Reading iBooks on macBook Pro??

Boy was I surprised to learn that I could not read a book purchased through itunes on my macbook pro. I did the Adobe Digital Editions thing as previous folks have suggested, the chapter headings come through but not the thumbnail or the text. I get an error message telling me that the file is corrupted. I second the level of dumb that Apple appears to be displaying, and I have been an loyal Apple person since 1987.

Almost all the answers I read are dead wrong. All you need to do is download the Kindle app.

Message was edited by: Digro

Have you bought books from Apple and been able to transfer and read them in Kindle ?

Apple only makes it worse with stupid misleading statements like this on the new Steve Jobs Biography:

"This book is available on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iBooks and on your computer with iTunes."

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/steve-jobs/id431617578?mt=11

Yes it's "Available to BUY on those platforms," NO it's NOT "Available to READ on you Computer"

You have to have an iPad, iPhone 3G or newer or a 2nd Gen iPod or newer, Previews have to automatic download turned on with iOS 4.3.3 or newer.

Kindle supports: iOS (iPhone, iPad & iPod), Mac OSX, PC, Blackberry, Windows 7 Mobile and Android and samples on all of that with any download setting for the same price. Kindle disabled in app purchases (per the new rules) but you can purchase on your iOS device from the Amazon website using your Safari browser.

I'm an Apple fan but 100% of my eBook purchases are Kindle this is an Apple epic fail.

I suppose you may be tring to be sarcastic but it is obviously not true that "Apple simply doesn't have the know how..." A program, like iBook, is created in XCode and can be compiled to run on either an ARM or Intel architecture device. So iBook "runs" on a Mac already. The issue is that the UIKit code would have to be replaced by AppKit code so the user interface would be mouse and keyboard rather than multitouch.

It is baffling why the product manager has so foolishly failed to release this obvious product (and a Windows compatible app also). The only reasonable response is to largely ignore the iBooks Store (i.e. obtain only DRM free ePub books) or only purchase eBooks from Amazon. For PDF files iBook and Adobe Acrobat (on Mac & PC) are great so iBook is still very useful. It is just the iBook Store that is currently badly crippled.

I was amazed to learn just how many folks are furious about this limitation that Apple's FairPlay DRM encryption of iBooks purchased on iTunes with a MacBook, are only readable on an iOS device.

This thread is only one of many threads on this subject.

Interesting that Apple's Feedback choices do not even show iBooks as a possible feedback option.

Apple...heres one more vote and one more reason I should have purchased an android tablet instead of an ipad2

holy crap!!! i just realized i can't even read my iBooks on my over-priced Macbook Pro or over-priced Mac Pro? i also can't read them on my over-priced iPhone cause the screen is so darn small. so that means the only place i can read them is on my over-priced iPad???

apple, come on, this is ridiculous....i mean, how lame can you get. what if i don't have my over-priced iPad with me and i want to read one of my iBooks on my over-priced Macbook Pro?....like right now!!

i'm glad i haven't purchased too many iBooks. the Amazon kindle store and kindle app are looking great right now.

Just get calibre. It's a free ebook converter that comes with a reader (and none of the bloat and sign in requirements that the Adobe and Sony readers have). If I didn't have an iPad, I'd use calibre to read, in addition to converting my ebooks (just about every format including pdf, mobi, lit, txt, doc, pdb, epub, htm, etc.).

http://calibre-ebook.com/

cakefordinner wrote:

Just get calibre.

Calibre is of course totally useless for reading ebooks you have to pay for, which are normally have DRM. People who ask about reading iBooks on a Mac are usually interested in doing that rather than reading free books.

CALIBRE all the way! Can't wait till Apple fixes this, in the meantime try this: http://calibre-ebook.com/download_osx

Happy reading!

4lfredcerv4ntes wrote:

CALIBRE all the way!

Calibre is useless for anything that anyone really wants to do, namely read books you have to pay for. Do you really not understand that?

Thanks Tom, but I'm reading a couple of books I paid for. All purchased from iBooks. Better luck to you!

4lfredcerv4ntes wrote:

I'm reading a couple of books I paid for. All purchased from iBooks.

That's cool. Please provide the titles so we can all see what kind of books you are talking about and thus whether calibre will be use for what most people want to read from the ibookstore. The only publishes I know of so far where it would work are O'Reilly and Take Control.

4lfredcerv4ntes,

Are you reading the books you purchased from iBooks on a iMac, MacBook Air/Pro?

If so, how are you doing it?

If on the other hand, you're reading them on an iPad, therein lays the crutch.

Thanks Kim.