I agree.
Apple Books accounts for roughly 10 percent of the global ebook market. Apple Books has about a 10 percent share of the US ebook market. Apple Books has about a 30 percent market share in Australia.
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Not unless you remove the DRM first.
From the Yomu website:
Only documents without digital rights management (DRM) are supported. This means that you can’t open ebooks bought from Amazon, Apple Books or other vendors, as they all contain some kind of copy protection.
I buy my ebooks from a number of sources (ahem, never Apple), but always remove the DRM, which I do for three reasons:
- To read the book on my preferred device(s) in my preferred reader;
- To export as many highlights and notes as I need to; and
- To store copy for retrieval should the seller’s ebook reader no longer be supported, or if, for some reason, the book is pulled from or discontinued by the seller (it’s rare, but it happens).
Technically it’s not legal, but as long as I’m not putting the de-DRM’d copy up on a pirate site or passing it along to someone not in my household, I find can live with myself.
If I only plan to read a book once, won’t need to refer to it in the future, and don’t mind waiting in line for my turn, I often as not just borrow it from my local library.
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How do you remove the DRM like from Apple Books? Do you have a link to a website explaining how?
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Agreed! Just as Walmart does!
There are both paid and free, open source tools to remove DRM from the major proprietary formats, but Apple’s Fairplay DRM is notoriously difficult to crack. To the best of my knowledge, none of the Calibre plugins will work on Apple Books. There are paid tools that allegedly remove the DRM from Apple Books, but I gather they may not work as promised. You’ll need to fire up your favorite search engine to see if there’s a solution out there for you.
I have a lot of non-DRM epubs that open and sync readily in Apple Books. That’s largely how I use it, save buying the occasional novel.
The Apple Books app is great for some technical publications that come as epubs, which I read on my computer.
EDIT TO ADD: Most of the publications in my line of work are PDFs, which I never read on my phone. (I tried a Supernote for an e-ink reader of PDFs, but its workflow is beyond broken.)
Like a lot of others here, I do have a fair amount of Kindle books, but I am increasingly leery of the lock Amazon has on my content and so I find myself using the excellent Libby app and supporting my local library.
Kobo for the win! My wife is a voracious reader, but prefers ebooks for a variety of reasons. Thanks to occasional Kindle Unlimited deals (she likes fluffy romances, as she calls them, and they are readily available there), we have both the Kobo and the Kindle.
The Kobo connects directly to Overdrive for digital libraries (which also connects to Libby), so no need to sync anything with a computer. It also has a plethora of typography options the Kindle can’t match. It’s got page turn buttons, which I didn’t realize I’d like so much until I attempted to read a little on the Kindle the past few days and got grumpy about it. And it’s got a more pleasing array of orange backlight colours for late night reading (plus it’s got a far better grip).
I know a lot of folks like Snell and our own @marius have written about how good Kobos are over the years, but they’re underselling it. Kobos are way ahead.
No reason to ever think about Apple Books. (And I don’t think Amazon has ever lost sleep over it either, despite the lawsuit.)
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+1 for Kobo!
Started with a Sony ereader that my wife got for free when she worked in publishing back in the aughts. Moved to a Kobo just before the Kindle became available in Canada and have been very pleased with it. Plus two of my favourite publishers / booksellers , AK Press and PM Press, sell books in epub w/o DRM that work great on Kobo devices.
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I want to like Apple Books so much. The app is so much more enjoyable to use than the Kindle app. I’m pretty heavily invested in Kindle already but have really considered Kobo for both Readwise integration and getting out from under Amazon.
@snelly & @liminal - Which Kobo do you each have? I’ve been seeing awesome things about the new Libra Color.
I have an Aura One which I picked up as my third Kobo device back in 2016. It’s roughly the same size as the older versions of the ipad mini, both the chassis & screen size.
For me it’s been the perfect ereader and it still gets software updates with new features on occasion. With a library of 900 books it still has 2.5 gb of free space left out of 8 gb!
Can you still checkout a book with the Libby app and it show up on a Kobo? I’ve seen people tout the Overdrive integration but I think I’d still prefer to handle things through my phone.
Yep, that’s how we manage ours.
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Like Kobo, but skip the color options. Colors are washed out, but what’s worse is that black text on a white page is washed out as well. Much duller, less contrast for reading than on the B & W version.
In Canada (at least in BC) there is a problem with Kindles. The library does not use them for loaning ebooks. That is a big demerit.
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I have a black and white one from a year or two ago. Can’t speak for the colour ones. No interest in them, though.
Amazon just made it so easy to buy books for the kindle. I had one of the originals and never left. Kindle App on my phone or Ipad is one of my “go-to’s”.
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How do you do that? I used to be able to by highlighting and the drafts quick capture, but that stopped working about 4 years ago. Haven’t found a workaround since. Thanks.
Alberta, too. I just use the Libby app with my iPad Mini. I have a Kobo which works with the Library, but it turned into just one more thing I had to remember to charge (albeit, infrequently) so I switched.
Yup, got my first Kobo before the Kindle was available in Canada.