4 ms·

I'ma Set It Straight, This Watergate

25 points by dwynings 15y ago

rickmb 15y ago
I don't like Apple's proprietary tactics (not any proprietary format for ebooks for that matter), but greed and incompetence on the side of the publishers killed the viability of ePub as a standard a long time ago. It's virtually impossible to publish anything other than simple text without running into all kinds of trouble with the different interpretation and implementation of ePub in various readers. Apple should have just completely created their own format instead of extending ePub, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now Apple has become the convenient scapegoat for ePub's failure, whilst others, most notably Amazon, get a free pass for doing exactly the same.
- rmccue 15y ago
  I would argue the same as Gruber and say that they did create their own format. Whether or not it looks like ePub under the surface is irrelevant, since it's a .ibooks file, not a .epub. Since it's Apple's format, they can do whatever they want with it without having to worry about how other readers interpret the format. (Unless you mean it would have been easier from their point, in which case I also disagree, since this allows them to use their existing ePub code.)
- riffraff 15y ago
  I think the bigger point is unrelated to the format per se, and that is the idea that you can't sell the content you produced without going through apple. If someone were to write a custom reader by reverse engineering the apple proprietary format, I would still not be allowed to sell my content to them without giving apple a cut.
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  > Apple should have just completely created their own format . . . I don't think being scapegoated for ePub's eventual fate is going to affect their bottom line very much, so it probably wouldn't have been worth creating a new format over one that already works.
- bradleyland 15y ago
  I agree with everything but your last point: > Apple should have just completely created their own format instead of extending ePub, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now Apple has become the convenient scapegoat for ePub's failure, whilst others, most notably Amazon, get a free pass for doing exactly the same. That seems like a terrible reason to head off on your own and create a totally new format. Case in point, look at audio/video CODECs. Under the hood, many of them have startling similarities. The consumer has no idea they're similar, because they're named differently. More directly, what is wrong with extending ePub, provided you don't represent it as ePub. Gruber's best points are made on a technical basis, not a business basis. Apple isn't calling the iBooks Author output ePub. That would be egregious. As is typical in the technology space, everyone is conflating arguments. They're pissed about Apple's business tactics, and so the argument spreads like fire in a field of dry grass. From a black box perspective, iBooks files are proprietary. Whether their "based on" ePub is no more relevant than the fact that VP8 bears similarities to H.264 and many other video CODECs [1]. 1 - http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377
Steko 15y ago
I love how Amazon has like 90% of the ebook market (more?) but it's Apple that's killing the industry with their entirely optional free authoring tool.
rfrey 15y ago
Bott points to this iBooks FAQ from Apple, which states that the only formats supported by iBooks are industry-standard ePub and PDF. Given that the modification date on this FAQ is 22 December 2011, it seems clear that this is simply an outdated FAQ This makes it sound like relying on a 4-week old FAQ constitutes shoddy journalism. It's not "clear" to me at all that the FAQ is outdated. It still says: "iBooks uses the ePub file format" - if it is just stale-dated information, nobody there thinks it's important enough to change.
- Steko 15y ago
  "It still says: "iBooks uses the ePub file format"" That statement is as accurate as it's ever been. iBooks uses the ePub file format. You have also been able to do PDFs since forever. Starting last week it also supports .IBA (?) files made from iBooks Author.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  Given that he was talking about a change which occurred as part of a major product launch which has happened since the FAQ was published I think it is shoddy journalism. I don't think it takes a genius to work out that when a new product is launch old documentation might not apply to it. Moreover he knows for a fact that it's no longer accurate - he's discussing a new file format (.ibook) the existence of which provably falsifies the statement in the FAQ. In terms of changing updating the FAQ yes it would be good but as far as I can tell for Apple and most others common practice is to leave the old version and add a new version rather than change them. It can make finding the right information difficult and certainly product versions on them as well as the date would be useful but I don't think you can read much into the fact that no-one bothers to manage their information on-line particularly well.
melling 15y ago
I haven't followed the iBook story but I do have a simple question. If I write a book then decide a year from now to publish in a different format, am I allowed to take all of my material and construct an ePub, for example?
- Steko 15y ago
  My understanding is that all the content you put in belongs to you. If the EULA contradicts this I doubt any court would uphold it. The grayer area is the special interactive widget output code. It's pretty clear the EULA is claiming you don't get to do whatever you want with that portion of the output.
- riffraff 15y ago
  Yes, you are only forbidden from redistributing the ibook file you produced with apple's software.
  - Terretta 15y ago
    And you can actually redistribute it yourself as widely as you like, just not take cash for it except in their store.
extension 15y ago
"Embracing and extending" is not a destructive thing in itself. What makes it destructive is when the extensions are difficult for others to implement, because they are coupled to some proprietary thing that can't be reproduced. In Microsoft's case, that was Windows. Is Apple technologically locking authors into their platform? Will books not be published elsewhere because the content can't be migrated to another app? But what matters in the end is the "extinguish" part, and that can happen without the first two steps. Sometimes a technology pushes competing technologies out of existence, for a variety of reasons, such as being better. Embracing and extending just greases the gears.
ZeroGravitas 15y ago
"This is another case of people acting surprised and/or disappointed that Apple, a for-profit company, is acting like a for-profit company." -- John Gruber Considering he said that about the same situation only yesterday, he seems a bit upset that someone is "accusing" Apple of "acting like a for-profit company".
- Punted 15y ago
  Has Gruber ever used this excuse, "This is another case of people acting surprised and/or disappointed that ______, a for-profit company, is acting like a for-profit company," in defence of an action by Google? (Has Gruber ever written an article in defense of Google?)
Steko 15y ago
The central problem with Ed Bott's article is here: "Apple has chosen to leverage its dominant position in the tablet market to try to hobble its competitors in the ebook-publishing business. " This is total bullshit. If Apple wanted to "hobble their competitors" with their tablet share they would probably have done so by banning Amazon's Kindle app and they would have done it (for real) years ago. This has little to do with tablet share other then Apple's only play for a successful niche was to play to the ipad's advantages over Amazon's suite of devices. Don't get me wrong I'm sure they do want to "hobble their competitors" just like everyone else does it's just they aren't the 900 pound gorilla in the ebook market. What Apple's doing here is quite simple. They are building a niche to start to attack Amazon with. They had to innovate it in a completely new direction because of the huge Kindle lock in moat Amazon has built {Apple knows a thing or two about lock in}. So they needed to innovate and be the leader somewhere, anywhere. Interactivity and textbooks are what they decided on. Ed Bott thinks Apple should just sell the same textbook as Amazon plus a widget. Apple probably thought about that but realized the plus a widget version would cost extra and people/school districts would buy the cheaper version from Amazon or whoever. So they went the exclusive route. Here's out format, here's the tools that make it easy, and here's the catch: sell on our store only. It's that simple. It had to be exclusives. Ed Bott thinks Apple is evil but he should look at the score over the last 2 years: iBooks is getting raped by Kindle and Ed Bott's claimed solution wasn't gonna change that.

