Apple Books spam

I read Gruber's post about Steve Jobs in Exile by Geoffrey Cain and did what I usually do when I see a good recommendation, jumped over to Apple Books to add it to my saved list.

Instead of finding the book there for pre-order, I found one of the things Apple Books is full of: a scammy "summary" guide.

The top result for "Steve jobs in exile" isn't Geoffrey Cain's book. It's a 64-page "companion guide" by someone called, and I'm not making this up, Alex Companion.

These are usually pretty easy to spot, but this time it almost caught me out because, ironically given the topic, the real book isn't yet available for pre-order in the (Australian) store. The sample's copyright page spells it out:

I guess the fact that the publisher hasn't even bothered to get the real book into Apple Books yet explains why the entire enterprise is such a low priority for Apple. But as Gruber said recently, it's "whatever, good enough" instead of "insanely great", and that extends to their book store too. If they're going to have a book store, they should make it a good one, free of this trash.

I realise I'm perhaps on shaky ground here given my last post is about publishing a book that some might say is just AI slop, but it's not pretending to be something it's not.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but books (the things, not the app) are still something a bit different from the rest of the enshitified digital world we live in. Books (the app) could and should be the most Apple-esq feeling place in the world - like a quiet, calm bookstore full of quality reads, not worse than ad filled Amazon results. This feels like walking into the Apple Store and right next to the iPhones are fake plastic mockups for sale, and you could just as easily walk out with one instead of a real iPhone.