Nicolas Online

Q: Every Single Problem with iBooks for Mac

Hello,

 

It is disappointing that as Apple users we are used to doing things a certain way for years, and Apple's way forward results in less functionality and flexibility.

 

Here is a list of all the problems I have been facing with iBooks for Mac:

 

1. Transfer of Books to iPad or iPhone from iBooks is non-existant. If I create or download a DRM-free epub and or PDF and add it to iBooks for Mac (i.e. it wasn't downloaded from the iBooks Store), there is no direct way to transfer them to your iOS device through iBooks. Even books downloaded from the iBooks Store, since iBooks itself doesn't allow the transfer of files to the iOS device.

 

2. iBooks doesn't allow us to Edit metadata. Many PDFs come without metadata. And to organize them into the library as was previously possible in iTunes, we could add Author, Genre, Year, etc... Also even for books we actually download from the iBooks Store maybe we want to change the Genre or Category the book is in or simplify the Author's name.

 

3. iBooks essentially duplicates any PDF or ePub we drag to it into it's own library. Acting like iTunes "Copy files to iTunes Media Library when adding to library". If I have hundreds of PDF's that are hundreds of Megabytes in size, I don't want them duplicated again, especially when it's duplicated on my default Macintosh HD whom many people have as SSDs nowadays.

 

4. iBooks doesn't allow us to create or choose multiple libraries and have them in any destination we want (like it is possible with iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture, etc). By Option-Clicking on iBooks we should have that option.

 

5. The ability to delete Collections in iBooks for Mac.

 

All the above problems are surprising, as what essentially Apple has done is a book reader, and not a book library management tool. With books becoming more and more digital and more and more people using them, so does the amount of books in one's collection grow. It is virtually impossible to manage any book collection with such a lack of features.

 

Should anyone have solutions to the aformentioned problems or ideas on how to overcome them, please feel free to post them here.

 

Should anyone have other problems they encountered in this initial version of iBooks, please feel free to post them here, as this would be a good place to sythesize all that's bothering a lot of people with this new phase into Apple's ecosystem of iBooks.

 

Thank you,

 

Nick

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 3:24 AM

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Q: Every Single Problem with iBooks for Mac

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  • by Nicolas Online,

    Nicolas Online Nicolas Online Nov 4, 2013 10:15 AM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Nov 4, 2013 10:15 AM in response to Nicolas Online

    apparently apple is prepapring an update of the version of ibooks, but not the important changes like editing metadata and controlling our library.

     

    http://9to5mac.com/2013/11/04/apple-readies-ibooks-safari-remote-desktop-and-mai l-bug-fix-updates-for-mavericks/

  • by NcStevenB,

    NcStevenB NcStevenB Nov 6, 2013 7:44 AM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Nov 6, 2013 7:44 AM in response to Nicolas Online

    Okay, I have a solution that works for getting books onto your iPad.  I used to use Calibre and connect through iTunes.  That no longer works.

     

    I still use Calibre to manage the books.  Basic steps are:

    1. Get book from whatever source
    2. Add book to calibre
    3. Convert book to epub
    4. Export epub version of book to a folder
    5. Open the folder in Finder
    6. Double Click on the book to open it in iBooks
    7. Move the book to whatever collection you want
    8. Connect your iPad to your computer
    9. In iTunes choose to sync the book just as you always did.

     

    It took me a while to discover, but it seems to work flawlessly now.

     

    You can also bypass iBooks entirely by

    1. Emailing the book to yourself as an attachment
    2. Opening the email on your iPad
    3. Telling the iPad to open the attachment with iBooks

     

    Hope that helps those of you that have had the frustrations I have.

     

    Steven

  • by mschmitz,

    mschmitz mschmitz Nov 6, 2013 8:12 AM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 6, 2013 8:12 AM in response to Nicolas Online

    iBooks destroyd my whole library which has taken me years to built up. Over 900 titles are missing. Cloud shows the same title over 20 times with hundreds of books and I am unable do download and restore them. iBooks on my iPad is extremely necessary for my work as for nearly most of us. I am using Mac now since 1988 and this software is definetively the worst Apple ever made. This will cost me countless hours to solve.

