I am not certain what spurred me to finally give Apple's iBooks a chance. The Kindle device, I think, is a near-perfect gadget. Plus, I have been buying books (physical) from Amazon since before there was an iBooks. Before even an iPhone or iPod. Plus, I typically refrain from using Apple apps as a sort of mini protest against the fact that the apps Apple embeds into every iOS device, such as Stocks, isn't that good. And so, like many of you, I place all the Apple app icons in a single folder and banish it to the last screen of my iPhone and iPad
Nonetheless, probably after all the big numbers Apple listed at last month's WWDC, where they touted over 130 million iBooks sales, that I decided to give the app -- and its mini 'book store' -- a try.
Quick verdict: surprisingly, it's just as good, possibly better than the Kindle app.
That said, there are some quirks when using iBooks. First and foremost, unlike MUSIC (currently iPod) or VIDEO, both of which come pre-installed in your iOS device, you have to go to the App Store, search for the iBooks app, then download it all before you can make your first purchase. I expect that with iOS 5, iBooks will get the same content love from Apple and come pre-installed.
Next, comes fail. A minor fail, to be sure, but considering this is Apple, a minor fail is noteable. I like the Kindle iconography, honestly. The boy under the tree reading a book. Plus, I think it deceptive, in a good way, that the color scheme for the Kindle icon highly suggests that said boy is reading said book on his said Kindle in the dark. Or at least at twilight. Which, as a Kindle owner, I can assure you, does not happen. Unless you are Superman. Apple, which has been on a path to create obvious icons to represent the obvious content said icons 'hold', such as the musical notes in the "iTunes" icon offers a drawing of a book. With no letters on it.
No big deal, I understand. And they are seeking universaility and a sense of permanance with its content iconography. Still, it's not even great, let alone insanely great. The real problem I have is that when you finally download iBooks and open it up, your books are laid out in what appears to be a poor man's Ikea knock off bookshelf. Kindle presents a list of your books, by cover; one down on small screens, such as iPhone, or several across, such as on iPad. Again, minor, but it would be nice if Apple did something more than offer up what appears to be a smallish shopping mall bookstore analog. To be fair, however, the one great feature in iBooks that makes use of the bookshelf metaphor is that it is very easy to select books from your collection to make a distinct bookshelf. Children's books, for example, can all go on their own bookshelf. Sci-Fi. Fiction or non-fiction. This is very easy to create on iBooks and does not exist on the Kindle app (on the Kindle device you can create various 'collections').
Next, buying a book. The Kindle app provides a link to the Kindle Store, where you can search books by title, author; browse by category, review bestseller lists. Nearly every book you could want is available. Except, of course, for those that are not. And if they are not available on Kindle, odds are good they are not available on iBooks. In my very limited tests, there was no book I would even consider purchasing that was available on one platform but not the other. Likewise, if it was not available on Kindle say, it was not available in iBooks. Similarly, in my limited personal tests, prices were equivalent. You may wish to verify this, per your tastes and consumption habits.
Personally, I found the iBooks store easier to navigate. The emphasis from the start is on more popular books and authors, which is typically not the content I am seeking, but searching or scanning, say across iBooks bestseller lists or New York Times bestsellers was, in my experience, easier than with the Kindle store. Likewise, data on the book, reviews and other information was ever-so-slightly better presented in iBooks. Again, these are minor personal preferences. In either store, buying and downloading is near-magical. Because Kindle (must) take you 'outside' the app, on iOS devices, there is a bit of a lag and a slight disconnect from a truly seamless buying process. For example, when you press "Store" on iBooks, the cheap bookshelf spins, James Bond villain like, and you are at the store. With Kindle, you get the sense you are being transported, and not for your own good.
I am a long-time Amazon customer, use Amazon prime, and have had 1-click purchase settings established for years. Both Apple and Amazon have millions and millions of customers with credit cards on file and instant purchasing already established.
For me, the real test comes in the reading of the book.
I have a Kindle 3 and an iPad. This is not a device review but a app/store review. Both Kindle (the device) and iPad (2) are amongst the greatest personal gadgets ever constructed and made available to the common man. Rich people on private jets could have no better. Here, I am concentrating on the app/store and reading experience.
As stated above, to my surprise, iBooks won. Barely.
The small menu of icons running across the top of every page in your iBooks book takes up little room, and lets you very quickly, intuitively, adjust screen lighting, font size, font. You can search, access the table of contents, create a bookmark. Hold or double click on a word and you can highlight a passage, access a dictionary, make a note or search on that word.
You do not have page numbers, obviously. Since you can synch across iOS devices, of varying screen sizes, and adjust font and font size, page numbers would be a false value. Instead, iBooks has a row of dots along the bottom of every page. These are to convey how far you are into the book.
Presentation on Kindle is similar, albeit with more emphasis on the actual written word. Which is good. But, in thise case, the device is the medium, and though Kindle presentation is more book-like, on a personal computing device, I can't honestly say that makes for a better experience. Unlike iBooks, there is no menu of icons on every 'page'. Rather, to create a bookmark, change font size, search, you must first tap the screen. Then a menu appears. It is much like iBooks in function. For me, though at first I thought the Kindle presentation was superior, since I frequently accidentally tapped the screen with my left thumb, which calls up the Kindle menu, which stops the reading process, I decided that the permanent menu on iBooks, even if that meant slightly less space for text, was preferable.
I did like the fact that Kindle offers page numbers. This changes according to the device and settings. For example, you are told if you are on page 33 of 333, for example.
Overall, use one, use both, it should not matter. Suddenly, we are in a world where there are tens of thousands of books available to us, for free, that can be instantly placed on our personal devices, available to us for reading at any moment, any location. And, for popular books, these are typically cheaper -- even if they ought to be significantly cheaper -- then the physical editions that you must go to a physical store to purchase.
For readers, particularly for readers of books, we are on the cusp of a new golden age.
That said, if you choose just one, forget what I've written above, and choose Kindle.
There are two reasons for this. First, I don't like the idea of having all my content purchased from one store, one provider.
Second, and most importantly, Kindle provides a superior level of ownership. Yes, these are books you have purchased. You own them. It's just that with iBooks, none of your books can go outside the iOS ecosystem. Not so with Kindle. You can have a Kindle app on your laptop, on your iPhone, on your Kindle the Device. Not only do books synch across these devices, but, more importantly, they are *available* across these devices.
Kindle is platform agnostic. True, all 'your' purchases are within the Kindle walled garden. It's just that that garden has much lower walls.
Which makes me wonder: for all the decades-long talk from fanboys and haters alike, asking if Apple should license its OS, will iCloud render this question obsolete? If the (native) app becomes the visual-interactive replacement for the desktop, and we access our data, content, books, music, Word docs, numbers, etc. from within a dedicated app, and said content/data is 'stored' in the cloud, and Apple offers synching via iCloud, then why not offer synching of apps and their respective content across all devices? Even those that are not Apple devices?
But, that is for another day.
For today, we can read, whatever we like, at much lower cost, wherever and whenever. Using iBooks or Kindle is a blessing, whichever you choose.
