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That not remembering the last page you were at in Books drives me crazy. My iPad would be the perfect device for reading PDF books especially technical and mat

That not remembering the last page you were at in Books drives me crazy. My iPad would be the perfect device for reading PDF books especially technical and maths text books, if weren't for the Chinese torture of whether it will remember your page the next time you open it or will I have to scroll through until I recall where I left.

Jtsummers 6y ago
I've been a happy GoodReader user for years. Syncs with a variety of sources, remembers where I was, bookmarks work. Annotations work, but I don't use that much beyond being able to say it works.
- drevil-v2 6y ago
  I like the Apple Books app because - It syncs across all my devices. No 3rd party storage like Dropbox required. In fact what I don't like is GoodReader asks for too broad an access to Dropbox/OneDrive if you try to set it up. - Books is first party app so absolutely no tracking whatsoever. GoodReader had Facebook SDK and Google Analytics and was trying to contact a bunch of other trackers the last time I installed it.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    Oh man, that was another nightmare with Books. I tried keeping syncing on for a year, but ultimately switched back to a local library. It worked 99% of the time. But then every few weeks it would overwrite my newer-annotated version of a PDF with an older one, and I'd lose chapters' worth (in one case an entire books' worth) of highlights. It was infuriating. It had to be some kind of iDrive sync bug. It seems insane that type of stuff passes QA, I can't even imagine.
    - smartbit 6y ago
      > I'd lose chapters' worth (in one case an entire books' worth) of highlights. It was infuriating. It had to be some kind of iDrive sync bug. That hurts, sorry to hear. iCloud drive supports files sync for files 50GB or less in size. Have you experienced sync issues with iCloud drive too? Or with Dropbox?
      - crazygringo 6y ago
        Nope, no data loss issues with iCloud Drive files directly (or Dropbox). My hypothesis is that Books does something wonky with metadata for extra sync logic, like it depends on reading the last "last page read" record but then sometimes fails to write that, and then loses the pointer to the new version altogether. I can't be sure, but I can't think of any other explanation.
  - smartbit 6y ago
    > GoodReader had Facebook SDK and Google Analytics and was trying to contact a bunch of other trackers the last time I installed it. Longtime fan of Goodreader here. Sorry to hear that Goodreader is trying to contact trackers. How did you find out? Any suggestions how to prevent Goodreader to contact those trackers, eg pi-hole?
    - drevil-v2 6y ago
      I run pi-hole with recursive dns so I was able to see what domains any app contacts and then I am able to lock it down on my local network no problem. On my devices (iPhone / iPad) I also use Lockdown app which allows you to blacklist IP addresses and domain so once I can see what an app is up to using pi-hole, I manually add those domains to Lockdown so that even when I am out of the house the trackers are blocked.

Jtsummers 6y ago

I've been a happy GoodReader user for years. Syncs with a variety of sources, remembers where I was, bookmarks work. Annotations work, but I don't use that much beyond being able to say it works.

drevil-v2 6y ago
I like the Apple Books app because - It syncs across all my devices. No 3rd party storage like Dropbox required. In fact what I don't like is GoodReader asks for too broad an access to Dropbox/OneDrive if you try to set it up. - Books is first party app so absolutely no tracking whatsoever. GoodReader had Facebook SDK and Google Analytics and was trying to contact a bunch of other trackers the last time I installed it.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  Oh man, that was another nightmare with Books. I tried keeping syncing on for a year, but ultimately switched back to a local library. It worked 99% of the time. But then every few weeks it would overwrite my newer-annotated version of a PDF with an older one, and I'd lose chapters' worth (in one case an entire books' worth) of highlights. It was infuriating. It had to be some kind of iDrive sync bug. It seems insane that type of stuff passes QA, I can't even imagine.
  - smartbit 6y ago
    > I'd lose chapters' worth (in one case an entire books' worth) of highlights. It was infuriating. It had to be some kind of iDrive sync bug. That hurts, sorry to hear. iCloud drive supports files sync for files 50GB or less in size. Have you experienced sync issues with iCloud drive too? Or with Dropbox?
    - crazygringo 6y ago
      Nope, no data loss issues with iCloud Drive files directly (or Dropbox). My hypothesis is that Books does something wonky with metadata for extra sync logic, like it depends on reading the last "last page read" record but then sometimes fails to write that, and then loses the pointer to the new version altogether. I can't be sure, but I can't think of any other explanation.
- smartbit 6y ago
  > GoodReader had Facebook SDK and Google Analytics and was trying to contact a bunch of other trackers the last time I installed it. Longtime fan of Goodreader here. Sorry to hear that Goodreader is trying to contact trackers. How did you find out? Any suggestions how to prevent Goodreader to contact those trackers, eg pi-hole?
  - drevil-v2 6y ago
    I run pi-hole with recursive dns so I was able to see what domains any app contacts and then I am able to lock it down on my local network no problem. On my devices (iPhone / iPad) I also use Lockdown app which allows you to blacklist IP addresses and domain so once I can see what an app is up to using pi-hole, I manually add those domains to Lockdown so that even when I am out of the house the trackers are blocked.