Just looking to vent a little bit. Some of you may agree with me, but the majority of you will probably think I'm making mountains out of molehills. That's okay.
Does anyone else find it troublesome that the Books app in iOS 12 conflates the Library and Bookstore functions? The last few versions had all but relegated my personal library to one single tab in the app, which I accepted because I was safely able to ignore the Bookstore portions of the app. Now, under the guise of helping me find the "next great read," I can't even separate my searches anymore. I have "Bookstore Search" turned off because when I'm looking for something, it's generally in my library, but I can't search the Bookstore without getting extraneous results from my library. (You can enable Bookstore search from within the Books app, but to turn it off again, you have to go through the Settings app. Bizarre.)
Moreover, the default screen for the app is no longer my library, but "Reading Now," which includes undesired advertisements (yes, I consider them advertisements) for books from the Bookstore, which - to my knowledge - cannot be turned off. As referenced above, the search function has removed itself to it's own tab, and the Collections selection drop-down has decided to disappear up-screen when I scroll, instead of remaining at the top, where I was once able to switch collections no matter where I was in my library.
I have a large library of ePubs, mostly older works from the public domain (I prefer the classics, anyhow) plus a couple dozen bought from the iBooks Store over the past 10 years. [I've also long thought that migrating Audiobooks from Music (a listening app) to iBooks/Books (a reading app) a few years back was a bad decision as well, but I digress.] I've taken to third-party apps to break the DRM on the books that I rightfully bought, and I'll shortly be moving my ePub library to Calibre – not nearly as pretty as iBooks/Books, but allowing me to control my library on my terms.
A perusal of my previous posts might show you that I have my disagreements which Apple's current direction, but my 9-year-old hardware runs High Sierra just fine, and I'll be sticking with it for at least the next few years. I've recently turned thirty years of age - certainly not as old as some of you, but assuredly older than many more - and I can recall a time in my teens when I relished the tinkering and endless hours spent trying to get something to work. These days, I'd much rather spend my time reading or engaged with friends and family, instead of wrestling with my computer and phone to get them to behave the way I wish. That said, I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that I dictate how I interact with my content.
To be sure, Apple is only one of numerous guilty parties on this downward trend toward lock-in, subscription-based living, and poor design that increasingly fails to account for how most people actually use their software and hardware. There are many canaries in the coal mine, and more than a few of them have stopped singing. This, in my opinion, is just one.
Does anyone else find it troublesome that the Books app in iOS 12 conflates the Library and Bookstore functions? The last few versions had all but relegated my personal library to one single tab in the app, which I accepted because I was safely able to ignore the Bookstore portions of the app. Now, under the guise of helping me find the "next great read," I can't even separate my searches anymore. I have "Bookstore Search" turned off because when I'm looking for something, it's generally in my library, but I can't search the Bookstore without getting extraneous results from my library. (You can enable Bookstore search from within the Books app, but to turn it off again, you have to go through the Settings app. Bizarre.)
Moreover, the default screen for the app is no longer my library, but "Reading Now," which includes undesired advertisements (yes, I consider them advertisements) for books from the Bookstore, which - to my knowledge - cannot be turned off. As referenced above, the search function has removed itself to it's own tab, and the Collections selection drop-down has decided to disappear up-screen when I scroll, instead of remaining at the top, where I was once able to switch collections no matter where I was in my library.
I have a large library of ePubs, mostly older works from the public domain (I prefer the classics, anyhow) plus a couple dozen bought from the iBooks Store over the past 10 years. [I've also long thought that migrating Audiobooks from Music (a listening app) to iBooks/Books (a reading app) a few years back was a bad decision as well, but I digress.] I've taken to third-party apps to break the DRM on the books that I rightfully bought, and I'll shortly be moving my ePub library to Calibre – not nearly as pretty as iBooks/Books, but allowing me to control my library on my terms.
A perusal of my previous posts might show you that I have my disagreements which Apple's current direction, but my 9-year-old hardware runs High Sierra just fine, and I'll be sticking with it for at least the next few years. I've recently turned thirty years of age - certainly not as old as some of you, but assuredly older than many more - and I can recall a time in my teens when I relished the tinkering and endless hours spent trying to get something to work. These days, I'd much rather spend my time reading or engaged with friends and family, instead of wrestling with my computer and phone to get them to behave the way I wish. That said, I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that I dictate how I interact with my content.
To be sure, Apple is only one of numerous guilty parties on this downward trend toward lock-in, subscription-based living, and poor design that increasingly fails to account for how most people actually use their software and hardware. There are many canaries in the coal mine, and more than a few of them have stopped singing. This, in my opinion, is just one.
