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A new In 30 Minutes book about the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S

By Blog, News

I’m pleased to announce the release of iPhone 6 & iPhone 6S In 30 Minutes: The unofficial guide to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S, including basic setup, easy iOS tweaks, and time-saving tips. This is a special book for i30 Media, as I will describe in the following blog post.

First things first: It’s safe to say that the four devices that make up the iPhone 6 family (and iOS 9) are the most innovative iPhone models since the iPhone 4/4S. With the new phones, Apple has moved beyond Steve Jobs’ emphasis on small and simple that defined all previous generations of the iPhone. The new phones have large screens and enable some advanced technical and UI features, such as 3D Touch and “Live Photos” in the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus models as well as a more sophisticated Apple Wallet experience. Here’s a chart comparing the basic features of the iPhone 6 family:

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S comparison chart specs

However, with the additional features comes additional complexity—and that’s where iPhone 6 & iPhone 6S In 30 Minutes comes in. The learning curve for people coming from Android or older iPhone models can be steep. For people who have never used an iPhone (or owned an older model), features such as Dictation, Maps, Touch ID, 3D Touch, Apple Wallet, and various camera modes are not readily apparent unless someone sits down and explains how they work.

That’s precisely what I have set out to do in this book about the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S. Using the classic In 30 Minutes style (friendly, brief, lots of examples), I cover basic setup and then move on to hardware, touch screen gestures, Siri, and core apps such as Camera, Mail, and Maps. Topics that are particularly tricky (I’m looking at you, iCloud and Photos app!) get extra attention. I also warn people away from settings that can negatively impact the iPhone experience, such as Wi-Fi Assist. There are more topics listed here.

What’s special about this title, beyond the cool product it’s about? For one, it’s the first new hardware-specific book published by i30 Media in two years. However, I have to admit that iPhone 6 & iPhone 6S In 30 Minutes spends quite a bit of time on iOS, apps, and other software/network settings. In other words, it’s not purely about hardware.

iPhone 6 & iPhone 6S In 30 MinutesSecond, iPhone 6 & iPhone 6S In 30 Minutes is also the first new title that sports the new In 30 Minutes design. This new look has been in the works since the beginning of the year, so it’s a real relief to finally see it in the hands of readers!

Please go to the iPhone 6 & iPhone 6S In 30 Minutes website if you are interested in learning more about the book or reading some tips and sample chapters. We are offering a 25% discount to people who download the PDF version, but we also offer a paperback edition and ebooks for the Kindle, iPad/iPhone, Nook, and other devices that have e-reader software for the ePub format.

The iPhone 6S aggravates missing photo archive features in iCloud

By Blog, News

Apple recently announced the latest iPhone model, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S+. I have closely followed the news, not only because I have written about Apple for years, but also because I am preparing a new book, titled iPhone 6 & 6S In 30 Minutes which covers all iPhone 6 models running iOS 9.

A lot of the media attention around the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus has concerned the powerful new cameras, the ability to shoot 4K video, and Live Photos. These look like amazing features, but as others have pointed out, they come with a high price: They will quickly use up the iPhone’s storage (particularly the 16GB model). I will take this observation a step further: The powerful iPhone 6S camera aggravates a huge design flaw in Apple’s iCloud service — the inability to archive photos and videos on iCloud Photo Library.

iphone6s icloud photo library archive photos backupLet me explain. If you have activated iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S, All Photos will show thumbnails of all digital photos and videos created on the iPhone that have not been deleted. It also includes thumbnails of photos from any other device connected to the same iCloud account and synced to iCloud Photo Library.

When you delete a photo or video taken on your iPhone, it is also removed from iCloud Photo Library. It is not archived. This is true even if you have a paid iCloud account with tons of online storage. This is a major problem for anyone who takes lots of photos and videos, and then needs to delete them from the phone to make room for more — once you delete them from the phone, they are gone for good!

