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eReader 2.0.2 for iPhone adds shelf sync
April 22, 2009 | 1:03 pm
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By Chris Meadows
According to the page in the Apple store:
eReader for iPhone and iPod touch version 2.0.2 builds upon the previous release by adding the ability to sync ebooks with eReader.com and Fictionwise.com bookshelves. Automatically download newly purchased books to your device and mark books for download from your on-line bookshelf.
This will certainly be a useful feature, especially for people who tend to buy a lot of books. I just bought a dozen or so titles myself the other day, but have only downloaded a few of them to my device.
This sync feature would make it easier for me to snag everything new in one go, without having to scroll through screens of stuff I already own to do it one title at a time. It would also let me select older books from there all at once, rather than having to use the app’s one-at-a-time interface.
Once I opened the application, it immediately started downloading all recent purchases that were available. I found that when I logged into the library, the list of books had a circle next to them for a check mark. The check mark would indicate whether a title was chosen to be downloaded onto my device.
However, I actually had to tap on the book and click the “download” button in the book’s descriptive screen to mark it, rather than being able to tap on the circle and mark it, as I would have expected intuitively. Perhaps this can be added in 2.0.3.
I will also note that the description quoted above is slightly unclear. I had been confused by the “on-line bookshelf” into thinking, incorrectly, that I would be able to mark titles from the desktop web version of my bookshelf, then download them from the client. However, it turned out the marking has to be done from within the client itself.
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Comments:
Hmm – interesting how different people have different requirements. So far the sync feature has been nothing but an annoyance.
It complains every time I open eReader without an internet connection.
When I do connect, I spend minutes scrolling past error messages about the books in my bookshelf that are not in eReader format.
Is there a way to disable this function?
2.0.2 is a mess, I only wish there was some way to go back to 2.0.1. To have bookshelf syncing on by default is crazy, it should be off by default and enabled/disabled by a switch in settings. It also installs extra copies of books from my Fictionwise shelf that I’d already downloaded and transferred to my iPod touch manually in the past. I’m not sure why, but it seems to get confused when you’ve changed the filename of a manually downloaded book on your computer before uploading it to you iPhone/iPod touch (and given the obscure filenames the books have when you manually download them from FW I’ve changed the names of almost all mine before transferring them to my iPod). Talk about sloppy design…
2.0.2 also downloads the README for version 1.2 instead of 2.0.2 so it’s very hard to find out how this new syncing feature works, or is supposed to work. Having to manually switch off auto-sync on a per title basis in the app is crazy, it should be off by default.
That it automatically tries to sync every time it’s launched, and pops up a stupid dialog box saying “sync failed. no internet connection” if your device is not online, is simply beyond belief. That certainly should be off by default and switched on in settings somewhere.
Even more unbelievable is that under the “+” (add content) button they’ve now added a “sync new books” button, but have *removed* the old buttons to get content from your own local webserver and the button for manybooks.net too! I don’t know if they’ve done this on purpose but if they have they’ve lost me as a customer. Without the correct version of the app’s README it’s hard to know though.
The only way I’ve found to stop it auto-syncing whenever it’s launched (and the device is connected to the internet) is to deliberately use a wrong login name/password, then it just ignores the login failure and gives you no message at all at startup! Once it’s launched if you want to manually download a title from your bookshelf you have to manually enter the correct username/password, and after downloading it go back and reset them to the wrong values before quitting so it won’t be able to auto-sync the next time it’s launched. Irritating beyond belief, but what else can you do to stop this nonsense?
Agree 100% with other posters! Auto-sync should be OFF by default! This “upgrade” makes Stanza look even better!
Now, it’s time for each of us to complain directly to the ereader folks!!
Hi guys,
We’ll have a way to turn off auto sync from your account probably today. We’re also correcting the error message display issue but that will happen in 2.0.3
-Steve P.
Thanks, Steve. But just as important, will you return the option to download from other locations?
Seriously, this is a dealbreaker for me. Where eReader has been my ebook reader of choice for many years now, I flatly refuse to be locked into a single system. I want to be able to download books from other sites and from my own server.
Wrote eReader, and received this in response:
“Due to some integration issues regarding how the App store works, we have temporarily removed Manybooks.net from the “Add Books” page. We expect this to be restored shortly as we work through some technical issues. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but rest assured it will be back soon.
Thank you for your patience.”
I wrote back thanking her and asking if the option to manually enter any location would also be restored, and am waiting for a reply.
Huh. By “the App store” do they mean the Fictionwise store, or the Apple App store?
I wondered back when Apple announced that additional content would be sold through their store with the advent of OS 3.0 whether it would be a dealbreaker for e-book sellers with their own App Store apps. I wonder if these alternate-option removals might be the first harbinger of something of that nature.
On the other hand, I suppose it might just be that autosync doesn’t play nice with Manybooks and starts trying to download their entire catalog. I could see something like that happening.
If we have the option between AutoSync and being able to easily get books from other locations, I would drop AutoSync so fast it would make your eyes spin.
I just emailed Steve P., and he told me (with permission to quote)
Good news – a fix is coming.
Bad news – eReader 2.0.2 is a complete disaster.
Midnight, an ebook on the desktop, no wireless Internet access, and eReader 2.0.2 makes a very unhappy customer.
When all of my procedures for getting eReader books onto my ipod disabled. I wondered if Fictionwise was morphing into another evil empire of restricted access. I gave up, signed up with another ebook vendor and switched back to Stanza. The untimely release of a buggy update cost me time, aggravation and money. And it cost Fictionwise customer loyalty.
It’s good to know eReader are addressing the issues with 2.0.3 (I’ve heard nothing back re the support ticket I raised when I started noticing the auto-sync issue, but it seems others have had more success getting responses). However this problem, and the problems I and others had going from 1.3 to 2.0 (which required 2.0.1 to fix) do raise the issue that it’s essentially impossible to go back to a previous version of an iPhone OS app once you upgrade to a new version.
Apple’s automatic backups store all the metadata for the apps (the ebooks and settings in the case of eReader) but not the executable app itself, so using iTunes to restore your iPhone’s latest backup doesn’t help. Grabbing the .ipa file(s) for the previous version of an app from a backup of your iTunes folders doesn’t work either as iTunes only recognises the latest .ipa file for that app and I can’t find any way to override that. It’s a real flaw in the App Store/iTunes/iPhone system, being able to go back to a previous app version is a basic requirement that is frustrated by the way Apple handles iPhone/touch backups and app signing, etc. in iTunes.
As a result of this 2.02 muddle I discovered that the latest version of Stanza can download from my original Fictionwise account, so I am now reading my books in Stanza, while 2.03 is pending.
(Previously Stanza had its own separate area on Fictionwise and couldn’t get at your previously purchased books. Not sure when that was fixed, but is right handy).