5 ms·

Tell me what surprised you: iPad Edition

26 points by soundsop 16y ago

cmelbye 16y ago
The main point of the article (which was that Apple made no attempt to include or inform the user about iBooks) is completely false which confuses me. When the App Store is first launched, a big colourful dialog comes up asking if the user would like to install iBooks.
- mos1 16y ago
  I got no such dialog, colorful, large or otherwise. Perhaps that was added later.
aaronbrethorst 16y ago
The equal footing argument is absolutely not true. iBooks uses private APIs to control hardware features like screen brightness that are not available to 3rd party developers. If I was to submit an eBook app to the AppStore that had feature parity with iBooks, it would be rejected by Apple's reviewers for using private APIs. See http://www.marco.org/500743718 http://www.marco.org/500743718 for more on this
- potatolicious 16y ago
  Also, iBooks has in-app purchasing, the Kindle app forces you to quit the app and launch your browser to shop for books. It's not the end of the world, but is a substandard user experience. I don't have any inside info on this, but rumor has it that not only does Apple want their 30% cut for using their in-app purchasing service, but also that you are not permitted to implement your own, hence Amazon's between a rock and a hard place. Either give Apple 30% of all e-book revenue or provide a substandard experience to users. All in all, seems like old Amazon is getting a pretty raw deal.
  - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
    I don't think that's a rumor. I think it's pretty well grounded in fact that Apple is the reason you can't buy Kindle books inside the Kindle apps on iPad and iPhone. And it's definitely a raw deal. No question about that.
  - tzs 16y ago
    So how come the Kindle application on Mac also takes you to the browser to buy books? From the screenshots at Amazon, it looks like the Kindle application for PC also takes you to the browser. In-app purchasing is a standard, supported feature of the iPhone/iPad SDK. The rumor that Apple is not allowing Amazon to do in-app purchasing is pretty ridiculous.
chrisbolt 16y ago
For the record, iBooks is doing pretty well so far: it absolutely beats the snot out of Kindle for the iPhone/iPad in pretty much every way (except book prices, which are much higher than Amazon's). I'm surprised he didn't bring up book selection, where Kindle beats iBooks by far.
- roc 16y ago
  Or readability. Or fonts. Or design aesthetic. I can't stand iBooks. And page numbers? What archaic nonsense is that? This must be the only guy who lamented the loss of "Side" demarcation when tapes gave way to CDs.
  - chrisbolt 16y ago
    I must admit, "3 pages left in chapter" is kind of nice.
akkartik 16y ago
He's channeling my favorite PG essay. "When friends came back from faraway places, it wasn't just out of politeness that I asked what they saw. I really wanted to know. And I found the best way to get information out of them was to ask what surprised them. How was the place different from what they expected? This is an extremely useful question. You can ask it of the most unobservant people, and it will extract information they didn't even know they were recording." http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html
bodhi 16y ago
Doesn't it have something to do with international licensing issues? Which seems odd to say as it's not been released worldwide yet.
Tichy 16y ago
"it absolutely beats the snot out of Kindle for the iPhone/iPad in pretty much every way (except book prices, which are much higher than Amazon's)" So I take you can't just transfer books between the two? Sorry, Apple and Amazon, but unless I can't own the books I buy from you, I won't become a customer. "page numbers. Compare them in Kindle vs. iBooks. Someone at Amazon needs to be shot." He wants to shoot people for messing up page numbers? Creepy.
- thwarted 16y ago
  Agreed, the page numbers complaint is bogus. The kindle doesn't even have page numbers to mess up because "pages" don't make sense when you can navigate to any line and change the font size. The last thing you want is to be stuck with an old limitation when the paradigm changes.
buster 16y ago
Am i the only one that found the Paris analogy and surprises more interesting? :P " What surprised me about Paris was that, at their fruit stands, every fruit is arranged with absolute care and precision. Compare to a typical grocery store in Canada, where fruit is typically dumped into a bin so you can sort through it yourself. When I think about how much more time it must take to do it the hard way, yes, it surprises me. How can they afford to do that? It's magic. (I also had other related observations at the time.)" Magic? It's the same in germany and i guess many other european countries too.. Never occured to me to throw all the fruits into one basket randomly.. :D Those little differences around the world can be so interesting.
watty 16y ago
So what was his reasoning for leaving it off the device? To be less "Microsoft" and because they want to compete? Right...
- evgen 16y ago
  It was left off the base load of the device so that it could be revved quicker. If there are bugs in an app store application you can push a fix, if there are bugs in mobilesafari or the maps application the only way to update them is to cut a new release of the OS.
tzs 16y ago
The most important differences I've found between the iBooks app and the Kindle app are that iBooks supports searching and Kindle supports notes. When contemplating purchasing a book, I ask which of those I'm more likely to need.

