Re: EBook formats on iPad via wifi
well, jim, i'm sorry you wasted some of your time following up on michael's suggestions. but i think if you would have phrased your complaints a bit better in the first place, you could've avoided the misunderstanding. i'm not just talking about your disingenuous means of (mis)defining terms like "e-book", either (although that is a serious error too), but a bad case of failure to qualify yourself. to my point, if you would have said this...
i have found it impossible to download the books i want from the sites i want in the formats i want such that i can read them in the viewer-apps i want...
...you wouldn't have engendered opposition. indeed, you might have gotten a whole lot of sympathy. (or, realistically, a little bit.) and perhaps even received a few pointers... but that's not what you said, not at the outset. what you said initially sounded more like:
the ipad is so locked down that you can only get the e-books steve jobs allows you to get, and that sucks...
that's a paraphrase, of course, but i think that that's what it sounded like to people. but of course we know that that's not true, not on the face of it. there's a browser on the ipad, so anything that's out on the web is something the ipad can readily display... put it this way. if i were to offer to pay you $100 for every e-book you read on the ipad, how many "e-books" could you find to "read"? yeah, that's what i thought; no shortage then. yes, there is a walled-in, locked-up section of the ipad, but we all know about that, and what good does it do to bitch about it here? it contributes nothing productive to a thread. to sum up, hyperbole doesn't work well if you don't know how to work it well... -bowerbird
but of course we know that that's not true, not on the face of it. there's a browser on the ipad, so anything that's out on the web is something the ipad can readily display...
I still think there is some fundamental misunderstanding here. Using the iPad I go on the web to PG. I see a ePub book I like there. I use the iPad web browser to go there. I click on the ePUB book. iPad says "sorry Hal I can't allow you to read that book." I don't see how you can say that the iPad "readily displays" something when it explicitly tells me that it refuses to display that something! I take my cheap crappy generic netbook, I go on the web to PG. I see a ePub book I like there. I use the cheap crappy generic netbook's web browser to go there. I click on the ePUB book. The cheap crappy netbook automatically downloads the ePUB book to the netbook so I can read it later in an airplane or on the beach, and it automatically opens it and I start reading. The netbook DOES "readily display" anything that's out on the web.
put it this way. if i were to offer to pay you $100 for every e-book you read on the ipad, how many "e-books" could you find to "read"?
If you pay me $100 for every time I am part way through a book and then I pick up my iPad again and that book has magically disappeared because I am no longer in sight of a public wifi connection then I am going to come out way ahead. This is silly, Comcast offers 100s of TV channels, but if I turn on the TV channel at any moment in time the probability is 95% that Comcast will have nothing on that *I* want to watch at that moment in time. I work hard to find what I want to read, and I work hard to find texts that I want to create to submit to PG, and most of what I want to read or what I want to create to submit to PG is NOT available via the current hardwired iPad applets each distributing texts from ONE server location on the internet. If every site that offers free books writse its own applet specifically to support iPad rather than using their already existing HTML sites which support "real" HTML browsers, well, then I guess iPad would do what I want to do. But I don't understand why every organization out on the web offering free books has to write their own applet for iPad when they already HAVE written that applet -- its call an HTML web site - its just that Apple has deliberately pimped their web browser to make sure all these already existing "applets" aka HTML free ebook websites don't work!
Jim is still refusing to acknowledge that PG eBooks in .epub are so easily available that people, including him, perhaps, literally, miss that they are .epub eBooks. He has not answered my questions about this. . . . I ask again: Are not the PG iBooks actually PG .epub books? Same goes for Wattpad? Same goes for all the rest. I thought .epub was the default iPad format, no? After all the peacemaking just now, I must admit that Jim still seems to be playing some games so he can keep on bitching. I think what he really wants is to download .epub files and the object is to do MORE than just READ them. I'm not sure WHAT more he has in mind, unless it's editing. I'm not really sure iPad were made for all that stuff. I think it's pretty obvious they weren't. And they don't have a trunk!!! On Wed, 21 Apr 2010, James Adcock wrote:
but of course we know that that's not true, not on the face of it. there's a browser on the ipad, so anything that's out on the web is something the ipad can readily display...
I still think there is some fundamental misunderstanding here. Using the iPad I go on the web to PG. I see a ePub book I like there. I use the iPad web browser to go there. I click on the ePUB book. iPad says “sorry Hal I can’t allow you to read that book.” I don’t see how you can say that the iPad “readily displays” something when it explicitly tells me that it refuses to display that something!
I take my cheap crappy generic netbook, I go on the web to PG. I see a ePub book I like there. I use the cheap crappy generic netbook’s web browser to go there. I click on the ePUB book. The cheap crappy netbook automatically downloads the ePUB book to the netbook so I can read it later in an airplane or on the beach, and it automatically opens it and I start reading. The netbook DOES “readily display” anything that’s out on the web.
put it this way. if i were to offer to pay you $100 for every e-book you read on the ipad, how many "e-books" could you find to "read"?
