Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
Reading books on a computer sucks as much as using Xcode or traditional Photoshop would suck on an iOS device. They're sticking to their guns on it.
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
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Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
I don't see whats so inherently awful about it. Display text on a nice screen, swipe left to turn page. Especially something like the 11incher.
He is already against reading on iPad and iPhone--don't bother.
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Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
Oh, ok.
I'm gonna search the app store for some ereader apps.
I'm gonna search the app store for some ereader apps.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
My opinion doesn't have any influence on Apple's design choices. Apple could have made a computer reading app at any point. They won't because they don't think reading on a computer is any good.
Disregarding the argument as to whether reading books on a laptop or not has any merit, or future possibilities of OS X getting iBooks, I think it is important to note that it likely would not be presented along with the announcement of Mountain Lion. Even on iOS iBooks is considered to be separate from the OS and is not bundled but an optional download. iBooks for OS X if it were to ever exist would be its own thing that one would get from the Mac AppStore (OS X AppStore?).
Good Job Bob
Member
I'm positive iBooks is gonna make it's way to OS X.
When have they said that? It's like saying they didn't make a Notifications Center for OS X for a decade because they don't think such a concept is any good.
I can see iBooks being useful on a computer just from their education initiative. Having the iTunes U app just live on iDevices is pretty clunky for studying and taking notes. I'm not going to pull out my iPad and start taking notes in class on it, or doing the assignments from the iTunes U app. Do I open it and put it next to the computer and just create Word documents? If I am reading from an iBooks textbook and I write down notes for a paper, I want to get to those notes on my computer. I can get those notes on my computer if I take it on the Notes app, but I can't if I added notes on iBooks. If I want to add notes to the textbook while the teacher is lecturing, this would be much easier on a computer.
I too think it will come, if only for the reason of easy syncing between devices, organization of library, and the slow dismantling of iTunes from the monolithic POS it is. But I don't think it will ever be considered as a feature of OS X, nor do I think it will come bundled.
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Deleted member 22576
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Oh yeah, I completely agree about it just being a standalone app. I thought that was basically a given in the discussion.
First of all, I corrected your post to remove the definitives. If you don't have an influence over their design choices, definitive statements don't belong in your post.
Second, let's have some fun with your post...
Liu Kang Baking A Pie circa early 2008 said:
I'm sure others could do something similar with other "Apple won't" quotes from years past. Saying what they won't do is a recipe for failure.
And lastly, I can tell you what is keeping them from making iBooks on a Mac: iBooks are stored in your iTunes library and in order to have them readable, they would have to either bake it into iTunes or... drumroll please.... disengage it from iTunes into a new app.
... notice how everything seems to all fall together and line up nicely with what I suggested earlier? Yeah.
Oh, that's pure projection and speculation.
The nature of the reading experience depends on what you're reading, but I can tell you firsthand that reading something like the O'Reilly technical e-books is completely moot on anything other than a full blown, traditional computer (and the Kindle app does this wonderfully).
And while it's purely semantic, it's worth noting that iPads and iPhones are computers and that the entire iBooks premise is based on the fact that reading, and specifically enhancing that experience with richer content, will be wholly based upon reading on computers in some form or another.
I think it's more a matter of priorities and demand than anything -- tablet and smartphone forms closer resemble traditional book reading and will satisfy the 80% of the needs of most people and use cases, but for a certain subsection of books and, for those who simply want to pick up where they left off on a book and may be at a computer at the time, allowing iBooks on OS X makes sense.
I wouldn't hold my breath for it of course, but I'm sure we'll eventually see that capability come along as Apple starts to unify their platforms more and more.
I don't know if they will or not, but I reckon they haven't done it because it's the realm that the iPad excels at. The iPad is all about lying back, couch-style consumption. Whether one interprets that as 'not good on computer' or otherwise 'Apple doesn't want to overlap functionality (or why by an iPad?)' is moot.
That said, I would say an iPhone sucks even more at reading books than a desktop, but they did it for that....
