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Apple Books 2022, in pictures

Apple Books 2022, in pictures

2022-10-27
Did the hamburger menu and the dot-dot-dot menu have a love child?
The proud father, currently living with his new “roommate” on apple.com
The proud mother, although estranged from her husband, can’t deny that the new icon has his strong parallel lines.
I’ve dubbed it the Carelessly Discarded Burger King Crown icon.
I think you’ll agree.
If you don’t like the new icon, at least it’s partially covered by this stack of burgers.
You don’t have to stop reading your book just because the new “menu” is on screen. This is known as “reading between the menus”.
The long-awaited new control is finally here: TextFieldPushButtonDraggableProgressSlider.
No need to worry. There’s a TransientHoveringTableOfContentsView that appears when you start to drag.
The new options panel really cannot be missed. I drew a green oval around it and everything.
If you previously had trouble hitting the narrow font size buttons, you’re going to love this new version.
Don’t worry if the sample text doesn’t match the book. It’s close enough. Aa for Eefort as they say.
Wow, that is some riveting sample text! From a part of the book I haven’t read yet.
This is what a “forward” button looks like.
This is what a “back” button looks like.

That’s all for now.

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Tony Walker
Tony Walker
3 months ago

Next, show us the System Settings 🙂

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cricket
cricket
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Reply to  Tony Walker
3 months ago

On the Mac? I think it’s great, actually. Even if I didn’t think so, it’s just settings, not something you should be spending a lot of time in like Books or Safari or Mail or Messages or Music.

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Someone
Someone
2 months ago

Try a fixed-layut EPUB, like a graphic novel, or a coffee-table Art book that has full-page artwork, and see the impact of Apple’s UI decorators, with a (from all accounts) permanently visible menu button superimposed on the content.

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cricket
cricket
Author
Reply to  Someone
2 months ago

It fades out for me. Or you can tap somewhere and it hides.

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Someone
Someone
Reply to  cricket
2 months ago

Oh really? That’s the first time I’ve heard of that behaviour for it – all the reportage I’ve seen has been unequivocal, that it’s permanently visible. If that’s the case (because I don’t have access to it), fantastic.

Any chance you could confirm how the page transitions are handled on Fixed-Layout EPUB?

In landscape orientation, previous default was to show a double page spread, and a 3D page-flip animation to go back and forth (which always, ALWAYS wowed people being shown comics on iPads who weren’t in the Apple ecosystem). In Portrait orientation, default was to show one page aligned to its outer edge, left or right, with some of the other page across the spine showing (depending on how the zoom & aspect ratio matches up with the screen), and then tapping to next or back slides the viewport across the spread, or triggers a pageflip and viewport slide if transitioning to a new spread.

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cricket
cricket
Author
Reply to  Someone
2 months ago

I’m running the beta as the app didn’t function at all in the original release. So they could’ve fixed it maybe.

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remerson
remerson
2 months ago

Yes the main reading UI in the Books app is quite a mess.

As well the weird options menu (never mind that the options you choose are frequently forgotten), the behaviour around the top navigation area has changed (at least on iPhone). Where a tap used to toggle visibility of system clock etc, now that mostly does nothing (so I can’t check the time with a single tap), and instead there is an ugly X close button in the top right (inconsistent with most/all other ‘go out/back’ nav on iOS) which can’t even be hidden. Oh, but if you accidentally double-tap the book title you can set a bookmark – in the previous version there was a nice bookmark button for that, but no more.

And they removed the lovely page-turn animation. What the hell were the UI team for this app thinking?!

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Yannik
Yannik
2 months ago

You didn’t even mention the worst part for me: If you double tab somewhere while reading a book it now just creates a bookmark. That happens quite easily. So far wasn’t able to read single book without that happening multiple times by accident while just scrolling. Then I have to stop reading and remove the bookmark again each time. It’s very annoying.

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