     

    My final conclusion is: I will downgrade back to Lion and definetely wait a long time of careful researches before upgrading ever again.

  • by Nicolas Online,

    Nicolas Online Nicolas Online Nov 6, 2013 3:18 PM in response to mschmitz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Nov 6, 2013 3:18 PM in response to mschmitz

    I WISH I never upgraded to MAVERICKS and stayed on Mountain Lion. But now with the new MacBook Pro retina I wonder if I'll be able to downgrade to Mountain Lion since the notebook comes preinstalled with Mavericks and I wish I never updated to iOS 7. The Music app in there is an absolute fiasco. It's absolutely mind-boggling apple would let this happen. They feel like beta releases. Absolutely un-believable. It's the first time in a decade of using their products that I feel this let down. Un-believable.

  • by Nicolas Online,

    Nicolas Online Nicolas Online Nov 7, 2013 3:20 PM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Nov 7, 2013 3:20 PM in response to Nicolas Online

    Guys,

     

    Anyone have an update, apparentley Apple updated its iBooks for Mac application today. What did they fix? Any changes to the original problem? How do we get iBooks back if we deleted it to test this new release out?

     

    http://9to5mac.com/2013/11/07/apple-releases-ibooks-for-mac-1-0-1-with-bug-fixes -and-stabilty-improvements/

     

    Nick

  • by mschmitz,

    mschmitz mschmitz Nov 8, 2013 4:33 AM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 8, 2013 4:33 AM in response to Nicolas Online

    An open letter to Apple

     

    And

     

    To whom it may concern

     

    Steve, where are you?

     

    Maverick is Windows 8 for MacIntosh and iBooks for Mac destroyed my entire library and erased my .pdf’s! Years of work and thousands of Annotations are down the drain. Thank you very much!


     

     

     

    Dear Apple

    Dear Tim Cook, Apple Developers & Quality Management

     

     

    You used to be a brilliant company, a trendsetter and innovative leader that served us users for decades with superb hard- & software like OS X, the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Everything years ahead of the market. Now you have become a product enhancement company wich even delivers untested devastating things. You have begun your long way down. Of course on a very high level. Maybe you have grown too fast.

     

    After the FinalCut Pro X, the MapApp and the iOS Android (7) disaster, Apple has now supplied iBooks for Mac. A software that destroyed the work of years, costs days of researches in the community and restoring everything from previous versions, which hopefully they have. This is for thousands of people around the globe who depend on their carefully organized and stored literature on the i-devices.

     

    I am not only a Mac-user, I am a Mac disciple since 1988. But now the time has come to search for alternatives. Unfortunately there is none. At the Moment! Anyway, the Market is not sleeping and one day there will be one.

     

    With the best wishes for your (and our) future

     

    Michael

     

     

    P.S.: After carefully trying the suggested solutions from the community, unfortunately without any lasting success, I eventually decided to downgrade back to 10.8 Mountain Lion and wait until OS Kangaroo or Dolphin or however the coming Mac OS might be called.

     

     

     

    (Feel free to copy and share this if you like.)

  • by yiannisl,

    yiannisl yiannisl Nov 8, 2013 7:04 AM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 8, 2013 7:04 AM in response to Nicolas Online

    Hello Everybody,

     

    Like All of You, I was completely shocked with iBooks!

    So shocked, that I am not going to allow this to happen, EVER AGAIN.

    I don't care at all what kind of upgrades they are planning on doing, or WHAT THE HECK they THINK they are doing!

     

    What I will do; Mobile SSD & DropBox! Oh, Yes!

     

    Every single PDF I have will be First Stored & Updated on a beautiful 2,5" mobile SSD (Its Ok, only renaming filenames will work for me, at least for the ones I do not own), and then copied to my DropBox Folder. Then with the relavant DropBox app for my device, I will be opening my PDFs ("Open In iBooks" function) and saving them into iBooks!

     

    People you can try it, if you wish. Soooo Easy & Fast! PLUS, your PDFs are Safe!

