Do we really want our information mediated/censored by this sort of corporate behavior?
I've grown to accept Apple's App Store policies for the sake of keeping app quality high. However, when it comes to distributing content that people actually use to learn new things and enrich their lives, there is absolutely no room for this type of policy. To anyone who is selling their books via Apple: GTFO right now.
Um, wut? OK, you probably meant ebooks, but iBooks -- created by iBooks Author -- can be bought only from Apple.
...Barnes and Noble’s budget electronic edition of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” had searched for and replaced all incidences of the word “kindled” (a variant of the name of Amazon’s e-reader, of course, but also a legitimate English word) with the word “Nookd.”...
Apple can, and will, decide what expression will be published. It's not a platform, it's more like a newspaper classified section, with bias.
That's what I used to believe their business was.
Now, it's clear that an iBook is not a book. It is a digital material sold to people who like to consume content via their pretty and pricy devices. I agree that Apple makes it fun to consume content their way. And I'm sure that for the most part, people can still mostly absorb all the same knowledge that they would from a traditional paper book. But, this content has to be approved and modified to be consumed and therefor, it is not a book.
So the reason I am not comfortable with all this is for the reason I stated above. I was essentially tricked into believing they were selling books. Now that probably sounds extreme. But, the truth is that I am an educated "tech person" who looks at this stuff every day, and I did not think about this problem until now. The people they are trying to sell to are those in education, who are going to be raising and educating young people by reading these iBooks. When I was a kid, we were taught that books were magical and that the more we read, the more open our minds would become. In elementary school, we made us sing songs about books to make reading seem more fun and appealing.
If schools are adopting this form of content, then they are telling young people that the best way to learn things is via a model that is filtered (simply to increase Apple's profits).
Major distribution has always meant going through filters. The publishing houses reject most of the stuff that comes through their doors, and bookstores only buy a fraction of the stuff that the publishing houses put out. If you are scandalized that Apple rejects one book out of millions, I can only suppose it's because you aren't familiar with legacy publishing. Traditionally, only a tiny fraction of books ever had a chance to be seen by readers.
(I say this not to defend Apple, per se, but to illustrate how good writers have really got it now if this is considered a subject of outrage. Just ten years ago, getting rejected was the expected outcome of trying to get a book published!)
And yes, you are right. I am admittedly ignorant to the nuances and history of publishing, and am thus probably neglecting to look at this from different angles.
They have actively worked to disable any other store - for example, the kindle app cannot allow purchases or even link to the kindle store online, you have to manually search out links online instead, then download. It's absurd, not in the users' interests, and an abuse of Apple's power over the platform, but that's what Apple require.
There are plenty of alternate options to iBookStore. Nobody is forcing you to use it.
If book stores are curating simply based on physical space then all of them would pick the top 1000 books in order to maximise profits. But they don't. They curate based on the type of books THEY want to sell and that represents them.
Thats not creepy at all.
And this one message travels the world. For our standards, here in Holland, the app store policy representa fundamentalistic christian values. If they keep this up,we might actually see legislation concerning allowing side-loading.
Really?
I mean, yes this is clearly terrible, but if you're surprised by Apple doing this then you haven't been paying much attention the past few years.
I don't begrudge people who choose to use Apple products, they certainly have their charms, but I do get slightly annoyed when they are suddenly offended when Apple does something like this because post-App Store Apple pulls crap like this all the time.
It's not that I'm surprised that Apple would do this. I am just shocked that the definition of "book" could change in front of everyone's eyes and the common person will ignore it because they enjoy Apple's "magical" devices.
It's sad to see the awful attitudes a company can get away with when it makes such sleek and wonderful products.
> pulls crap like this all the time.
Its about one thing: extorting content producers, by limiting access to consumers. And they will eventually get into legal trouble. Its textbook anti-competitive, and if they ever get big enough to be a "monopoly" every aspect of their policy would need to change.
Regardless, this is a bullshit move from Apple, and it's starting to wear on me. And that's saying something, because I do love their products and forgive many missteps because I really do love their products.
I am in this case amazed to find a book store refusing to stock a book on professional writing because the book contains details of other book stores that a writer might find useful, or for them to suggest to the author that those elements be removed from the book as a condition of sale.
The comparison is absurd anyway as the main drive for the selection process of what to stock in a brick and mortar bookshop is the limits of physical space in a bookshop, which is not really an issue for ebook stores.
http://business.time.com/2012/02/06/in-latest-moves-barnes-n...
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0206/I...