
I'ma Set It Straight, This Watergate - dwynings
http://daringfireball.net/2012/01/ima_set_it_straight_this_watergate
======
rickmb
I don't like Apple's proprietary tactics (not any proprietary format for
ebooks for that matter), but greed and incompetence on the side of the
publishers killed the viability of ePub as a standard a long time ago.

It's virtually impossible to publish anything other than simple text without
running into all kinds of trouble with the different interpretation and
implementation of ePub in various readers.

Apple should have just completely created their own format instead of
extending ePub, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now Apple has
become the convenient scapegoat for ePub's failure, whilst others, most
notably Amazon, get a free pass for doing exactly the same.

~~~
rmccue
I would argue the same as Gruber and say that they did create their own
format. Whether or not it looks like ePub under the surface is irrelevant,
since it's a .ibooks file, not a .epub. Since it's Apple's format, they can do
whatever they want with it without having to worry about how other readers
interpret the format.

(Unless you mean it would have been easier from their point, in which case I
also disagree, since this allows them to use their existing ePub code.)

------
Steko
The central problem with Ed Bott's article is here:

"Apple has chosen to leverage its dominant position in the tablet market to
try to hobble its competitors in the ebook-publishing business. "

This is total bullshit. If Apple wanted to "hobble their competitors" with
their tablet share they would probably have done so by banning Amazon's Kindle
app and they would have done it (for real) years ago.

This has little to do with tablet share other then Apple's only play for a
successful niche was to play to the ipad's advantages over Amazon's suite of
devices.

Don't get me wrong I'm sure they do want to "hobble their competitors" just
like everyone else does it's just they aren't the 900 pound gorilla in the
ebook market.

What Apple's doing here is quite simple. They are building a niche to start to
attack Amazon with. They had to innovate it in a completely new direction
because of the huge Kindle lock in moat Amazon has built {Apple knows a thing
or two about lock in}. So they needed to innovate and be the leader somewhere,
anywhere. Interactivity and textbooks are what they decided on.

Ed Bott thinks Apple should just sell the same textbook as Amazon plus a
widget. Apple probably thought about that but realized the plus a widget
version would cost extra and people/school districts would buy the cheaper
version from Amazon or whoever.

So they went the exclusive route. Here's out format, here's the tools that
make it easy, and here's the catch: sell on our store only. It's that simple.
It had to be exclusives.

Ed Bott thinks Apple is evil but he should look at the score over the last 2
years: iBooks is getting raped by Kindle and Ed Bott's claimed solution wasn't
gonna change that.

------
rfrey
_Bott points to this iBooks FAQ from Apple, which states that the only formats
supported by iBooks are industry-standard ePub and PDF. Given that the
modification date on this FAQ is 22 December 2011, it seems clear that this is
simply an outdated FAQ_

This makes it sound like relying on a 4-week old FAQ constitutes shoddy
journalism. It's not "clear" to me at all that the FAQ is outdated. It _still_
says: "iBooks uses the ePub file format" - if it is just stale-dated
information, nobody there thinks it's important enough to change.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Given that he was talking about a change which occurred as part of a major
product launch which has happened since the FAQ was published I think it is
shoddy journalism. I don't think it takes a genius to work out that when a new
product is launch old documentation might not apply to it.

Moreover he knows for a fact that it's no longer accurate - he's discussing a
new file format (.ibook) the existence of which provably falsifies the
statement in the FAQ.

In terms of changing updating the FAQ yes it would be good but as far as I can
tell for Apple and most others common practice is to leave the old version and
add a new version rather than change them. It can make finding the right
information difficult and certainly product versions on them as well as the
date would be useful but I don't think you can read much into the fact that
no-one bothers to manage their information on-line particularly well.

------
extension
"Embracing and extending" is not a destructive thing in itself. What makes it
destructive is when the extensions are difficult for others to implement,
because they are coupled to some proprietary thing that can't be reproduced.
In Microsoft's case, that was Windows. Is Apple technologically locking
authors into their platform? Will books not be published elsewhere because the
content can't be migrated to another app?

But what matters in the end is the "extinguish" part, and that can happen
without the first two steps. Sometimes a technology pushes competing
technologies out of existence, for a variety of reasons, such as being
_better_. Embracing and extending just greases the gears.

------
Steko
I love how Amazon has like 90% of the ebook market (more?) but it's Apple
that's killing the industry with their entirely optional free authoring tool.

------
ZeroGravitas
_"This is another case of people acting surprised and/or disappointed that
Apple, a for-profit company, is acting like a for-profit company."_ \-- John
Gruber

Considering he said that about the same situation only yesterday, he seems a
bit upset that someone is "accusing" Apple of "acting like a for-profit
company".

~~~
Punted
Has Gruber ever used this excuse, "This is another case of people acting
surprised and/or disappointed that ______, a for-profit company, is acting
like a for-profit company," in defence of an action by Google?

(Has Gruber ever written an article in defense of Google?)

------
melling
I haven't followed the iBook story but I do have a simple question. If I write
a book then decide a year from now to publish in a different format, am I
allowed to take all of my material and construct an ePub, for example?

~~~
riffraff
Yes, you are only forbidden from redistributing the ibook file you produced
with apple's software.

~~~
Terretta
And you can actually redistribute it yourself as widely as you like, just not
take cash for it except in their store.