Right, but for some reason people here were expecting it to be rolled into this Mountain Lion announcement, hence the discussion. If they do make it, it will just show up in the App Store one day unceremoniously.
If I had to guess, it's not coming anytime soon. This year is about the textbook on the iPad, and they want that to be as clean and simple a discussion as possible. You buy iPads for the student to read and interact with textbooks, and you buy a Mac to author them.
Joel Was Right
Member
Personal wants aside, it seems like a counter-intuitive business decision in regards to their iBooks store; despite iCloud enabling multi-platform sharing, people's books are restricted to their iOS devices. Those who actually buy books from the Apple store now have even less reason to continue to do so when compared to Amazon's offerings.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie suggested there is no application for the Macintosh because Apple doesn't think it'd be any good. Well, same could be said for having Pages on the iPad - writing a document on a tablet isn't a good experience at all. And with the multi-gesture emphasis Apple has with the trackpad, there really isn't any reason not to have a functioning app that is able to sync your notes/annotations and last page - it's not like don't people don't read anything on their personal computers.
The iBook store makes zero sense, often in pricing, library and now platform support on Apple's own Macs. The only explanation I could give is that there may be licensing issues Apple has with publishers.
I don't think it would undermine the spotlight of the iPad at all. The idea of such an app isn't even a talking point much less comparable to something in tablet form. Take the Kindle as an example, it's supported on phones and desktops but people still buy the reader for its form factor and price. Likewise, no one after a 'reading experience' is going to buy the more expensive, larger and heavier Mac over the cheaper, smaller and lighter iPad. So I just can't understand the theory that this is something to sell iPads.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie suggested there is no application for the Macintosh because Apple doesn't think it'd be any good. Well, same could be said for having Pages on the iPad - writing a document on a tablet isn't a good experience at all. And with the multi-gesture emphasis Apple has with the trackpad, there really isn't any reason not to have a functioning app that is able to sync your notes/annotations and last page - it's not like don't people don't read anything on their personal computers.
The iBook store makes zero sense, often in pricing, library and now platform support on Apple's own Macs. The only explanation I could give is that there may be licensing issues Apple has with publishers.
I don't think it would undermine the spotlight of the iPad at all. The idea of such an app isn't even a talking point much less comparable to something in tablet form. Take the Kindle as an example, it's supported on phones and desktops but people still buy the reader for its form factor and price. Likewise, no one after a 'reading experience' is going to buy the more expensive, larger and heavier Mac over the cheaper, smaller and lighter iPad. So I just can't understand the theory that this is something to sell iPads.
The reason iBooks is needed on Mac has nothing to do with reading.
Kindle lets you organize your book library, to sort your books, put them in collections etc, in their Mac app and transfer the changes to all of your other devices. And if you have a very large book collection is is way way way easier to organize on your computer than directly on the iPad.
Also if you take a lot of notes in your books that is way easier to type and organize on your Mac, and again Kindle lets any notes you make to books on the Mac app transfer to all your devices.
Also if you are researching books to buy on your Mac you can download and sample Kindle books. You can't download and read samples of iBooks books on the Mac.
Are you going to read War & Peace on your Mac? Of course not. But having a Mac app adds a lot to the book OWNING experience. In organizing your books, adding notes to your books, buying and researching potential books to add to your collection.
As long as Apple ignores the need for iBooks on the Mac the software will continue to be a joke compared to Kindle, which is pretty frustrating because the actual iPad app for iBooks is far better than the Kindle iPad app.
These are all features missing from iBooks due to Apple overlooking the need of iBooks software for Mac. I am a pretty big Apple fanboy but the fact there are people actually defending this absurd oversight by Apple in this thread is pretty insane.
Kindle lets you organize your book library, to sort your books, put them in collections etc, in their Mac app and transfer the changes to all of your other devices. And if you have a very large book collection is is way way way easier to organize on your computer than directly on the iPad.
