Apple search technology is maddening
iBooks on the iPad: typed "REST".
Results: "No rest for the dead", "Rest stop surprise", etc.
How many results did it pull-up? Don't know.
Can I narrow it down? Nope.
If I want to find something relevant it seems that I have to scan through pages-upon-pages of irrelevant crap without any knowledge of how far I have to go.
OK, my fault. Try "REST API".
One book.
Well, how about "RESTful"?
OK, I did a little better here. I got a bunch of relevant books on the first page.
How many results? How many pages? Don't know.
OK, I tried to get cute: "REST programming".
No results.
Let me fire-up iTunes on my computer and search there.
"REST".
I get a pile of results in all media types. I am here to search for books. I click on Books. "No rest for the wicked" again. No idea of how far the rabbit hole goes. Also, I am looking at a slow paginated interface. Lists would be better. But no, I have to page through the results a whole 16 entries at a time.
"RESTful"
I have "Books" already selected.
All results again!
Click on "Books".
Now I have to click on another "Books" "see all" link; "Audiobooks" on top.
The good news is that most of the books on the page are relevant.
How many did it find? How many pages? Don't know.
Let's try Amazon.
Search is set to "All".
"REST"
323,473 results
Top 9 are relevant.
Click on "Computers & Technology" under "Books" on the left side (under "Department").
157 results. Nearly all relevant.
"Programming" says it has 82 results; "Web Development" 57; "Computer Science" 11, etc.
Click on "Programming". Bingo!
After typing my keyword and hitting enter plus two additional filtering clicks I have all the relevant results I could want.
On iBooks or iTunes, as far as I could tell, there's almost no way to get there.
I am buying the book on Kindle.