Apple support forums are filled with iPhone owners who want to clear some space on their phones, but still save copies of the photos and videos (see Can I use iCloud to store photos I want to delete from my iPhone 5s?). There is no solution on the forums, and when I contacted Apple support the only suggestion they had was to optimize storage on the iPhone, as described on this page:

If you turn on Optimize (device) Storage, iCloud Photo Library will automatically manage the size of your library on your device, so you can make the most of your device’s storage and access more photos than ever. All of your original, full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud while device-size versions are kept on your device. You can download the original photos and videos over Wi-Fi or cellular when you need them. If you turn on Download Originals, iCloud Photo Library will keep your original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud and on your device. Download Originals is the default setting for iOS devices with the free 5 GB storage plan and for all Mac devices.

Optimize Storage is an iCloud band-aid that doesn’t scale. This option takes all of the high-resolution photos and videos — even the ones you created just last week — and places them on iCloud’s servers. It leads to other problems. Namely, if you tap a thumbnail to download a high-resolution photo or video from iCloud onto your iPhone, the photo or video may take a long time to load -— or may not load at all — depending on the speed of your Wi-Fi or carrier connection. I found this out the hard way when trying to show a two-minute HD video of a recent vacation experience on my iPhone 6 to visiting family members over a standard home Wi-Fi setup. It was taking too long to load, so I was forced to abandon the attempt.

What if you don’t use iCloud Photo Library, and opt for plain-jane iCloud photo storage? In this case, you will revert to the old Camera Roll view, which consists of photos and videos created by the iPhone’s camera and still stored on the device. Eventually they will have to be deleted and/or manually backed up to a desktop computer.

As you can imagine, things will only get worse for owners of the iPhone 6S and 6S+, who will be taking higher-resolution photos and videos. Until Apple’s iCloud group figures out a solution to the problem for all iPhone owners, the best alternative is Dropbox’s Camera Uploads feature, which automatically uploads and backs up all photos and videos taken on your smartphone to a dedicated folder on the user’s Dropbox account. Even if you delete a photo or video on the iPhone, you will still have a copy on Dropbox as long as a Dropbox sync has taken place and there is enough space on the account (free accounts have a limited amount of storage). I have covered this in the latest edition of Dropbox In 30 Minutes for anyone who is interested. Google Drive recently began offering a similar feature, but I have not tried it yet. It boggles the mind why Apple has yet to introduce such a feature for iCloud — Dropbox Camera Uploads was introduced in 2011, so it’s not like it’s a new concept.

Have you had the same photo and video backup problem using iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S? How have you dealt with the problem?

Apple deserves some blame for the Amazon monopoly

By Blog, Industry

For 15 years, people inside and outside the publishing industry have been warning of an Amazon monopoly. I won’t get into the ancient history here, but lately the buzz has returned with evidence of Amazon screwing one of the larger publishers, Hachette. As I’ve followed the latest news, I’ve been surprised that no one has mentioned how the platform competition — Apple, B&N, and more recently, Google — has contributed to Amazon’s monopoly position. All of these companies could have been strong contenders, which would make Amazon tread far more carefully to avoid pissing off publishers (and some readers). And one of them in particular had a lot of momentum going for it.

The iBooks experience on the iPadWhen I first began testing different ebook formats in 2012 for the first In 30 Minutes guide to Dropbox, not only was the iPad hardware superior to the Kindles and Nook, the ePub reading experience in iBooks was vastly better than the same ePub on the Nook or the .mobi equivalent in the Kindles. The ebooks opened quickly and transitioned smoothly from page to page, images were properly rendered, and the ereader toolset was solid.

Where Apple failed was in the purchasing experience (the iBookstore/iTunes mess) and some of the back-end tools for publishing. Fast forward two years, and I have only seen two semi-major improvements to the Apple ereader platform:

  1. An update to the iTunes Producer interface for submitting new titles.
  2. An update to iBooks Author (see my iBooks Author 3.0 review)

These improvements are helpful for authors and publishers. For readers, iBooks/iBookstore/iTunes is still largely unchanged except for some cosmetic changes (e.g., for iOS 7) as well as the release of the iPad mini. Meanwhile, the Kindle Fire has brought Amazon customers a slick alternative to the iPad at a much lower price point. And the Nook platform looks to be fading.

