Latest iTunes doesn't handle books!!

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

In the past I've downloaded many useful pdf files to the PC and then used iTunes to transfer them to iBooks on the iPad; handy when you're on the move...

The latest 12.7.4 iTunes no longer supports the "Books" folder..so how do you transfer all those pdf's to the iPad?????

After spending almost an hour with the Apple help guys, guess what?
It's not possible - without either using the iCloud (which we don't) or attaching the pdf to an email and opening in the iPad (which doesn't work with large pdf)

After even more time and going up the food chain with the Apple people, a possible but PITA solution appears to be to use "file sharing" and "Documents" app to get the pdf to the iPad then saving into iBooks. One file at a time......

[multiweb (Marc)]

That's pretty much the only beef I have with Apple products: file management and transfers. In contrast Android is just a USB away. But then again Apple GUI and responisveness is second to none. They should merge their products into one.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

File management and transfers is just one of my gripes with IOS products. But it is a huge one. Another is the lack of any proper multi tasking.

Another isthat when you open multiple tabs in the web browser it commonly does not load it in the background and refreshes when you go to it even if you let it load in the first place, so when you open something in a new tab to read later you generally have to wait for it to load regardless. On a PC I often open things in new tabs in the background so pages are loaded and ready when I want to go to them.

And opening pages in a new tab is simple but time consuming on the ipad (Press, wait, wait, wait, "Open in new tab") and conceptually just as simple but also just as time consuming and actually unreliable on an iphone not to mention being different to achieving the same thing on the ipad for apparently no reason (Press, wait, flick upwards quick before it decides to just load in the page you are on what you wanted to open in a new tab!)

I don't think Apple are any better at integration and consistency across their platforms than Microsoft is/was, and you still HAVE to do things the apple way or else.

[pmrid (Peter)]

Yes. It's Apple trying to lock the user into their products. I hate it. I had used my iPad for several years to read the thousands of eBooks I have on my hard drive. But now, nada!!

Enter the Kindle. I always thought they were a bit too "twee" and avoided going down that path but this latest ITunes/IPAd thing has tipped me right over the edge. I use a program called Calibre to manage my books and it downloads to my Kindle in much the same way it used to DL to my IPAd.
I use the iPad now to run my planetarium software, check the news and emails and not much else.

Damn you Apple!!

Peter

[Dennis]

Its been a while since I did this with the iTunes V12 “downgrade”, but I’m pretty sure that when I connect my iPad to my Win 10 desktop PC, I can use File Explorer to “drag and drop” PDFs from the Win 10 PC to the iPad in iTunes.

Okay, as I write, I have just done this in the screen capture below. The LHS is my Win 10 PC File Explorer and the RHS is the iPad when docked to the PC using iTunes.

I dragged a PDF from the Win 10 PC and dropped it into the iTunes window and the file was copied across and I opened it successfully in iBooks on the iPad.

However, I have stopped purchasing Books and Apps from the Apple Store once they uncoupled them from iTunes and iPad Sync.

Cheers

Dennis

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Dennis,
Very interesting.....
Just tried the same - pdf on a win10 x64 - itunes and ipad open but the file is blocked and doesn't copy.
What folder did you have open on the iPad?
Are you using iTunes V12.7.4? and iOS 11.3???

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

Dennis,
Very interesting.....
Just tried the same - pdf on a win10 x64 - itunes and ipad open but the file is blocked and doesn't copy.
What folder did you have open on the iPad?
Are you using iTunes V12.7.4? and iOS 11.3???

Confirmed iTunes=V12.7.4.76 and IOS 11.3.

In iTunes, I selected the iPad icon and opened the Window that shows (LHS) Settings (Summary, Music, through File Sharing) then On My Device where I selected BOOKs.

See attached file with personal stuff blocked in yellow.

I dragged the pdf to the RH window showing the book titles.

Cheers

Dennis

Hmm - looks just like what you attempted - I think I have set my iPad to Trust my PC and vice versa at some stage - could this be a security/access issue?

[Dennis]

Taking this one step further, I think I recall that I consolidated all my PDFs on my Win 10 PC in the iTunes Library and gave each a meaningful title (filename) as some had weird filenames from the original download.

I then dragged and dropped all the PDFs onto the iPad in iTunes and it was able to recognise the original weird name (e.g. xwe3480ght.pdf) and replace it with the English name e.g. Tak User Manual, as if there was some hidden, independent, unique ID that the iPad was able to recognise?

This meant that I did not have duplicates, one with a weird name and one with the English name.

