Does anyone actually use Apple Books?

I also use Kobo as it supports Overdrive and I can borrow ebook via my local library

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I prefer Apple Books over the Kindle app for the iPad or Mac. The selection is bigger for Kindle, so I still get a few books in Kindle format. I found the annotation and copy and paste of quoted text superior in Apple Books, which was the factor that swung me over.

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Apple Books cannot highlight PDFs. I never cease to be amazed at this.

The method of highlighting is crude, Select text, Choose Highlight from the menu, then Select Color, underline, etc., but it does work.

On iOS as well? That is surprising. It has been a while since I checked if this was still impossible.

Yes.


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I highlight and have access to all Apple’s annotations tools for PDFs in Apple Books. Both on iPad and Mac. On my Mac, though, the PDFs open externally in my default PDF reading app.

My experience is the same, I use Kindle when I have to.

This may seem lame to many of you, but I was (and am) really turned off by the “popular highlights” feature of Kindle. I don’t love that my highlights and notes are there for Amazon to mine. Maybe Apple does the same, who knows. But I find it distasteful. Note, I am sharing only my preference in this matter, not trying to imply any kind of widely-applicable judgment or condemnation. Many of you may love the feature; I respect that.

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So am I. I don’t care what others find interesting so I keep this turned off. As far as mining my highlights, Amazon already has my name, address, phone number, and where I bank. The items I buy tells them what size clothes I wear, and what kind of car I drive (replacement headlight covers).

They know I buy antacids frequently but not as much as I did before 2018. They have a pretty good ideal how old I am from the music I buy or stream but my selections probably give their algorithm fits (Beethoven, Bach, Beatles, Joel, Coltrane, Pepper, Brooks, Chesney). And the books I buy probably gives them an idea how I usually vote and where I am on Sunday morning.

I agree with Scott McNealy who said ‘You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it!’

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I don’t completely agree but I get the point. Every time we use our credit or debit cards vendors know what we are buying so privacy is limited. But, I do what I can to protect what little sliver of privacy is left. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Popular Highlights remind me of being back in school and avoiding used textbooks that had been marked up. At least Popular Highlights can be turned off, unfortunately one book at a time.

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I’m not ready to get over it. But I acknowledge your point. (I’m not a huge privacy nut, but this is one of those things that felt like a bridge too far for me. I still use Kindle, as I mentioned, just not when I can avoid it. So, perhaps my grumbles have no meaningful significance anyway.)

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I’m resigned to Amazon knowing my shoe size. I’m not at all enthusiastic about any organization having the ability to keep tabs on what I read and what I highlight. It’s one reason why I’ve avoided services like Matter that want to keep my stuff on their servers.

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I use Apple Books exclusively for reading eBooks. It’s quite easy in my country as all eBook stores in my country (Poland) sell DRM-free ebooks. In most cases one gets ePub, PDF, and Mobi (Kindle) files. The only protection against piracy is watermark that each file contains. It’s a pretty great system, very consumer friendly.

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I admit the quote is a bit harsh. The bulk of the information about us comes from the trail we leave as we go about our lives, not from what we do on computers. But I don’t store sensitive data online unless it is encrypted and I don’t put anything in an email that I wouldn’t want on the evening news. And 99% of the paper the post office delivers ends up being shredded.

But all that only protects things that have changed since Equifax leaked my data in 2017.

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I love reading epubs books on Apple Books. But Apple Books have zero books to sell in my country (India) so I buy from Kindle and then pirate the epub version of that book to read in Apple Books.

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Is the discussion of piracy even allowed here?

A good question, and I don’t know,

I don’t think I agree with @tav’s description of what he’s doing as “piracy,” though.

Because it involves breaking DRM, it can indeed be legally iffy, depending on where you live. But provided that (1) you’ve paid for a copy of the book and (2) are breaking the DRM solely for backup purposes and/or format shifting, I don’t see a moral problem.

As I understand the term, “piracy” involves theft, which I don’t see in format-shifting books you’ve paid for.

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On the question of whether I use Apple Books, I did fitfully until I purchased the latest iPad mini 6 – a perfect device for reading. Add the changes to the Books app in iOS 16 and Books is now a very comfortable place to read, especially on the mini.

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I use it for tech .epub manuals, references etc. and PDFs.

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