I don’t like having an Amazon monopoly, but some of the blame should be assigned to the erstwhile competitors who can’t seem to get it together. Apple, which has a great hardware platform (iPad/iPad mini), buckets of cash, and huge marketing muscle, doesn’t seem to be forging ahead in the ebooks space. It’s almost as if Cook et al don’t know what to do.

It’s too bad, because this industry clearly needs competitors who can give alternatives to readers, authors, publishers, and other players in the ecosystem. I’d like to think that Google could be up for the task, but it has its own issues to work through.

iBooks Author Review: Video ebooks and intriguing iPad possibilities

By Blog

Last week, i30 Media released a new In 30 Minutes title that is remarkable in several regards. Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes by author Shiao-jang Kung is the first cookbook in the In 30 Minutes series. It’s priced at just 99 cents, another first. It’s also the first title made with iBooks Author (Apple’s authoring tool for rich media ebooks) which made it possible to embed video and other app-like elements such as photo slideshows. In this blog post, I am going to give a short iBooks Author review, covering some of the pros and cons of the tool. I also urge you to download a copy of the cookbook — it’s only 99 cents, and it will let you see what the finished product looks like and how the various rich media elements work (it’s also a great cookbook!)

iPad edition of Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes


I have known about iBooks Author for a few years, but never had to use it until now. Even though there are already many In 30 Minutes guides in Apple’s iBookstore, all of them were created using other production tools — namely Scrivener, which lets me export a single manuscript in various formats to multiple devices. This means I can relatively easily create an ebook that uses Amazon’s .mobi format for the Kindle, PDF versions for on-screen reading and paperback production, and books based on the ePub format, which can be uploaded to Apple’s iBookstore via Apple’s clunky iTunes Producer software.

So why turn to iBooks Author? The answer: Video. I have been producing how-to videos since 2012 on YouTube, and have wanted to bring video to my titles, but Scrivener doesn’t allow authors or editors to place video clips inside ebooks. For that matter, most other production tools don’t either. While pundits have been talking about video and app-like functionality in ebooks for years, and various ebook technical specifications support video in theory, only Apple has actually incorporated video and other rich media functionality into its production tools. I know that video and other new features will come to the Kindle and Android e-readers in the future, but I want to start experimenting now … and iBooks Author was the only tool that allowed me to do so.

iTunes Producer vs iBooks Author

I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive about trying the tool. It wasn’t just the fact that there is no ability to export to non-Apple formats. I was worried that it would be like other Apple software for ebook production, such as iTunes Producer and iTunes Connect, which are hobbled by terrible user interfaces and error-prone, labor-intensive processes.

But Apple made a better effort with iBooks Author. It’s reminiscent of iMovie, in that the interface is pretty slick and there is a lot of dragging and dropping of elements. But as a sophisticated authoring tool that deals with lots of rich media elements and settings, there were additional complexities that were more akin to Photoshop or Pages. For instance, there is an “inspector” which allows users to tweak settings for the widgets that hold photos and videos. If you’re an experienced user of “prosumer” software, it’s not hard to get the hang of iBooks Author, but newbies can expect a steep learning curve.

iBooks Author Templates

Fortunately, iBooks Author makes it relatively easy to get started with templates. In fact, Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes was based on a cookbook template that Apple supplies with the software. This made it much easier to create individual recipe pages — I basically just copied and pasted from the text document that held Kung’s original recipes, and applied some basic formatting. The way iBooks Author is set up, titles already have formatting applied and the information (and navigation links) are flowed into the table of contents and chapter previews.

The cookbook template also had preformatted pages for text sections, such as the introduction and the special page devoted to Chinese Kitchen Gear. However, I had trouble organizing frontmatter and backmatter in the way that I wanted — for instance, the page numbering in the frontmatter was messed up (some roman numerals, and others using Arabic numbers) and I was unable to create a stanadlone conclusion without its own chapter heading.

