I’ve had it with iBooks, mostly because of its insane destructive syncing scheme. Which isn’t syncing at all, is it? See my logic below.
I want to read books with my two portable Apple devices, optionally with my desktop Apple computer. I want to highlight, bookmark or annotate in one device and sync to any or all of the others. This sounds like a job for iCloud, right? You know, the Apple-invented cloud service for you know, syncing?
The iBooks developers haven’t got the memo. You see, iBooks use your iTunes Account to sync. So that means my wife’s independent library and annotations (on her multiple Apple products) are clobbered if I ever decide to sync collections and annotations. This is because we share an iTunes account to purchase apps. Note that it is quite possible to have a separate iBooks login and iTunes login at the same time – only on the Mac version of iBooks. There is no option to select the iBooks store account on iOS 7. You know, where you actually want that option.
The final straw was when yesterday I clicked iBooks, and it came up with a message “Hey I notice you are using icloud@account.com to sync. Would you like to sync with itunes@account.com instead?”. I did not want to do so, therefore I selected “Cancel”. I watched as iBooks then deleted a book that I previously synced with my iCloud account. I stand agape. I boggle. In what universe should “do not sync” ever change anything, never mind delete?
iBooks is fundamentally damaged. So is the iOS eBook reader ecosystem because of its mere existence. I have had enough.