  • by John Potts,

    John Potts John Potts Nov 8, 2013 12:59 PM in response to mschmitz
    Level 4 (3,108 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 8, 2013 12:59 PM in response to mschmitz

    mschmitz wrote:

     

    An open letter to Apple

     

     

    P.S.: After carefully trying the suggested solutions from the community, unfortunately without any lasting success, I eventually decided to downgrade back to 10.8 Mountain Lion and wait until OS Kangaroo or Dolphin or however the coming Mac OS might be called.

     

     

    Michael, I heard a rumour the next OS may be called Dodo.

  • by Sekayvi,

    Sekayvi Sekayvi Nov 8, 2013 9:11 PM in response to Courtney Trusty
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 8, 2013 9:11 PM in response to Courtney Trusty

    Thank you, thank you, Courtney! That works great.

    I created a folder, linked the folder to Calibre, download books to that folder (Calibre still calls it a "device), then synch individual books in the folder with iTunes.

     

    Unfortunately it seems you have to do each book individually, but at least it works.

  • by CB500X,

    CB500X CB500X Nov 10, 2013 8:27 AM in response to AntiEverything
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iPhone
    Nov 10, 2013 8:27 AM in response to AntiEverything

    Do you mean to say that you actually used items that were NOT downloaded from Apple Store? How dare you! Of course you should not expect them to work on an Apple machine if they are from outside what has been approved by Mother Apple. Apple learned its lesson many moons ago when it was financially decimated by MIcrosoft as it (Apple) allowed people to easily and freely move things around between platforms and programs in contrast to Microsoft's eco-control approach. Of course, Apple then recovered (largely as a result of its care for its customers as well as the simplicity of its software), but now the big A seems to have copied Microsoft's "we own your soul" approach. I do wonder if Apple will soon join the long downhill slide that comes to all of those companies who lose sight of the main game - which is to keep the customer satisfied. I hope not.

  • by Nicolas Online,

    Nicolas Online Nicolas Online Nov 11, 2013 3:58 AM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Nov 11, 2013 3:58 AM in response to Nicolas Online
  • by mike607,

    mike607 mike607 Nov 11, 2013 6:19 AM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2013 6:19 AM in response to Nicolas Online

    It would be nice if the program worked. That article is fiction when it comes to this program. Apple Maps all over again.

  • by connie184,

    connie184 connie184 Nov 11, 2013 7:01 AM in response to mike607
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 11, 2013 7:01 AM in response to mike607

    Rather than try and clean up after the Apple team, who seem to have let their jobs go to their heads and forgotten they work for the users not themselves, I am trying to figure out a way to clean Maverick off my computer.

     

    Thankfully I have a MacBook Air that has all of my books on it without the iBook debaucle on it. 

     

    The worst part of all is that the major reason I bought an iPad was for reading and keeping my many many photography eBooks on it now most of them are gone from the iPad.  It is also frustrating that it requires at least 5-6 different apps just to meet the needs of the arrogance of the software and publishing communities.

     

    Pretty disgusted with them right now.

  • by MacPedras,

    MacPedras MacPedras Nov 11, 2013 12:17 PM in response to Nicolas Online
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 11, 2013 12:17 PM in response to Nicolas Online

    What a nice article. Not.

     

    They say:

    "Clicking on “Categories” shows you the genre the books fall under. These are predefined from the iBooks Store and you cannot change the categories."

     

    Which is not true because I have some categories defined "COMPUTERS / Web Development" or "Math - Data Mining" or this one "COMPUTERS / Social Aspects / Human-Computer Interaction"

     

    I don't believe that this are categories predefined on the ibook store.

  • by MouldySquid,

    MouldySquid MouldySquid Nov 12, 2013 12:26 PM in response to MacPedras
    Level 1 (10 points)
    iBooks
    Nov 12, 2013 12:26 PM in response to MacPedras

    iBooks reads the <dc:subject> tag in the epub "contents.opf" file. Unfortunately for most, publishers use all kinds of idosyncratic labels here and it is very annoying (scifi instead of Science Fiction or stories instead of Anthology). If you are saavy enough with epubs, you can alter the content of this tag prior to importing it into iBooks. Not a solution for everyone, granted, but some might find it useful.

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