Another issue was the cover. The template comes with a cover that contains placeholder text and an image. It’s easy enough to replace them — just type over the text and drag a new image onto the cover template. But In 30 Minutes guides use a standard cover style, which are designed by a professional graphic artist, Steve Sauer. I wanted to use Sauer’s great design, but couldn’t, because the text is part of the image, and iBooks Author wants you to manually type in the cover text so the title and author information becomes part of the TOC and uploaded metadata to the iBookstore. I was forced to do a lame recreation of Steve’s design, but may replace that in the future with a photo.

Video In iBooks Author

Video was easy to set up in iBooks Author. It basically involves adding a Media Widget from the toolbar, dragging and dropping the video from your hard drive into the widget, and then adding some title and caption information. I tested the video in iBooks Author preview mode (enabled by attaching an iPad to my MacBook Pro, opening the iBooks app on the iPad, and then going to File>Preview in iBooks Author) to make sure the quality and playability was OK.

However, one thing to consider when it comes to video is the size of the clip(s). Larger clips are not only more inconvenient to manage, they also lead to huge iBooks downloads that can be problematic for readers. Because of the video files, Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes ended up being about 70 MB in size in the iBookstore, which is 10x the size of other In 30 Minutes ebook downloads, and rivals the size of animated games in the App Store.

Because of the file size problem, I ended up doing the following:

  • Created videos for just 3 or 4 recipes.
  • Limited videos to just a few minutes in length
  • Tried to use static shots (that is, limited panning, zooming, and following) which leads to smaller file sizes
  • Limited transitions and text overlays
  • Experimented with export formats in iMovie and Quicktime, before finding a format that was acceptable in terms of quality.

iBooks Author accepts various video formats, including .mov (Quicktime Movie format) and .m4v (a variant of MPEG-4 used by Apple). The clips were shot with various cameras and devices, and then edited in iMovie. What I ended up doing was creating an HD version of the clip for Web promotional purposes, and then created a smaller m4v clip for iBooks Author. There are two ways to do this:

  1. Use Quicktime to export/convert the HD version to “Web”, and then choose the iPhone broadband option. Quicktime will append “iPhone” to the name of the file and export as .m4v, which reduces the size of the clip to 10% of the original 720p HD file. If the HD file is 480p (or it’s converted to 480p via QT, and then converted again for iPhone broadband) the resulting size will be the same as if it were converted directly from 720p.
  2. From iMovie, choose “Sharing” and then the “mobile” option (which iMovie indicates will play on iPhones). It will create an .m4v file of almost the same size as the Quicktime method. This shows the size as 480 pixels wide by 272 px high, compared to 640×360 (iPod or “medium”) and 1280×720 in HD. Also, iMovie won’t create the additional assets (HTML page, screenshot, etc.) which Quicktime produces during exports.

Here’a chart which shows how the conversion process cut down the file size:

Example video: Chicken with green peppers (4 minute video, about 10 clips and titles on both ends)

  • HD 720p: 316 Megabytes
  • HD 480: 58 MB
  • iPod: 49 MB
  • iPhone (.m4v): 29 MB

The m4v files are not tiny, but at least they kept the ebook size to under 100 MB. If I had used HD video, readers would have been downloading 1 GB ebook files from the iBookstore!

Here’s what a video widget looks like in iBooks Author:

iBooks Author Review

If you are interested in seeing what the m4v videos look like in the finished product, please download the book.

Photos And More iBook Widgets

Photos in iBooks Author deserve a special mention. While other ebook authoring tools (including Scrivener, Pages, and Word) support photos, the software designers behind iBooks Author really made an effort to have photos be central to the reading experience. The templates are filled with placeholder photos, and it’s easy enough to drag a new photo over them. Or, you can use the photo slideshow widget, which lets you create a touch-activated photo slideshow. The chapter templates that include static photos and the widgets look great.

I used the widget for several recipes. For instance, for Beef With Scallions, one of our testers sent me a group of photos that she had taken with her iPhone while preparing the recipe. I selected four of the best photos to create a “timeline” of making the dish.

But be prepared for a significant extra step — getting the right photos! I had anticipated the production work associated with adding videos to the ebook, but I totally underestimated the work required to get photos in iBooks Author. Each recipe required at least one photo, and they had to be well-lit, framed, and made to look nice on the countertop or table. Further, I had to pay close attention to the timing, in order to get the right shots during prep and serving. I could have outsourced this step, but it would have added a significant cost to the book plus lots of hassles arranging for multiple shoots.

