Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How much more would you spend on iBooks vs Kindle?

R

RunOverProducti

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 26, 2008
232
1
I was about to purchase The 48 Laws of Power and decided to do a price check... iBooks is $16.99 and Kindle is $9.99.

I will probably go with Kindle for the fact that I can save some cash to get other books, the experience may not be the same but they are the same book.

What would you do?

Out of curiosity how many books have you read with your iPad?
 
Kindle.

A Kindle book is a better investment because you can read it on your Mac, PC, iPod Touch, iPad and Blackberry.

A time might come when an iBook is a better investment but that time is not now. I own more Kindle than iBooks titles. Lord of the Rings costs $12.99 on Kindle and $14.99 on iBooks. I downloaded the sample and the graphics are rendered better in iBooks but it's still not worth paying slightly more and being able to only read on one device.

There was a time when I could only read my Kindle books on my iPod Touch and my Windows PC at the office. When my iPod Touch died, I went without for a few days and it was inconvenient having to wait for a replacement device before I could start reading again. A few days into this wait, Kindle for OS X came out and I was able to pick up reading where I left off. By the time my iPad came, I had already gone back to reading on my iPod Touch but it was so much nicer reading on the larger iPad screen. With the Kindle app, as long as you are in range of wifi, your progress is updated so if you change devices you can pick up where you left off.

The Kindle app lets you change to reverse video right inside the app. In iBooks, you have to go to Settings->Accessibility Options or triple click the home button. But you are still left with a bright white title bar at the top of the screen in iBooks in reverse video. In Kindle reverse video, the only thing lit up on the screen is the text you are reading. This is very important for being able to read in the dark.
 
I've read 3 books on my iPad so far. I haven't bought any books from the iBookstore, yet...I buy them from amazon thru the kindle app. Plus I already have over 200 kindle edition eBooks. I do miss the kindle app not having dictionary function though. I like the way the iBooks app works. I guess I'm just used to amazon and I have my mom on my kindle account, so if I purchase thru iBooks, I won't be able to share them with her.
 
How is the reading experience in the Kindle app?

By now I know how the iBook app. works, I've never tried the Kindle app. I guess I may have to buy a book for each app. and compare.

If the price is so different and the reading experience is pretty good, hmmmm.
 
Robin4 said:
How is the reading experience in the Kindle app?

By now I know how the iBook app. works, I've never tried the Kindle app. I guess I may have to buy a book for each app. and compare.

If the price is so different and the reading experience is pretty good, hmmmm.
Click to expand...


Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys, by the way you can download a free sample with a few pages from Kindle, now you can see what it looks like for free:D
 
Book Prices Vary...but...

I have bought several new releases on iBooks, and have found the prices were exactly the same on iBooks, B&N and Amazon. The books I bought were fiction. I did download the Kindle app because there are some books that they have that iBooks doesn't or won't have. That being said, I always check the price before I buy...
 
Cant find books about industrial engineering, computer science or programming on the ibooks store.

Amazon fill this with their HUGE! selection of books.

Hands down kindle...

Plus ive noticed some books on amazon are 9.99 and on the ibooks store 14.99+.

Thats an apple rip off. The kindle gives you more flexibility. While the ibooks is limited to just one device.

Take today for example I started reading what the dog saw yesterday on my kindle app. Today i continued reading it @ my office computer exactly from where i left off yesterday.

This level of flexibility is not yet incorporated into the apple eco-system.

So as of now I would say the investment is towards kindle.

But if you see yourself not being with kindle in the long run then just use ibooks. It would be senseless to spend money on both platforms when eventually you'll probably abandon one.

Im sticking with kindle for many reason. I CAN SHARE MY BOOKS with multiple devices (I share my books with my wife, brother etc). The selection is huge. Cross platform support. Linux,windows,mac,blackberry,android (soon).

The apple way of handling will someday reach this level of felixbility but only within the apple eco-system. I know people that dont care about mac, ipad, ipod etc. I like my doors open.
 
Right now, I think it's obvious that AMAZON has a much better selection. However, I think iBOOKS is the overall better application. If I have a choice - and the prices are the same - I will buy it on iBOOKS because it's my preference. For titles that iBooks does not have, I have no hesitation buying them from Amazon. I've never been into buying e-books before the iPad, so I haven't bought into either system yet. For someone who a history of Amazon books, then the Kindle app probably makes the most sense. And there's a good point to be made in that the Kindle app is on multiple platforms.

Right now, the iBooks app has several advantages:

- In-app bookstore. You do not need to go to Safari to buy books from iBooks. I don't know if Apple permits it or not, but it would be nice if you could do the same from the Kindle app.

- The iBooks app has a built-in dictionary, which may or may not be important depending on the type of books you read. For technical books, it is indispensable. For novels and children's book, probably not needed. ;-)

- I think the iBooks app has better readability in terms of font rendering. And I like the way it changes pages better. I know you can enable the animated page turns on the Kindle app, but it's pretty choppy, whereas the iBooks turning is smooth.

EDIT: Actually discovered the Kindle has in-app brightness control as well. My bad.
 
I buy all of my books for Kindle so that I can read them on the iPad, Mac, or Kindle. I will only download free (mostly short) books from iBooks. I find reading on the Kindle far preferable to the iPad for long periods of time; the iPad will suffice for shorter reading but personally I prefer the reflective eink screen.
 
I haven't purchased any iBooks yet but only downloaded the sample pages.

iBooks it supports epub right? If I use Calibre on my laptop, can I import pub files to read in iBooks?
 
I'm always more inclined to buy via Amazon if I think my Fiancee will want to read it too since we can share across devices. Maybe that will change with OS 4.0 and when iBooks is on the iPhone.

But that said - if there's a price difference, I would go with whoever was less expensive. Both UIs are pretty much the same to me. I don't need anything fancy or a lot of bells and whistles in an eReader.
 
ClaireL said:
I haven't purchased any iBooks yet but only downloaded the sample pages.

iBooks it supports epub right? If I use Calibre on my laptop, can I import pub files to read in iBooks?
Click to expand...

You should be able to make your own epub books or use any non drm epub books you find from other sources than apple. That's another advantage to the iBook app. The BEST thing about all of this is that we can use BOTH! Apple may be closed about a lot of things, but haven't locked out amazon or opera, two very competitive products to apple's own.
 
The Kindle is the winner for now.

- Pricing
- Content
- Cross platform
- eInk

However pricing and content may improve in the future.

Time will tell.
 
Never used Kindle but bought a book on iBooks (same price as Kindle)' btw the first book I ever read on a device (still prefer the library, they're free you know ;))

Nonetheless it was an awesome experience. I'll probably stick with free or cheap out of print titles.
 
Kindle all the way. Selection, pricing, cross platform.....
And I just don't think there's much difference between the apps.
 
I prefer the Kindle app, for some reason the ibooks "book look" bothers me. I have books in both but I think I do my reading mostly with the Kindle app.

I do like the iBooks book shelf though.
 
I prefer the iBook app, but I'm not keen on spending more money to get fewer benefits. Amazon offers me the ability to share my library with my husband and the ability to sync where I left off to multiple devices.

I'm very happy that I can import DRM-free epubs into iBooks--I already had a library built up in Stanza, and it was easy as pie to move that over.

So far I've read four and a half novels and half a computer book on the iPad, all but one of them in the iBooks app. I bought one novel from the iBooks store, three from Amazon, and the last was a free book. The computer book I got as a DRM-free epub direct from O'Reilly's website, because O'Reilly rocks. Maybe it would have been a few bucks cheaper if a Kindle version were available, but DRM-free is a benefit I am willing to pay more for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back