Also if you take a lot of notes in your books that is way easier to type and organize on your Mac, and again Kindle lets any notes you make to books on the Mac app transfer to all your devices.
Also if you are researching books to buy on your Mac you can download and sample Kindle books. You can't download and read samples of iBooks books on the Mac.
Are you going to read War & Peace on your Mac? Of course not. But having a Mac app adds a lot to the book OWNING experience. In organizing your books, adding notes to your books, buying and researching potential books to add to your collection.
As long as Apple ignores the need for iBooks on the Mac the software will continue to be a joke compared to Kindle, which is pretty frustrating because the actual iPad app for iBooks is far better than the Kindle iPad app.
These are all features missing from iBooks due to Apple overlooking the need of iBooks software for Mac. I am a pretty big Apple fanboy but the fact there are people actually defending this absurd oversight by Apple in this thread is pretty insane.
The Kindle isn't relevant to my point. I'm talking about textbooks, and the purchasing decisions of school administrators this Spring.
If anything, it could sell more iPads, because people who don't have iPads would buy iBooks to read on their computer, and decide they want an iPad to read them on.
Well, the Messages beta sure is buggy, but it's to be expected of a beta. Usually there's a way to report bugs in Apple's beta software, but I don't see it in the app. Hmm.
The bugs so far:
Unless the phone numbers you're messaging to are formatted the specific "proper" way (for example, +1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx), it will not preserve contact names in Address Book on your messages history, but will show the phone number in "proper" formatting.
After using it for a few days, the Balloons view for my messages went screwy and the balloons disappeared. Other views work fine, but the balloons do not re-appear no matter what I do.
Doesn't always load message history of the messages I typed on my phone, maybe once every other time I launch it.
But other than that, it's been awesome.
The bugs so far:
Unless the phone numbers you're messaging to are formatted the specific "proper" way (for example, +1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx), it will not preserve contact names in Address Book on your messages history, but will show the phone number in "proper" formatting.
After using it for a few days, the Balloons view for my messages went screwy and the balloons disappeared. Other views work fine, but the balloons do not re-appear no matter what I do.
Doesn't always load message history of the messages I typed on my phone, maybe once every other time I launch it.
But other than that, it's been awesome.
Joel Was Right
Member
Installed Messages and I'm having this bug whereby after a while chats 'disappear' from the window. I can only find them once I search for keywords in that conversation I was having. Anyone else getting this?
I've seen it. At first I thought it was a 'feature', like it was hiding conversations for privacy if you closed the window. But I see it all the time now, I think.
So maybe a bug. It seems like it's related to iCloud syncing, so maybe hiccups in the server?
Joel Was Right
Member
Have yet to set up an iCloud account. I didn't realise it backed up Message conversations
I don't think it's so much a backup as it is that it will push these messages through iCloud to every device you use it with once it's configured.
It doesn't pull your previous iMessage history from your phone when you set it up, for instance.
This has been happening since the first hour of having Messages installed for me.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
:C THE HORROR
I never did see the use for reading a book on a computer (non textbook that is). real books or E-ink are the only ways to go.
Technosteve
Banned
hi DPI macs are like the biggest cock tease since the ipad HD. Can apple make a car next it's easier to buy something when you know you can't haggle.
Refrigerator
Member
I agree that long form reading on a computer is less than ideal, but my arguments against it has lost some luster considering how much I actually do read now on my iPad's LCD backlit screen.
I would want a desktop iBooks client for jumping in quickly to get quotes, to read, reference or share a quick passage. When I was in graduate school the flood of electronic material I pulled off JStor and other electronic databases made writing and sourcing for papers so much easier.
It's the reason why, though I'm pretty ensconced in Apple's ecosystem, I'll only buy books off Amazon's Kindle platform at this point.
I would want a desktop iBooks client for jumping in quickly to get quotes, to read, reference or share a quick passage. When I was in graduate school the flood of electronic material I pulled off JStor and other electronic databases made writing and sourcing for papers so much easier.