There are other widgets, too, including interactive photos, simple multiple choice tests that let people review their comprehension, and an HTML widget (which apparently allow for Web-like functionality beyond linking). They looked interesting, but I did not have enough time to test them … this time!

Publishing From iBooks Author

Once your book is finished, preview it on an iPad to make sure it looks and behaves the way you want it to. Then, click File > Publish.

No, your book won’t go straight to the iBookstore. Remember that clunky piece of software I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, iTunes Producer? You still have to go through that. Basically, iBooks Author exports a book file and metadata, which is then passed along to iTunes Producer so you can enter more data such as descriptions, categories, and prices for different markets.

The problem with iTunes Producer is processes for non-iBooks Author titles are still visible, which can be confusing (don’t try to upload a book file when prompted!) and if you make an error, you can get really hung up (as I discovered when I got a perplexing “You Have Unsaved Changes” message that took me a full day to resolve). Then there’s the review process, which typically takes a week … and if Apple finds one small problem, you have to fix it (as I did, when I was told I needed to lock the book to Landscape Mode — it’s an obscure setting in the inspector).

The Final Product

Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 MinutesAt the end of the day, I am very happy with the results of my iBooks Author experiment. Despite some hiccups and unanticipated challenges, the tool produced a wonderful-looking ebook that includes helpful features for readers. I urge you to check out Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes in the iBookstore — it’s only 99 cents, and will let you really understand the product and reader experience.

Will I do it again? That depends not only on sales, but also on the development of other authoring tools that support video. Ideally, someone will create a tool that allows video to be exported to multiple formats, not just a format that works on the iPad. But until that happens, it looks like iBooks Author is the only game in town for authors and publishers who want to experiment with video.

How to remove a book from sale in iTunes Connect

By Blog

I just took iPod Touch In 30 Minutes off sale in iTunes Connect. The reason: The guide was written for iOS 6, but Apple is updating the iOS operating system to version 7 this week. I haven’t had a chance to do a proper test or get new screenshots that are required for a new version of the guide, so I decided to remove it until I or another editor has a chance to tackle this task. But the focus of this post is the process for how to remove a book from iTunes Connect. It’s easy to do and does not involve iTunes Producer, the clunky software that Apple currently requires for uploading new titles to iTunes.

How to remove a book from sale in iTunes Connect: Step-by-step

Here’s how to use iTunes Connect to take a book off sale in a specific market (for instance, Canada and the U.K., but not the U.S.) or all territories.

  1. Log into iTunes for authors (iTunes Connect)
  2. Select Manage Books. You will see your books listed. Click on the one that you want to take off sale.
  3. Click the Rights and Pricing button. You will see a list of all of the countries that the book is sold in.
  4. Click Edit Existing Territories.
  5. On the drop-down menu that says “Cleared For Sale” change the default “No Change” to “No
  6. Select the territories you want to remove the book from sale by clicking the checkbox next to the country name(s). If you want to remove it from sale everywhere, click the Select All button.
  7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the button that says Continue.
  8. You will be asked to confirm your selection for each of the territories. You don’t need to do anything on this page except click the Confirm button. This is a strange screen, because it doesn’t clearly state that the book is being removed from sale … but the next screen will show that it is.
  9. You will be brought back to the Rights and Pricing screen. The countries which you selected to remove the book from sale will have a red circle next to it and the text “Not on Store” (see screenshot, below). Press the Done button at the bottom of the screen.
  10. You will be brought back to the main page for that book, and “Status” will show a red circle and the message “Not on n Stores” where n is the number of countries that no longer carry the book. A green circle will show the number of territories where the book is still available, if you left them on sale anywhere else.

REQUEST: If this post helped you, please consider sharing it on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, a blog or forum, etc. Thanks!

Screenshot of iTunes Connect with titles removed from sale:

How to remove a book from sale in iTunes Connect

How to remove a book from sale in iTunes Connect