Apple iOS 12, macOS Mojave Books app redesign biggest ever, with enhanced discovery
Apple shines a spotlight on the new and redesigned Books app for iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 Mojave.
"Apple Books will inspire a love of reading -- it puts a world of books and audiobooks right at your fingertips, whether you want to dive into your favorite story for a couple of minutes or a few hours," said Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software & Services Eddy Cue, . "This is our biggest books redesign ever, and we hope this beautiful app inspires both customers and authors alike."
The new Reading Now tab in the new revision of Books is the user's bookmark repository, in addition to being used for discovering similar reads or listens. With Want to Read, Users can keep a wishlist of books in the Want to Read section, with a Complete the Series option for a reader that might have stumbled into the middle of a longer collection.
You Might Like presents books to the user based on recently finished titles.
The Library tab holds all the users books, including the books downloaded to your device by the user from third-party sources. A Finished section showcases completed books, and the date you finished them in a timeline.
The Book Store tab is a convenient link to Apple's store, with easy access to Top Charts, Staff Picks, Editorial Collections, plus Special Offers & Free titles. As the app is used more, Apple says that suggestions will be refined further.
The new Apple Books app launches this fall, with the Book Store available in 51 countries, and free books available in 155 countries.
The Books changes are reminiscent of the same changes launched with the iOS App Store, and coming to the MacOS App Store. Apple has put a high priority on discovery with the changes to all three, as well as bringing other user convenience features to the app.
The changes were only touched on during the WWDC 2018 keynote speech. All of the changes are coming not just to iOS 12, but to macOS Mojave as well.
"Apple Books will inspire a love of reading -- it puts a world of books and audiobooks right at your fingertips, whether you want to dive into your favorite story for a couple of minutes or a few hours," said Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software & Services Eddy Cue, . "This is our biggest books redesign ever, and we hope this beautiful app inspires both customers and authors alike."
The new Reading Now tab in the new revision of Books is the user's bookmark repository, in addition to being used for discovering similar reads or listens. With Want to Read, Users can keep a wishlist of books in the Want to Read section, with a Complete the Series option for a reader that might have stumbled into the middle of a longer collection.
You Might Like presents books to the user based on recently finished titles.
The Library tab holds all the users books, including the books downloaded to your device by the user from third-party sources. A Finished section showcases completed books, and the date you finished them in a timeline.
The Book Store tab is a convenient link to Apple's store, with easy access to Top Charts, Staff Picks, Editorial Collections, plus Special Offers & Free titles. As the app is used more, Apple says that suggestions will be refined further.
The new Apple Books app launches this fall, with the Book Store available in 51 countries, and free books available in 155 countries.
The Books changes are reminiscent of the same changes launched with the iOS App Store, and coming to the MacOS App Store. Apple has put a high priority on discovery with the changes to all three, as well as bringing other user convenience features to the app.
The changes were only touched on during the WWDC 2018 keynote speech. All of the changes are coming not just to iOS 12, but to macOS Mojave as well.
Comments
I just hope that Apple improves is search and back catalog (Amazon has them beat by carrying a lot more titles now).
I am assuming that with audiobooks moving from iTunes to Books that there will be a separate player in CarPlay?
I like it. Appropriate typographic touch for the redesign and makes it stand out vs. other apps.
I appreciate being able to make purchases from within the app, but find it a nuisance to have to navigate past the store to get to my library.
also, I wish my audiobooks synced to iCloud and across my devices, as books do or Apple Music/iTunes Match.
I really hope Apple sorts out whatever issues they have rolling out iBooks/ Books to other markets. They are doing their customers a huge disservice by making us depend on Amazon for digital books!
I would also really like better annotation support for PDF's in particular. Also some sort of floating note that improves on their "sticky note" concept for ePub would be great. Maybe it could work like Smart Annotation (currently in Beta) for Pages.
Also, better support with 3rd party books. I know Apple makes money on books, but I have lots of ePub and PDF books that are "free" from other sources (brochures, user guides, education, etc.) that I use in iBooks and the features for management are just not on par with Book Storte purchased items. iCloud Library for Books helped a lot, but there is still room for improvement. For example, when syncing iOS frequently clears the downloaded items and starts with 3rd party content. I would like to "pin" several items so they they are not cleared in the case of space constraints.
It may be a dream, but it would be great if the Book store offered some sort of subscription for audio books. Maybe they could tie it into AppleMusic.
Apple places 'Books/iBooks' between their users and their audiobooks synced with iTunes.
Books, put quite simply, is bloated and crashes upon track change, for me, about every 6-8 tracks.
The app is devoted to nothing but selling end users more content and fails in its primary task of SERVING content.
I'm probably mistaken but I don't believe it's possible to use an alternative app to access audiobook files transferred to iOS via iTunes.
It should tell you something when the App Store refuses to let you Rate "Apple Books" Currently, it has -no- ratings or reviews.
And STILL no bookmark feature. Imagine Audible, Hoopla, Overdrive, or Libby without a bookmarking feature! You don't have to imagine it because for years it has been existent in all variants of Apple Books.