So, I really love my Delicious Library program on my Mac – BUT we are to be getting an iPad soon and I know I can’t use it on that. I have been holding out hope, checking their discussion forums, thinking that maybe they would get something worked out to get their iOS app back out there. Since it doesn’t look like that may happen any time soon, I am trying to find something comprable for when we get our iPad. I have seen several things that only do books, cds, dvds, etc. Has anyone found a good subtitute(s) they love? I hate to ditch DL, but I am looking forward to the iCloud feature and having all our little techie gadgets working in synch, so I’d like to find something that would work together nicely. Reviews appreciated 🙂
I have an ipad but no computer so I’m not familiar with DL. Can you give a synopsis of what you use it for? I may have something similar and not know it.
it is a library cataloging app (the best I can think of to describe it) – similar to iBookshelf and Book Crawler (two other apps I’ve seen). You can scan your books in and it has all the info, a picture of the cover, and you can sort them into categories. The things I like about it are that it shows books on a bookshelf (aesthetics I know, but it looks nice and makes it easy to navigate), I like seeing all the categories/shelves in a list on the side b/c it makes it easy to search, and their search function works great – if we are studying frogs, I can search “frogs” and it will pull up all books with that in the title or the description (which was pulled from info from Amazon, much like the CM Organizer does). The other thing I like that I haven’t seen in the other apps I’ve looked at is that you can also do CDs, DVDs, tools, games, and other things. It integrates with iTunes, so all my movies/music/books/etc. on there show up as well. I like having all that in one place – so when I search a topic, movies will pull up along with books. It also has a loan feature, so I can keep up with what I’ve loaned to friends. The only thing it doesn’t have that would be nice, is a way to keep track of library books, and my Kindle/ebook collection. Am I asking for too much in an app
It would be read only on the iPad, but you could print your Delicious Library catalog to a PDF and copy that to your iPad. You might also be able to use the publish option to save an HTML web version to a free Dropbox account that you could then view on your iPad with Good Reader.
A couple other options not using Delicious Library might be:
Bento, which is a simple generic database app that syncs with the iPad version.
Bookpedia, which has more export options available, but doesn’t have an iPad app.
Doug – I was hoping you’d chime in – I thought you are a fellow Mac/iPad/DL user 🙂 So, what are YOU using? Do you still use DL? Do you use any of the others on your iPad? Have you seen Book Crawler or iBookshelf? I envision being able to scan with my iPad and keeping up with/editing my collections on it, and easily synch with my iMac – I really just want DL for my iPad, but I don’t think it will happen, do you? I glanced at Bento, but it is a bit overwhelming to me – maybe does more than I am wanting, plus in order to sync I’d have to shell out another $50 for the desktop version and not sure that I need to do that (and maybe I would love it – it just looked really involved, and didn’t have great reviews as far as synching goes). This is frustrating to me b/c I’ve spent the $ and time getting DL set up, and don’t want to start all over 🙁 OKay – sorry, no more ranting – but I’d love to keep picking everyone’s brains on this one – mine is tired from trying to figure out the best solution.
I use Bookpedia and I can sync a read only version right now. There used to be iOS versions, but they were pulled b/c of issues w/ Amazon. The only one I’ve seen that has a mobile version still available is collectorz. I think you pay monthly for the mobile, if i’m not mistaken and I didn’t care for the interface when I demo’d it.
We’re still using Delicious Library. I happened to pick up the iPhone app back when it was available and it continues to work. It works on our iPad but it’s designed for the smaller iPhone screen so it’s not ideal. It is also read only.
We primarily want to keep our books on the computer but be able to carry a reference on my iPhone when shopping used book sales, so this works out for our purposes.
Have you seen Book Crawler or iBookshelf?
I hadn’t looked at those before but they look interesting. That shifts the task over to the portable device without any editing capability on the computer, which could be okay. Book Crawler looks particularly interesting to me because of its ability to export data in ways I might be able to use on my computer.
I envision being able to scan with my iPad and keeping up with/editing my collections on it, and easily synch with my iMac
I’m not sure the camera on the iPad is high enough quality to scan barcodes. You could download the free pic2shop app and give it a try, though.
I really just want DL for my iPad, but I don’t think it will happen, do you?
Not likely. Amazon’s license makes it an infringement to transfer information gathered from Amazon to a mobile device and that is the primary source of data that DL uses. There have been plenty of requests for Amazon to change their terms from many companies and individuals but they don’t seem interested in even responding.
This is frustrating to me b/c I’ve spent the $ and time getting DL set up, and don’t want to start all over
DL can export your data so it could be imported into something else. It would probably take some fiddling to get it right, though.
DL sounds like a great program. I have found goodreads to be, well, better than nothing…they do have an iPad app, although I don’t have it – I have an iTouch and iPhone and use the apps for those and the site on my PC. Actually I do find that I like the program more, the more books I get in it and the more I use it.