrive titles.

WillAdams · 06-09-2010, 02:13 PM

charleski --- you're assuming that no one will view anything other than photographs / pixel images on such screens.

Finer linescreens allow for finer details to show through --- stochastic screening will show (visible) improvements in image detail all the way out to the limits of output resolution (I've worked w/ imagesetters which would go as high as 3,600 dpi).

athlonkmf · 06-09-2010, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joblack

Wow, now it can acquire and view PDF files. This is cutting edge technology ...

As Jobs said it himself, they don't need to be the first, they only need to be the best. If they can make reading PDF as easy as reading iBooks books, they have already won.

Besides, what PDF-reader on any platform shows your PDFcollection's covers like that?

scottjl · 06-09-2010, 03:38 PM

the cover display is simply a gimmick. works great for ebooks, but i have many white papers and technical documents that don't have covers. so what do i see? just a very small scale title page, impossible to read. cover display is pretty, but useless. try to navigate a large library (i have over 550 ebooks loaded), endless scrolling. list view is far more manageable.

i agree though, apple doesn't have to be first, and doesn't even have to be the best. else they'll kill their market of 3rd party apps. "good enough" will meet most user's needs, and allow room for 3rd party apps to distinguish themselves with additional features.

bob1xxx · 06-09-2010, 03:39 PM

Honestly it was usual dumb bitter short site apple move not to include PDF support on the Imaxie because of the adobe wars. There as so many pdf reader clients other than adobe's because of the color/size of the Imaxie screen it would make a superior reader of technical drawings/graphics / or pdf scanned historic documents, etc..... on top of all the free PG books, etc.... . Its about time apple got off their silly high horse and added pdf support.

kjk · 06-09-2010, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bob1xxx

Its about time apple got off their silly high horse and added pdf support.

I agree!! It's been over 2 months, for god's sake! What's the delay, Apple??? Get with the times! Get off that high horse!

athlonkmf · 06-09-2010, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottjl

the cover display is simply a gimmick. works great for ebooks, but i have many white papers and technical documents that don't have covers. so what do i see? just a very small scale title page, impossible to read. cover display is pretty, but useless. try to navigate a large library (i have over 550 ebooks loaded), endless scrolling. list view is far more manageable.

i agree though, apple doesn't have to be first, and doesn't even have to be the best. else they'll kill their market of 3rd party apps. "good enough" will meet most user's needs, and allow room for 3rd party apps to distinguish themselves with additional features.

Wouldn't you be organizing and reading them in another app then? Like goodreader? I am separating 'reading material' and 'documents' with apps. Now I use stanza for PDF-magazines, PDF-travel guides, books. But my reference material and other things I have plow through are organized in good reader. And for reading material, I sure would like a cover collection. And guess what iBooks is for?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bob1xxx

Honestly it was usual dumb bitter short site apple move not to include PDF support on the Imaxie because of the adobe wars. There as so many pdf reader clients other than adobe's because of the color/size of the Imaxie screen it would make a superior reader of technical drawings/graphics / or pdf scanned historic documents, etc..... on top of all the free PG books, etc.... . Its about time apple got off their silly high horse and added pdf support.

Wow, you don't even TRY to come up with an intelligent argument are you? iPad had pdf-support right from the start. There are pdf-readers in the appstore for the iPad BEFORE the launch of the iPad...

scottjl · 06-09-2010, 04:32 PM

if goodreader handled epub documents i would be using it right now. since it doesn't i can only use it for pdf files. and i do have a folder structure implemented in goodreader to organize those documents.

i look at a cover for all of 5 seconds, i spend most of my time reading the actual document or book. pretty covers on the shelf don't interest me as much as what's inside. when i am looking for a reference book i want to find that book fast, i generally know what title i'm looking for. it is far easier for me to scroll an alphabetical list of titles than hunt through a list of 1.5"x1" cover images looking for whatever animal graces the cover of an o'reilly book i need. and as i said i have many white papers and technical documents that have no more than a few words on a page as their cover page. they have no pretty cover to even look at. calibre creates a book cover for them that is a scaled down version of this page, they would near impossible to distinguish one from the other in iBook's shelf view.

go and download a bunch of free books in the iBook store and get those generic brown covers with small text title. now swap over to list view and look at those same titles in larger text which can be sorted by title, author, category or searched through using the search box up top. which view is more useful for picking one book you want out of hundreds?

sure, if apple gave iBooks some sort of folder structure, or the ability to create additional book shelves, it would easier to organize, but they didn't, and i'm not scrolling through a 10,000' high bookshelf to look for one cover out of hundreds.

Kolenka · 06-09-2010, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bob1xxx

Honestly it was usual dumb bitter short site apple move not to include PDF support on the Imaxie because of the adobe wars. There as so many pdf reader clients other than adobe's because of the color/size of the Imaxie screen it would make a superior reader of technical drawings/graphics / or pdf scanned historic documents, etc..... on top of all the free PG books, etc.... . Its about time apple got off their silly high horse and added pdf support.

OS X has had PDF support built into the OS from day 1 (which translated to the iPhone/iPad as well). The display engine was based in part on Display Postscript, and PDF, and allowed any app to print to PDF easily, as well as offering system-wide APIs for manipulating PDFs for creation and consumption.

What they didn't do was expose this out to users. Developers have had the ability to do this stuff for years. They recently added an Obj-C wrapper around the C APIs in the last couple years.

