Q: How Can I Read iBooks on my Laptop?

How hard could it be? Hallo Apple! Make a iBookreader for ALL computers!

Still no iBookreader on beta Mountain Lion? Hope we haven't reached the top of the mountain yet.  Does seem a basic request.  Paid for the book just as I did for music. What was that slogan?: "...buy once, play anywhere"?

Just want to echo the above thread of frustration- inability to read books on my laptop purchsed through Apple. Amazon Kindle and Zinio seem to be the better route for now. Apple please let us read the content we purchase from your itunes store on our laptops- this request is now years old.

This problem of not being able to read books purchased from Apple on anything other than a device running iOS is typical of Apple and Steve Job's legacy of "controlling the entire experience".  In reality Apple wants you to purchase an iOS device.  Nothing more nothing less.

Yet Apple removed DRM from music so why the hypocritical attitude when it comes to books.  Interestingly Apple have launched a 'Textbooks' categoy in iBooks.  It adds even more to the hypocrocy that they can only be read on an iOS device.

I have been an Apple buyer for more than 20 years so I am not just throwing stones at Apple.  Yet this situation beggars disbelief.

Come on Apple, get your act together.  Mind you they probably won't, at least not anytime soon.  Apple won't even reply here.

Wow - I just discovered that I can't read my ibooks that I have downloaded from iTunes on my Macbook Pro. While I do have an iPad, I really do not understand the logic of this. I am working on my Macbook Pro right now and charging my iPad. And I have a large screen on my Mac Pro that would be great for reading the Graphic Novel that I just downloaded.

What the heck is going on here... Seriously! I have been a very happy Mac user and switched after 20 yrs of PCs. I have 2 MB Pros, a Mac Pro, iPhone, AppleTV1 and 2, Time Capsule and LOTS of material in iTunes. But finding out that I cannot read books on my laptops/desktop actually makes me wonder if I need to reconsider the Apple world. Pretty extreme, yes... but this just seems so strange and illogical to me.

Has anyone at Apple ever publicly addressed this?

Keatsfan

keatsfan wrote:

 

But finding out that I cannot read books on my laptops/desktop

It's perfectly possible to read books on those machines, just not paid-for ebooks with DRM from the iBookstore.  Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Googlebooks will all work on your Mac, so you have plenty of choice (more than from the iBookstore in any case).

As far as I know, Apple has never commented on the lack of an iBooks app for OS X despite the many complaints about that for the last two years.

I thought I made it clear that I was talking about not being able to view books downloaded from iTunes on my MB Pro...

In any case, I do have Stanza and the Kindle reader installed on my MB Pro.

And I still do not understand the rationale behind not including an iBook app with OS X. I have never seen the "walled garden" approach within a vendor's OWN walls and I am very disappointed with Apple for implementing things this way.

keatsfan wrote:

 

I still do not understand the rationale behind not including an iBook app with OS X. I have never seen the "walled garden" approach within a vendor's OWN walls and I am very disappointed with Apple for implementing things this way.

Agreed.  I have never in fact heard anyone disagree with your view of the matter.

All of the work around solutions have been helpful for any book that does not have any DRM protection. I buy my books from the damm ibook store and can read via adobe editions because of DRM. This is exactly why people circumnavigate these lame protections. I'll read the stupid books in itunes just make a solution already!

Folks, rather than worry about a lot of work arounds, just vote with your feet.

Both Kindle Reader and the Chapters/Indigo Kobo reader have seamless operation between the iPad and laptops, and both have superior interface design over iBooks.

I'd love to use iBooks on both my iPad and my MacBook Pro, but Kindle and Kobo are readily available and work better too.

So that's what I use.

The only problem with that logic is if you are already invested in numerous parts of Apple's "Walled Garden" it does not make sense to just get a kindle. I use my iPad for a lot of things; reading books is just a small part of it. But it IRKS me that Apple is restricting how I use the content that I pay for from THEIR OWN STORE.

If they irk me enough times in enough ways, I WILL walk. But have not reached that threshold. It just makes me resent Apple in the same way that I resented MS 10-15 yrs ago. I thought Apple would have avoided this situation with its customers...

keatsfan

keatsfan wrote:

 

it does not make sense to just get a kindle.

You have perhaps missed the point.  You don't need a kindle, just the free kindle reader app for both the iPad and the Mac.

Fair enough on books you've purchased.

For new ones, try the Kindle or Kobo reader apps for iPad and laptop to see if you like them.

Both let you browse and find books more easily than iBooks and, if your iPad runs out of power, you can fire up your laptop and they'll prompt you to jump to the page you left off.

Purchasing is pretty seamless and both have instantly intuitive interfaces with slightly different approaches.

I've had great experience with Apple over the last 30 years and was fully game to try iBooks, but the competition just offers a superior user experience right now.

I have the Kindle reader. And I have not missed the point, which was made earlier in the thread. When I have bought into the Apple world, why would they restrict how I view content on certain devices and not others.

To me, this is not only disrespecting your customers but it seems to go against the logic of adopting the "Walled Garden" approach. Apple is somehow telling me that if I accept this model, they are going to further segment their garden???

That really bothers me.

keatsfan wrote:

 

I have the Kindle reader. And I have not missed the point, which was made earlier in the thread. When I have bought into the Apple world, why would they restrict how I view content on certain devices and not others.

 

To me, this is not only disrespecting your customers but it seems to go against the logic of adopting the "Walled Garden" approach. Apple is somehow telling me that if I accept this model, they are going to further segment their garden???

 

That really bothers me.

To be technical though, you do not own the copyright content you paid for.  You bought essentially a license to use it, not the actual intellectual property itself.  So actually the copyright holder and the reseller do have rights to place limitations on how the use of the property is defined.  You cannot re-distribute it, for example.

It is one of the big issues with electronic media that publishers and sellers have yet to really deal with, and I understand it is annoying.  But the reality is that Apple does have rights to say how an ebook purchased from their iBook store will be used - which apps it will be DRM locked to and which platforms will support those apps and so on.  Since iBooks are in epub format, they could just work with Adobe to enable Adobe Digital Editions to work with iBook DRM so you could load those iBooks on any epub capable ereader app or device, but they have not done that either, and nothing says they are required to.

The limitations of iBooks speak for themselves - who are the dominant sellers of ebooks?  Not Apple.  I love my iPad, iPhone and MBP, but I own a Nook Simple Touch for ereading, and I have never purchased an iBook (I have purchased many ebooks from B&N, Kobo store, and Google though and read all of them on my Nook, or in the Nook app on my MBP, or the Nook program on my Windows box, or my iPhone or iPad using the Nook app).