Is Apple ever going release iBooks for other devices, including Android and Windows machines? I have to assume that they are losing a lot of business to Kindle since iBooks cannot be read on different devices.
I think it would be a losing battle if they did, i’m struggling to find recent statistics but it seems that the iBookstore has a tiny fraction of the books available on Amazon. On any device where both are an option it is hard to see people choosing iBooks (unless it is an Apple device where iBooks may be installed by default and therefore seem the easier option).
iBooks does run nicer than Kindle, but I never buy them because of the limited reading options.
I buy most of my books in ePub format then open them in iBooks, and in reality, I don’t think that apple is all that worried about the ebook market. The only real reason (IMO) they made iBooks was for dogfood, to prove a point.
I do the same. I run everything through Calibre to produce a ePub doc and load it all into iBooks because I prefer it to the other readers, especially since I can lump groups of related books into collections. I keep all my PDFs in iBooks too.
I expect they predict it would open a gate that would end up letting more customers out than in.
Can you explain this? For the customer who already has iBooks, what would the difference be? Do you think that some people only use it because other people don’t?
No, imo he means jump the platform. Go to kindle, away from the iPad, or go to the Galaxy Tab.
Pretty much what Todderbob said - I expect they analysed the market and concluded that if they released iBooks on other platforms, whilst it would mean some people would use it on other platforms, then switch to Apple, a greater number of people may switch in the other direction, particularly if their investment in their iBooks library was the major sticky factor for them.
I’m conscious that it may sound as though I resent them for this (if indeed it is the reason) - I don’t - it’s a valid business decision.
I saw that as a possibility, but I thought of iBooks as more of a “see? This works as a reader,” proof of concept. I don’t think apple dreams of iBooks becoming the next iTunes. I think apple is fine with the majority of books sold being sold by Amazon or B&N, but needed some way of enticing them into the iPad marketspace. The threat of iBooks, IMO, is at least partially what instigated kindle and B&N to aggressively market their readers as multi platform.
I do recall that kindle was available for the iPhone before the iPad was even out, but they didn’t market that, and it took them a while to release a UB/iPad version of the app, didn’t it?