Good question. We have two versions of each of our digital eBooks because there are two primary formats, one for Apple’s Book app and one for Amazon’s Kindle app. Is there a difference, and why is it that when I purchase a book on Amazon, it doesn’t give me the option of choosing whether I’m using an Apple device or a Kindle device?
The software programs are dramatically different, and every eBook must be specifically encoded for one or the other. You can know the two are different, because if you have used both an iPad with the Apple Book app and the Kindle app, you’ll know the features are different and you use the features slightly differently. How the programs respond to readers highlights and how they track a reader’s progress so you can start at the page you left off is information that is sent back to the servers at Apple and Amazon, and the information packets and how that data is handled and fed back to you is different.
If you own an iPad and you have purchased Amazon eBooks, you know that those books don’t open in an Apple app, but in the Kindle app, which you can install on an iPad or an iPhone. So you can read Amazon eBooks on an iPad, but you’re using a Kindle app.
When our authors write their books, they save them in both formats, and we can tell you the Apple version is substantially bigger in size than the Kindle version. If we only gave you the Kindle version, and you tried to read that on your iPad, you would not get all the features that an Apple Book app gives you, and likewise, if you tried to read an Apple version on a Kindle, it won’t have all the features, assuming you can even read it.
If you use the wrong version, you may also be missing some parts of the book or the formatting may not be as the author created it to be. For example, the wrong version in once case did not show the book cover on the Kindle.
This may be more than you wanted to know, but now you understand why we give you the option of purchasing and downloading either version. Even though both Apple and Amazon or both using the standard epub format, the two books will have quite different programming.
If you did download the Kindle version, and you want to read it on an iPad, you still can. You’ll just use the Kindle app on your iPad.