26 points by soundsop 16y ago

The main point of the article (which was that Apple made no attempt to include or inform the user about iBooks) is completely false which confuses me. When the App Store is first launched, a big colourful dialog comes up asking if the user would like to install iBooks.

mos1 16y ago
I got no such dialog, colorful, large or otherwise. Perhaps that was added later.

aaronbrethorst 16y ago

The equal footing argument is absolutely not true. iBooks uses private APIs to control hardware features like screen brightness that are not available to 3rd party developers. If I was to submit an eBook app to the AppStore that had feature parity with iBooks, it would be rejected by Apple's reviewers for using private APIs. See http://www.marco.org/500743718 http://www.marco.org/500743718 for more on this

potatolicious 16y ago
Also, iBooks has in-app purchasing, the Kindle app forces you to quit the app and launch your browser to shop for books. It's not the end of the world, but is a substandard user experience. I don't have any inside info on this, but rumor has it that not only does Apple want their 30% cut for using their in-app purchasing service, but also that you are not permitted to implement your own, hence Amazon's between a rock and a hard place. Either give Apple 30% of all e-book revenue or provide a substandard experience to users. All in all, seems like old Amazon is getting a pretty raw deal.
- aaronbrethorst 16y ago
  I don't think that's a rumor. I think it's pretty well grounded in fact that Apple is the reason you can't buy Kindle books inside the Kindle apps on iPad and iPhone. And it's definitely a raw deal. No question about that.
- tzs 16y ago
  So how come the Kindle application on Mac also takes you to the browser to buy books? From the screenshots at Amazon, it looks like the Kindle application for PC also takes you to the browser. In-app purchasing is a standard, supported feature of the iPhone/iPad SDK. The rumor that Apple is not allowing Amazon to do in-app purchasing is pretty ridiculous.

chrisbolt 16y ago

For the record, iBooks is doing pretty well so far: it absolutely beats the snot out of Kindle for the iPhone/iPad in pretty much every way (except book prices, which are much higher than Amazon's). I'm surprised he didn't bring up book selection, where Kindle beats iBooks by far.

roc 16y ago
Or readability. Or fonts. Or design aesthetic. I can't stand iBooks. And page numbers? What archaic nonsense is that? This must be the only guy who lamented the loss of "Side" demarcation when tapes gave way to CDs.
- chrisbolt 16y ago
  I must admit, "3 pages left in chapter" is kind of nice.

akkartik 16y ago

He's channeling my favorite PG essay. "When friends came back from faraway places, it wasn't just out of politeness that I asked what they saw. I really wanted to know. And I found the best way to get information out of them was to ask what surprised them. How was the place different from what they expected? This is an extremely useful question. You can ask it of the most unobservant people, and it will extract information they didn't even know they were recording." http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html

bodhi 16y ago

Doesn't it have something to do with international licensing issues? Which seems odd to say as it's not been released worldwide yet.

Tichy 16y ago

"it absolutely beats the snot out of Kindle for the iPhone/iPad in pretty much every way (except book prices, which are much higher than Amazon's)" So I take you can't just transfer books between the two? Sorry, Apple and Amazon, but unless I can't own the books I buy from you, I won't become a customer. "page numbers. Compare them in Kindle vs. iBooks. Someone at Amazon needs to be shot." He wants to shoot people for messing up page numbers? Creepy.

thwarted 16y ago
Agreed, the page numbers complaint is bogus. The kindle doesn't even have page numbers to mess up because "pages" don't make sense when you can navigate to any line and change the font size. The last thing you want is to be stuck with an old limitation when the paradigm changes.

buster 16y ago

Am i the only one that found the Paris analogy and surprises more interesting? :P " What surprised me about Paris was that, at their fruit stands, every fruit is arranged with absolute care and precision. Compare to a typical grocery store in Canada, where fruit is typically dumped into a bin so you can sort through it yourself. When I think about how much more time it must take to do it the hard way, yes, it surprises me. How can they afford to do that? It's magic. (I also had other related observations at the time.)" Magic? It's the same in germany and i guess many other european countries too.. Never occured to me to throw all the fruits into one basket randomly.. :D Those little differences around the world can be so interesting.

watty 16y ago

So what was his reasoning for leaving it off the device? To be less "Microsoft" and because they want to compete? Right...

evgen 16y ago
It was left off the base load of the device so that it could be revved quicker. If there are bugs in an app store application you can push a fix, if there are bugs in mobilesafari or the maps application the only way to update them is to cut a new release of the OS.

tzs 16y ago

The most important differences I've found between the iBooks app and the Kindle app are that iBooks supports searching and Kindle supports notes. When contemplating purchasing a book, I ask which of those I'm more likely to need.