Let me clarify. Some of the books I read are *borrowed* from Internet Archive. They are copy-righted. In order to protect the rights, Internet Archive has partnered with Adobe and uses its software—Adobe Digital Editions—to manage the rights. This is called digital rights management—DRM. But the software is VERY buggy on both the iOS and MacOS platforms. Specifically, the page turning, zooming in and out, and scrolling are very jerky!
After I upgraded to the iPad Pro 12.9”, the above problems are solved. However, Adobe Digital Editions(ADE) still failed to render a 1134-paged tome of The Riverside Chaucer. Other than the first 3 to 4 pages, the rest of the book are just blank! On my M1 base MBA, the entire book is rendered, but the scrolling and the page turning are still sluggish.
Most of the books I read are non-copyrighted. For them, I usually read on my 13.3” macBook Air with Apple’s default PDF viewer, Preview. If I read them on the 12.9 iPad Pro, I will probably try PDF Expert.
Considering the large contracts Adobe has reached with the multitude of universities and academic institutions, this shoddy piece of software of Adobe Digital Editions is beyond professional irresponsibility. It borders on criminal negligence and smacks of utter contempt for the reading public.
A lot of universities are now using e-textbooks, so students don’t have to lug around heavy textbooks. And these e-textbooks, because of their digital rights, are administered via Adobe Digital Editions(ADE) or its partner, Bluefire Reader, which isn’t any better. They are the ONLY deals in town. No others. Imagine you are a poor university student and you paid $70, $80, or $100 for an e-textbook, and then you are unable to navigate smoothly within the book!
I call on FBI and DOJ to investigate Adobe!