25 points by dwynings 15y ago

I don't like Apple's proprietary tactics (not any proprietary format for ebooks for that matter), but greed and incompetence on the side of the publishers killed the viability of ePub as a standard a long time ago. It's virtually impossible to publish anything other than simple text without running into all kinds of trouble with the different interpretation and implementation of ePub in various readers. Apple should have just completely created their own format instead of extending ePub, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now Apple has become the convenient scapegoat for ePub's failure, whilst others, most notably Amazon, get a free pass for doing exactly the same.

rmccue 15y ago
I would argue the same as Gruber and say that they did create their own format. Whether or not it looks like ePub under the surface is irrelevant, since it's a .ibooks file, not a .epub. Since it's Apple's format, they can do whatever they want with it without having to worry about how other readers interpret the format. (Unless you mean it would have been easier from their point, in which case I also disagree, since this allows them to use their existing ePub code.)
riffraff 15y ago
I think the bigger point is unrelated to the format per se, and that is the idea that you can't sell the content you produced without going through apple. If someone were to write a custom reader by reverse engineering the apple proprietary format, I would still not be allowed to sell my content to them without giving apple a cut.
jamesaguilar 15y ago
> Apple should have just completely created their own format . . . I don't think being scapegoated for ePub's eventual fate is going to affect their bottom line very much, so it probably wouldn't have been worth creating a new format over one that already works.
bradleyland 15y ago
I agree with everything but your last point: > Apple should have just completely created their own format instead of extending ePub, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now Apple has become the convenient scapegoat for ePub's failure, whilst others, most notably Amazon, get a free pass for doing exactly the same. That seems like a terrible reason to head off on your own and create a totally new format. Case in point, look at audio/video CODECs. Under the hood, many of them have startling similarities. The consumer has no idea they're similar, because they're named differently. More directly, what is wrong with extending ePub, provided you don't represent it as ePub. Gruber's best points are made on a technical basis, not a business basis. Apple isn't calling the iBooks Author output ePub. That would be egregious. As is typical in the technology space, everyone is conflating arguments. They're pissed about Apple's business tactics, and so the argument spreads like fire in a field of dry grass. From a black box perspective, iBooks files are proprietary. Whether their "based on" ePub is no more relevant than the fact that VP8 bears similarities to H.264 and many other video CODECs [1]. 1 - http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377

Steko 15y ago

I love how Amazon has like 90% of the ebook market (more?) but it's Apple that's killing the industry with their entirely optional free authoring tool.

rfrey 15y ago

Bott points to this iBooks FAQ from Apple, which states that the only formats supported by iBooks are industry-standard ePub and PDF. Given that the modification date on this FAQ is 22 December 2011, it seems clear that this is simply an outdated FAQ This makes it sound like relying on a 4-week old FAQ constitutes shoddy journalism. It's not "clear" to me at all that the FAQ is outdated. It still says: "iBooks uses the ePub file format" - if it is just stale-dated information, nobody there thinks it's important enough to change.