It's the reason why, though I'm pretty ensconced in Apple's ecosystem, I'll only buy books off Amazon's Kindle platform at this point.
Out of curiosity, why do you think Apple released a beta for messages? I know they did it for FaceTime too.
Is it really to test it? Why not other parts of mountain lion? Is it more important to test? Is it easier or harder to test? Does it require more testing? Is it for teasing users?
All of the above? I wonder if they will release it as a separate app for lion users. You know, if I couldn't install ml, I would buy it.
Is it really to test it? Why not other parts of mountain lion? Is it more important to test? Is it easier or harder to test? Does it require more testing? Is it for teasing users?
All of the above? I wonder if they will release it as a separate app for lion users. You know, if I couldn't install ml, I would buy it.
badcrumble
Member
To get more people onto the service faster, to test it, and so on. FaceTime/iMessage are good because they make the whole Apple ecosystem stickier, and Apple wants those effects faster.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
Probably a bit of all of it, but I would lean more towards actually testing it, since there are a multitude of devices that will be interacting with imessage. And having more limbs on a tree can only add to issues that may pop up.
I believe so too. Currently the displays are just not that great for book reading.
In my experience with using it, there's just literally more things that can go wrong with it than the other stuff they announced. They obviously want to have things that are within their control to fix ironed out sooner rather than later, when it's dispatched into the mass OSX user population.
It may also be many users' first experience using Messages across multiple platforms, and the issues that arise from that being a more widespread practice need to be considered.
But more than anything, it's marketing. "Hey Windows users, look what you can do if you owned a Mac!" Cuz I have to admit, being able to multitask my texting with my posting to GAF and stuff without changing devices is heaven for me.
Also, since the original thread that posted this is almost dead and it's pretty relevant to this discussion given the timing of it:
9to5Mac: Apple looking to launch iTunes Store, App Store overhauls later this year
More fuel for the fire regarding speculation of an iTunes overhaul, as far as I'm concerned.
It will be a travesty if they make it more simple like on iOS. I actually enjoy 'browsing' the store in my mac, I hate it on iOS.
I'm not sure how much can go wrong with messages app. It seems to be working pretty well, but I guess you're right. There are lots of configurations if accounts, devices, software and hardware now. No better way to test them all than saying it's a beta ...
Could be an extra precaution for all the privacy hooha these days too.
I'm just going to be sad if they take it away from me at ML launch.
I'm not sure how much can go wrong with messages app. It seems to be working pretty well, but I guess you're right. There are lots of configurations if accounts, devices, software and hardware now. No better way to test them all than saying it's a beta ...
Could be an extra precaution for all the privacy hooha these days too.
I'm just going to be sad if they take it away from me at ML launch.
An overhaul of the iTunes app UI or just the webkit view of the store inside?
Not that I think the UI of the app is bad. But I wouldn't protest a redo of the underpants and code.
Anyway, I hope Mountain Lion fixes Fullscreen's worst bugs. Ones I have happen a lot actually. Once again, the Dock controls Fullscreen.
The major one has something to do with iTunes. But only iTunes. About half the time when I launch it, it doesn't go into fullscreen. Rather it for some reason sits in the middle of my Desktop in Fullscreen mode, but smaller than the screen centered until I perform the Fullscreen key command then it goes in.
iTunes has a worse one too. One that requires a restart of iTunes. Occasionally when launching right into Fullscreen the app will get its own space, but the fabric background will appear on the Desktop space OVER the desktop covering the icons but not the menubar. It makes me think Lion handles FS spaces as two entities. A background overlay and the app. Which is weird and unnecessary. (Just make the background of the space that texture, why use a window covering?) Quitting and relaunching fixes this. But it happens a lot.
And iMovie had a weird bug yesterday when all of a sudden out of nowhere while I was encoding the app window jumped into the Desktop space, but left its background in the original fullscreen space. (Basically the reverse of the iTunes problem.) I couldn't access the desktop so I had to go into Mission Control and drag the iMovie window to a new temporary space which left both the iTunes window and the space it is supposed to be in until the encode was done. (I wasn't about to cancel a 2 hour encode to fix a windowserver problem.)