The lack of PDF support in iBooks had nothing to do with Apple's feud with Adobe which is much more recent than Apple's avid support of PDF. It has more to do with getting a product out the door on time, with a big enough feature set to satisfy the core requirements. PDF fell by the wayside simply because of deadlines and ship dates.

scottjl · 06-09-2010, 04:59 PM

It should also be noted that PDF is an ISO standard, control of it is not entirely in Adobe's hands any longer. Unlike Flash, which is propitiatory and remains under Adobe's sole ownership and control. Part of Apple's reason against it.

dorino · 06-09-2010, 05:02 PM

I remember reading that there was an ISO standard for a cup of tea, but I don't see Lipton being held to it... Forgive me if I'm wrong, but ISO standards just give a point of comparison, and mean nothing in terms of control.

scottjl · 06-09-2010, 05:12 PM

actually it does mean that adobe can't come in and radically change the language, invalidating every other PDF interpreter out there, and still call it PDF. apple, microsoft, you, and me are able to write our own pdf interpreter and expect it to work with standard pdf documents out there. if adobe wanted to introduce some new features that would break compatibility it would have to be with the approval of the ISO standards body and whatever organizations were on the team that approve the PDF standard. they can easily object and veto Adobe's proposal. PDF is out of Abobe's control for all intents and purposes.

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06-09-2010, 01:24 PM	#47
charleski Wizard Posts: 1,196 Karma: 1281258 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-505	Just thought I'd link this blog post from the Design Director of NYTimes.com. If we're to believe the cryptic comment from 'Steve' (about two thirds of the way down), then this is being fixed.

06-09-2010, 02:08 PM	#49
TheMooch Member Retired Posts: 102 Karma: 226 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: San Jose, CA Device: PRS-500 Sony eReader	I wonder if this will open the door for accessing Overdrive titles.

06-09-2010, 02:13 PM	#50
WillAdams Wizard Posts: 1,258 Karma: 3439432 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12	charleski --- you're assuming that no one will view anything other than photographs / pixel images on such screens. Finer linescreens allow for finer details to show through --- stochastic screening will show (visible) improvements in image detail all the way out to the limits of output resolution (I've worked w/ imagesetters which would go as high as 3,600 dpi).

06-09-2010, 03:38 PM	#52
scottjl Reader of Books Posts: 1,632 Karma: 2697 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: none	the cover display is simply a gimmick. works great for ebooks, but i have many white papers and technical documents that don't have covers. so what do i see? just a very small scale title page, impossible to read. cover display is pretty, but useless. try to navigate a large library (i have over 550 ebooks loaded), endless scrolling. list view is far more manageable. i agree though, apple doesn't have to be first, and doesn't even have to be the best. else they'll kill their market of 3rd party apps. "good enough" will meet most user's needs, and allow room for 3rd party apps to distinguish themselves with additional features.

06-09-2010, 03:39 PM	#53
bob1xxx Zealot Posts: 116 Karma: 490 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: San Gabriel Califorina Device: kindle k3 and k2 and White Aluratek Libre Pro	Honestly it was usual dumb bitter short site apple move not to include PDF support on the Imaxie because of the adobe wars. There as so many pdf reader clients other than adobe's because of the color/size of the Imaxie screen it would make a superior reader of technical drawings/graphics / or pdf scanned historic documents, etc..... on top of all the free PG books, etc.... . Its about time apple got off their silly high horse and added pdf support.

06-09-2010, 04:32 PM	#56
scottjl Reader of Books Posts: 1,632 Karma: 2697 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: none	if goodreader handled epub documents i would be using it right now. since it doesn't i can only use it for pdf files. and i do have a folder structure implemented in goodreader to organize those documents. i look at a cover for all of 5 seconds, i spend most of my time reading the actual document or book. pretty covers on the shelf don't interest me as much as what's inside. when i am looking for a reference book i want to find that book fast, i generally know what title i'm looking for. it is far easier for me to scroll an alphabetical list of titles than hunt through a list of 1.5"x1" cover images looking for whatever animal graces the cover of an o'reilly book i need. and as i said i have many white papers and technical documents that have no more than a few words on a page as their cover page. they have no pretty cover to even look at. calibre creates a book cover for them that is a scaled down version of this page, they would near impossible to distinguish one from the other in iBook's shelf view. go and download a bunch of free books in the iBook store and get those generic brown covers with small text title. now swap over to list view and look at those same titles in larger text which can be sorted by title, author, category or searched through using the search box up top. which view is more useful for picking one book you want out of hundreds? sure, if apple gave iBooks some sort of folder structure, or the ability to create additional book shelves, it would easier to organize, but they didn't, and i'm not scrolling through a 10,000' high bookshelf to look for one cover out of hundreds.

06-09-2010, 04:59 PM	#58
scottjl Reader of Books Posts: 1,632 Karma: 2697 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: none	It should also be noted that PDF is an ISO standard, control of it is not entirely in Adobe's hands any longer. Unlike Flash, which is propitiatory and remains under Adobe's sole ownership and control. Part of Apple's reason against it.

06-09-2010, 05:02 PM	#59
dorino I'm odd. Take note. Posts: 325 Karma: 779 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Montana Device: deceased PRS-600, Nook STR	I remember reading that there was an ISO standard for a cup of tea, but I don't see Lipton being held to it... Forgive me if I'm wrong, but ISO standards just give a point of comparison, and mean nothing in terms of control.

06-09-2010, 05:12 PM	#60
scottjl Reader of Books Posts: 1,632 Karma: 2697 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: none	actually it does mean that adobe can't come in and radically change the language, invalidating every other PDF interpreter out there, and still call it PDF. apple, microsoft, you, and me are able to write our own pdf interpreter and expect it to work with standard pdf documents out there. if adobe wanted to introduce some new features that would break compatibility it would have to be with the approval of the ISO standards body and whatever organizations were on the team that approve the PDF standard. they can easily object and veto Adobe's proposal. PDF is out of Abobe's control for all intents and purposes.

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