If you pay me $100 for every time I am part way through a book and then I pick up my iPad again and that book has magically disappeared because I am no longer in sight of a public wifi connection then I am going to come out way ahead. This is silly, Comcast offers 100s of TV channels, but if I turn on the TV channel at any moment in time the probability is 95% that Comcast will have nothing on that *I* want to watch at that moment in time. I work hard to find what I want to read, and I work hard to find texts that I want to create to submit to PG, and most of what I want to read or what I want to create to submit to PG is NOT available via the current hardwired iPad applets each distributing texts from ONE server location on the internet. If every site that offers free books writse its own applet specifically to support iPad rather than using their already existing HTML sites which support “real” HTML browsers, well, then I guess iPad would do what I want to do. But I don’t understand why every organization out on the web offering free books has to write their own applet for iPad when they already HAVE written that applet -- its call an HTML web site – its just that Apple has deliberately pimped their web browser to make sure all these already existing “applets” aka HTML free ebook websites don’t work!
Are not the PG iBooks actually PG .epub books?
I have acknowledged before that the subset of free books iBooks that Apple has rebranded as being from Apple look like they originated from PG, and that if you are willing to accept a subset of what PG offers and accept the Apple rebranding then this is not a bad offering on that subset.
Same goes for Wattpad?
Wattpad is a non-starter piece of junk as far as I can see. At least the iBooks subset is a reasonable port of that subset of the PG books they choose to offer.
I thought .epub was the default iPad format, no?
I thought so too which is why I was so so surprised when from iPAD I clicked on an ePUB book at the PG website and iPAD refused to download and display the book. Even Kindle allows that!
I'm not sure WHAT more he has in mind, unless it's editing.
Please Michael you are being silly because I have told you a dozen times already what I had in mind: I had in mind a ebook reader that has wifi and allows me to use its internet browser to download and display ebooks in ePUB and/or MOBI format. It should also allow me to quickly and easily use the wifi to transfer ebooks that I am working on from my local computer to the reader device. Any generic $200 netbook allows you to do these things. Its just that they have a keyboard that gets in the way when you are trying to read something. I wouldn't think it would be hard for YOU to imagine a netbook but with a virtual keyboard rather than a physical keyboard except that YOU are playing games because YOU don't want to admit how much Apple has pimped their offering to keep friends from freely sharing free books with their friends. And I thought that was something that YOU always claimed PG was about? So again, why are you defending Apple?
On Wed, 21 Apr 2010, James Adcock wrote:
Are not the PG iBooks actually PG .epub books?
I have acknowledged before that the subset of free books iBooks that Apple has rebranded as being from Apple look like they originated from PG, and that if you are willing to accept a subset of what PG offers and accept the Apple rebranding then this is not a bad offering on that subset.
Gee! Jim has still found yet another way NOT to say if they are .epub. Not to mention all the ways he has found NOT to say that there are some obvious ways NOT to get the Stanza iPod effect in his original complaint. Yawn!!!
Same goes for Wattpad?
Wattpad is a non-starter piece of junk as far as I can see. At least the iBooks subset is a reasonable port of that subset of the PG books they choose to offer.
"Non-starter piece of junk". . .another yawn!!! Jim. . .you have to START before you have any right to such comments. Have some experience before you say such things. This is why people think you are just bitching.
I thought .epub was the default iPad format, no?
I thought so too which is why I was so so surprised when from iPAD I clicked on an ePUB book at the PG website and iPAD refused to download and display the book. Even Kindle allows that!
Yes, Jim has found another way to avoid answering that direct question. I am back to having to challenge his sincerity in all this. . . . Yahn!!!
I'm not sure WHAT more he has in mind, unless it's editing.
Jim, until and unless you are willing to CONVERSE and do research, and to admit that Apple's iPad was never intended for what you want I don't think there is any need or reason to continue this pretense. You can have the last word. You can have ALL of the last words. I retire from the field. The field is yours. Next subject. . .are there really $200 netbooks? Would you please send me some URLs for them???
Please Michael you are being silly because I have told you a dozen times already what I had in mind: I had in mind a ebook reader that has wifi and allows me to use its internet browser to download and display ebooks in ePUB and/or MOBI format. It should also allow me to quickly and easily use the wifi to transfer ebooks that I am working on from my local computer to the reader device. Any generic $200 netbook allows you to do these things. Its just that they have a keyboard that gets in the way when you are trying to read something. I wouldn't think it would be hard for YOU to imagine a netbook but with a virtual keyboard rather than a physical keyboard except that YOU are playing games because YOU don't want to admit how much Apple has pimped their offering to keep friends from freely sharing free books with their friends.
And I thought that was something that YOU always claimed PG was about? So again, why are you defending Apple?
Only defending our readers from you. . . . Apple can take care of itself.
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participants (3)
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Bowerbird＠aol.com -
James Adcock -
Michael S. Hart