Hopefully these are fixed by Mountain Lion.
Not that I think the UI of the app is bad. But I wouldn't protest a redo of the underpants and code.
Anyway, I hope Mountain Lion fixes Fullscreen's worst bugs. Ones I have happen a lot actually. Once again, the Dock controls Fullscreen.
The major one has something to do with iTunes. But only iTunes. About half the time when I launch it, it doesn't go into fullscreen. Rather it for some reason sits in the middle of my Desktop in Fullscreen mode, but smaller than the screen centered until I perform the Fullscreen key command then it goes in.
iTunes has a worse one too. One that requires a restart of iTunes. Occasionally when launching right into Fullscreen the app will get its own space, but the fabric background will appear on the Desktop space OVER the desktop covering the icons but not the menubar. It makes me think Lion handles FS spaces as two entities. A background overlay and the app. Which is weird and unnecessary. (Just make the background of the space that texture, why use a window covering?) Quitting and relaunching fixes this. But it happens a lot.
And iMovie had a weird bug yesterday when all of a sudden out of nowhere while I was encoding the app window jumped into the Desktop space, but left its background in the original fullscreen space. (Basically the reverse of the iTunes problem.) I couldn't access the desktop so I had to go into Mission Control and drag the iMovie window to a new temporary space which left both the iTunes window and the space it is supposed to be in until the encode was done. (I wasn't about to cancel a 2 hour encode to fix a windowserver problem.)
Hopefully these are fixed by Mountain Lion.
kame-sennin
Member
I'm currently running 10.4.11. Would I be able to buy Mountain Lion and install it? If not, what would I need to do to get up to date?
LyleLanley
Banned
I don't think any Mac that came with Tiger will work with Mountain Lion.
Of course they won't. They'll make you pay $1 for it instead.
It sounds like they're doing a full revamp of the WebKit view to the store. Perhaps the talk of more interactivity and better navigation of the store could mean that it won't be entirely WebKit-based anymore.
But it seems odd for the redesign to be mentioned as being developed in conjunction with Mountain Lion and points to a strong possibility of an iTunes revamp entirely. As I said in earlier posts, everything that we're seeing seems to point to a dissection of iTunes into smaller parts that mirror the content you get from the store and the apps in iOS. Obviously nothing is guaranteed, but it's tough not to look at the changes that are happening and not conclude that it's a VERY strong possibility.
Phoenix
Member
Wild guess 2 - it may not necessarily be just Macs that have the hi-dpi displays.
Phoenix
Member
Its definitely better than the initial installs of Lion though.
LyleLanley
Banned
I'm confused, besides iDevices and Macs, what else could you be referring to? An Apple TV?
Of course they won't. They'll make you pay $1 for it instead.
It sounds like they're doing a full revamp of the WebKit view to the store. Perhaps the talk of more interactivity and better navigation of the store could mean that it won't be entirely WebKit-based anymore.
But it seems odd for the redesign to be mentioned as being developed in conjunction with Mountain Lion and points to a strong possibility of an iTunes revamp entirely. As I said in earlier posts, everything that we're seeing seems to point to a dissection of iTunes into smaller parts that mirror the content you get from the store and the apps in iOS. Obviously nothing is guaranteed, but it's tough not to look at the changes that are happening and not conclude that it's a VERY strong possibility.
I would pay $1 for Messages. I would've paid $1 for FaceTime, had the beta ever actually stopped working
Joel Was Right
Member
Get more people to upgrade to Lion. I paid for it largely down to the Messages beta
And now, for the first time. Read books on your television from the comfort of your sofa. Only from Apple"
Maybe Phoenix was referring to other PCs? iBooks would join safari and iTunes as a windows app?
no idea
cooljeanius
Member
Looks like Apple is giving up on supplying their own X11 and is going to just tell everyone to go download XQuartz instead for Mountain Lion:
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