
Tell me what surprised you: iPad Edition - soundsop
http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201005#18
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aaronbrethorst
The equal footing argument is absolutely not true. iBooks uses private APIs to
control hardware features like screen brightness that are not available to 3rd
party developers.

If I was to submit an eBook app to the AppStore that had feature parity with
iBooks, it would be rejected by Apple's reviewers for using private APIs.

See <http://www.marco.org/500743718> for more on this

~~~
potatolicious
Also, iBooks has in-app purchasing, the Kindle app forces you to quit the app
and launch your browser to shop for books. It's not the end of the world, but
is a substandard user experience.

I don't have any inside info on this, but rumor has it that not only does
Apple want their 30% cut for using their in-app purchasing service, but also
that you are not permitted to implement your own, hence Amazon's between a
rock and a hard place. Either give Apple 30% of all e-book revenue or provide
a substandard experience to users.

All in all, seems like old Amazon is getting a pretty raw deal.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I don't think that's a rumor. I think it's pretty well grounded in fact that
Apple is the reason you can't buy Kindle books inside the Kindle apps on iPad
and iPhone.

And it's definitely a raw deal. No question about that.

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cmelbye
The main point of the article (which was that Apple made no attempt to include
or inform the user about iBooks) is completely false which confuses me. When
the App Store is first launched, a big colourful dialog comes up asking if the
user would like to install iBooks.

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Tichy
"it absolutely beats the snot out of Kindle for the iPhone/iPad in pretty much
every way (except book prices, which are much higher than Amazon's)"

So I take you can't just transfer books between the two? Sorry, Apple and
Amazon, but unless I can't own the books I buy from you, I won't become a
customer.

"page numbers. Compare them in Kindle vs. iBooks. Someone at Amazon needs to
be shot."

He wants to shoot people for messing up page numbers? Creepy.

~~~
thwarted
Agreed, the page numbers complaint is bogus. The kindle doesn't even have page
numbers to mess up because "pages" don't make sense when you can navigate to
any line and change the font size. The last thing you want is to be stuck with
an old limitation when the paradigm changes.

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akkartik
He's channeling my favorite PG essay.

"When friends came back from faraway places, it wasn't just out of politeness
that I asked what they saw. I really wanted to know. And I found the best way
to get information out of them was to ask what surprised them. How was the
place different from what they expected? This is an extremely useful question.
You can ask it of the most unobservant people, and it will extract information
they didn't even know they were recording."
<http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html>

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chrisbolt
_For the record, iBooks is doing pretty well so far: it absolutely beats the
snot out of Kindle for the iPhone/iPad in pretty much every way (except book
prices, which are much higher than Amazon's)._

I'm surprised he didn't bring up book _selection_ , where Kindle beats iBooks
by far.

~~~
roc
Or readability. Or fonts. Or design aesthetic. I can't _stand_ iBooks.

And _page numbers_? What archaic nonsense is _that_? This must be the only guy
who lamented the loss of "Side" demarcation when tapes gave way to CDs.

~~~
chrisbolt
I must admit, "3 pages left in chapter" is kind of nice.

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buster
Am i the only one that found the Paris analogy and surprises more interesting?
:P

" What surprised me about Paris was that, at their fruit stands, every fruit
is arranged with absolute care and precision. Compare to a typical grocery
store in Canada, where fruit is typically dumped into a bin so you can sort
through it yourself. When I think about how much more time it must take to do
it the hard way, yes, it surprises me. How can they afford to do that? It's
magic. (I also had other related observations at the time.)"

Magic? It's the same in germany and i guess many other european countries
too.. Never occured to me to throw all the fruits into one basket randomly..
:D

Those little differences around the world can be so interesting.

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bodhi
Doesn't it have something to do with international licensing issues? Which
seems odd to say as it's not been released worldwide yet.

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tzs
The most important differences I've found between the iBooks app and the
Kindle app are that iBooks supports searching and Kindle supports notes.

When contemplating purchasing a book, I ask which of those I'm more likely to
need.

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watty
So what was his reasoning for leaving it off the device? To be less
"Microsoft" and because they want to compete? Right...

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evgen
It was left off the base load of the device so that it could be revved
quicker. If there are bugs in an app store application you can push a fix, if
there are bugs in mobilesafari or the maps application the only way to update
them is to cut a new release of the OS.