Cheers

Dennis

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Very frustrating!!!!!
I'm using the latest V12.7.4.80x64 and it certainly doesn't allow me to grab and move any of the pdf files into the ipad.

I don't know what to try next......

[Dennis]

When I Dock my iPad with my Win 10 Pro Desktop PC via the USB/Lightning Dock, a Win 10 Explorer Window pops up showing the iPad as a Drive under “This PC”.

I just copied a PDF into the iTunes Library (C:\Users\Your Name\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Books) on the Win 10 PC and re-named it to “Copy test for Merlin IIS.pdf”. I did a <Right Click> and “Copy” and then navigated to iTunes (with the iPad docked) and in the iPad “Books” Panel, did a <Right Click> and “Paste” and the PDF appeared.

Not sure why it works in my environment but not yours, other than some “hidden” security setting?

When I then opened iBooks on the iPad I could open the PDF and read it as normal.

I can sympathise with your problems, I think Apple have really stuffed up when they remove Books and Apps from iTunes…

Cheers

Dennis

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Dennis,
You're a miracle worker!!!!

I found what was different to your process.
I had been trying to copy/paste the pdf from my eBook folder rather than the C:\Users\Your Name\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Books folder.
After copying to the iTunes folder your suggested copy/ paste to the Books folder on the iPad worked 100%.

Now why don't the help guys at Apple know this??????

Thank you very much for helping me get through this pain.
Greatly appreciated.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

to get PDFs on my iPad that are on the web, I open them in FireFox and use the "open with" button (Safari and Chrome have removed this option). You can choose to import into iBooks, voila.

It's messy, but it does work. Apple has went downhill fast since Steve Jobs passed - their products are 2nd rate now in many areas of design and UI.

[OICURMT]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

Now why don't the help guys at Apple know this??????

Because their evening job starts with the phrase "Would you like a hot apple pie with with that order?"

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

Dennis,
You're a miracle worker!!!!

I found what was different to your process.
I had been trying to copy/paste the pdf from my eBook folder rather than the C:\Users\Your Name\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Books folder.
After copying to the iTunes folder your suggested copy/ paste to the Books folder on the iPad worked 100%.

Now why don't the help guys at Apple know this??????

Thank you very much for helping me get through this pain.
Greatly appreciated.

Glad to hear you’ve now got it sorted out.

I’m not sure if being forced to go through the Apple gateway of iTunes is because some file rendering or conversion takes place within that environment, before the PDF can then be transferred to and opened in iBooks, or whether it’s just an Apple security thing.

Cheers

Dennis

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

Now why don't the help guys at Apple know this??????

The Apple "genius" bar is crap. The guys are pretty poor from a technical knowledge point of view imho.

I recently went in for a replacement iPhone battery and asked the guy why does my iPhone sometimes revert to the first playlist when I plug it into my car's stereo, rather than the artist/song last played. He had no answer for me, and wasn't interested in providing me with one.

A few years back, I went in (after spending near 2 hours with level 2 techs on the phone for an iTunes issue. Songs were suddenly being duplicated for an album. They had no idea why and no interest in solving it. The girl took One look at me (I'm not an attractive guy) and said "I can't help you" and walked off. I kid you not. To say that I wasn't impressed is an understatement.

Another issue was with downloading a song onto my iPhone via wifi - went to iTunes store ==> more ==> purchased ==> music ==> not on this iPhone, selected the artist/song and told the phone to download it. For whatever unknown reason it stalled. There is no option to re-download it. So, I deleted the song from the phone's library. Do you think the stupid phone/iOS realised this and would let me re-download it? Nope. I had to ring Apple and spent 90 minutes with 2 support people and try a bunch of things before we lucked upon getting it back on the phone. Ridiculous.

iPhone SSID issues - if you try and set up a local hotspot sync from your phone/iPad, do not change the phone's name. It screws everything up with the hotspot. Trust me on this. It seems that, Apple, in their infinite wisdom, set the SSID to "iphone". If you change the phone's name, it breaks the hotspot config. The only way to get it back is to set the phone's name back to the original phone name that you named it on initial setup, and do a network reset and reboot the phone. I spent 90 mins with Apple support reporting this as a networking bug (which it is) and the guy couldn't believe it. He was able to replicate it at his end.

a) the SSID should be set to match the phone's name (that means the iPhone would comply with the relevant RFCs covering SSIDs)

b) the SSID should broadcast correctly

simple things, BAD designs from Apple. sub-standard support.

Don't even get me started on iTunes, it is One of the worst designed commercial software applications I have seen in over 21 years of using computers (I was late to computers due to a lack of interest on my part).