I’ve said before that I would rather Apple abandon its Apple Car plans and concentrate on its current product line, which now includes the Vision Pro.
One area that needs the tech giant’s focus is its Apple Books service; as I previously wrote, I’d love to see Apple give us Apple Books +. And in a November 30 article for Macworld, Dan Moren said it’s time for the company to get serious about its ebook service.
From the article: It’s somewhat of a surprise even to myself that I do most of my reading in ebook apps these days. As much as I love paper books, it’s increasingly hard to justify the space they occupy in my home—plus, it’s hard to beat the instant gratification.
But the thing that’s tipped me over the edge more than anything else is access to a wide swath of free ebooks—legal free ebooks available from my local library. The Libby app allows me to easily check out ebooks and read them on my Kindle or Kobo e-readers, as well as maintain holds on a queue of books I want to read when they’re available. (Yes, holds can take a long time, and library licensing from publishers is overly restrictive, but that’s a story for another time.)
However, Apple Books is nowhere to be found in this arena. Yes, you can read a book directly in the Libby app on your iPhone or iPad or have it delivered to your Kindle reader. You can even download an ePub file in Adobe’s awful Digital Editions copy-protection format to read elsewhere, though it requires jumping through so many hoops that you’ll think you’re on an obstacle course. But the best-in-class experience remains Kobo’s: Once you’ve linked your Kobo reader to your library account, books that you check out just show up on your e-reader.
I can’t help but think that Apple is missing a huge opportunity here, and I wonder if part of the struggle is the split mentality between Apple Books as a reading app and Apple Books as a revenue-generating service. The thing is, improving the former ultimately helps the latter, and not having any way to link into library loans means that lots of people—people who like to read books—will never even open the Apple Books app, much less become customers.
Read the complete article for his excellent suggestions. And a word to Apple: puh-leeze concentrate on all your current hardware, software, streaming services before jumping into the automobile business.