Steko 15y ago
"It still says: "iBooks uses the ePub file format"" That statement is as accurate as it's ever been. iBooks uses the ePub file format. You have also been able to do PDFs since forever. Starting last week it also supports .IBA (?) files made from iBooks Author.
Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
Given that he was talking about a change which occurred as part of a major product launch which has happened since the FAQ was published I think it is shoddy journalism. I don't think it takes a genius to work out that when a new product is launch old documentation might not apply to it. Moreover he knows for a fact that it's no longer accurate - he's discussing a new file format (.ibook) the existence of which provably falsifies the statement in the FAQ. In terms of changing updating the FAQ yes it would be good but as far as I can tell for Apple and most others common practice is to leave the old version and add a new version rather than change them. It can make finding the right information difficult and certainly product versions on them as well as the date would be useful but I don't think you can read much into the fact that no-one bothers to manage their information on-line particularly well.

melling 15y ago

I haven't followed the iBook story but I do have a simple question. If I write a book then decide a year from now to publish in a different format, am I allowed to take all of my material and construct an ePub, for example?

Steko 15y ago
My understanding is that all the content you put in belongs to you. If the EULA contradicts this I doubt any court would uphold it. The grayer area is the special interactive widget output code. It's pretty clear the EULA is claiming you don't get to do whatever you want with that portion of the output.
riffraff 15y ago
Yes, you are only forbidden from redistributing the ibook file you produced with apple's software.
- Terretta 15y ago
  And you can actually redistribute it yourself as widely as you like, just not take cash for it except in their store.

extension 15y ago

"Embracing and extending" is not a destructive thing in itself. What makes it destructive is when the extensions are difficult for others to implement, because they are coupled to some proprietary thing that can't be reproduced. In Microsoft's case, that was Windows. Is Apple technologically locking authors into their platform? Will books not be published elsewhere because the content can't be migrated to another app? But what matters in the end is the "extinguish" part, and that can happen without the first two steps. Sometimes a technology pushes competing technologies out of existence, for a variety of reasons, such as being better. Embracing and extending just greases the gears.

ZeroGravitas 15y ago

"This is another case of people acting surprised and/or disappointed that Apple, a for-profit company, is acting like a for-profit company." -- John Gruber Considering he said that about the same situation only yesterday, he seems a bit upset that someone is "accusing" Apple of "acting like a for-profit company".

Punted 15y ago
Has Gruber ever used this excuse, "This is another case of people acting surprised and/or disappointed that ______, a for-profit company, is acting like a for-profit company," in defence of an action by Google? (Has Gruber ever written an article in defense of Google?)

Steko 15y ago

The central problem with Ed Bott's article is here: "Apple has chosen to leverage its dominant position in the tablet market to try to hobble its competitors in the ebook-publishing business. " This is total bullshit. If Apple wanted to "hobble their competitors" with their tablet share they would probably have done so by banning Amazon's Kindle app and they would have done it (for real) years ago. This has little to do with tablet share other then Apple's only play for a successful niche was to play to the ipad's advantages over Amazon's suite of devices. Don't get me wrong I'm sure they do want to "hobble their competitors" just like everyone else does it's just they aren't the 900 pound gorilla in the ebook market. What Apple's doing here is quite simple. They are building a niche to start to attack Amazon with. They had to innovate it in a completely new direction because of the huge Kindle lock in moat Amazon has built {Apple knows a thing or two about lock in}. So they needed to innovate and be the leader somewhere, anywhere. Interactivity and textbooks are what they decided on. Ed Bott thinks Apple should just sell the same textbook as Amazon plus a widget. Apple probably thought about that but realized the plus a widget version would cost extra and people/school districts would buy the cheaper version from Amazon or whoever. So they went the exclusive route. Here's out format, here's the tools that make it easy, and here's the catch: sell on our store only. It's that simple. It had to be exclusives. Ed Bott thinks Apple is evil but he should look at the score over the last 2 years: iBooks is getting raped by Kindle and Ed Bott's claimed solution wasn't gonna change that.