Bruji

Would love to see an iPad version of the Pedias (specifically, DVDPedia.) It would be all I need to ditch my MacBook Pro for an iPad!! Fingers crossed you guys can sort out the issues with Amazon....

We'd love it too but I'm pretty sure the iPad falls under the Mobile Device category which means synching is not an option, see here.

Of all the Pedias, Bookpedia is my favorite.

With the announcement of the iPad, a couple of things have come to mind…

• Since the iPad will have the iBooks application, which stores books as well as provides access to search and purchase books, what does this mean for Bookpedia?
• Since Amazon have proven to be such [insert explitive]s about syncing their data with the Pocketpedias, perhaps the iPad's competition for the Kindle and Amazon's bookstore itself might humble them into being more considerate. Just a thought…fingers crossed.

One more thing, regarding your news post about Amazon's unfriendly behavior and the removal of PocketPedia2…

While it is true that Amazon is definitely the biggest, most popular, central place for searching for books and other media, I don't think that the lack of Amazon is enough of a dealbreaker to warrant the removal of Pocketpedia2. Don't get me wrong—it definitely sucks. But I think what users would really appreciate is if they were at least able to look up data from somewhere.

In other words, if Amazon won't play fair, lookup information from anywhere else you can get it:

• for Bookpedia: Google Books, the [urlhttp://openlibrary.org]OpenLibrary Project[/url], DeepDiscount (a great store that's much like a small-business Amazon), etc.
• for CDPedia, CDDB, DeepDiscount, etc.
• Have DVDPedia lookup its information from IMBD, DeepDiscount, etc…

…and so on.

Sure, Amazon's unhelpful response means losing out on some functionality with Amazon. That's a loss. But it doesn't need to be a TOTAL loss.

The ability to search across multiple databases to pull information into the Pedias is one of the biggest timesavers of any program like the Pedias. If this means you are forced to turn to other services to provide these features, then so be it!

Smaller businesses might even benefit—perhaps, perhaps not. But in the meantime, it seems unfair to make the users pay for Amazon's greediness.

Zearin wrote:I don't think that the lack of Amazon is enough of a dealbreaker to warrant the removal of Pocketpedia2. But I think what users would really appreciate is if they were at least able to look up data from somewhere.

In other words, if Amazon won't play fair, lookup information from anywhere else you can get it

I think you're overlooking the primary issue that's discussed in the article Nora's reply links to.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but to do what you suggest my understanding is:

Pocketpedia2 would have to be a standalone app, disallowing any synching with desktop 'pedia apps. Or, the desktop 'pedia apps would have to demonstrably remove all traces of Amazon support in order for a syncing version of Pocketpedia2 to be approved. Those are unacceptable solutions to Bruji and/or customers.

There is no doubt about it that mobile devices like the iPad, that Amazon dislikes, are the future. Hence why the future will have to be Amazon free, for it certainly won't be iPad free for Bruji. As you mentioned Amazon is a reliable source of information, including international films and it's hard to replace. It will take time and effort to replace Amaozn, that we wanted to spend elsewhere like building the iPad version today. While we build a search that can replace Amazon we have to go without Pocketpedia.

Since Amazon have proven to be such [insert explitive]s about syncing their data with the Pocketpedias, perhaps the iPad's competition for the Kindle and Amazon's bookstore itself might humble them into being more considerate. Just a thought…fingers crossed.

We certainly hope that is the case, as we would love to keep Amazon as much as everybody else.

Since the iPad will have the iBooks application, which stores books as well as provides access to search and purchase books, what does this mean for Bookpedia?

There still are a lot of physical books out there for Bookpedia to manage as well as managing your digital iBook versions. Already, Bookpedia reads and catalogs your audio book data from iTunes. I hope that the new iBook books will make it into iTunes and hence have interaction directly with IBooks and iTunes. We are also excited about the open epub format as Bookpedia already handles this format. Meaning it will be easier to adapt Bookpedia for a close integration with iBooks. Although I am excited about reading some books on the iPad, managing them in Bookpedia will certainly be better.

Does the Amazon ban include the IMDB? I've found that it's generally better to use the IMDB when adding movies, as Amazon results invariably return with boxed sets and bundles with the movie I'm looking for included, not the individual title. IMDB looks up the title and it's faster to drill down to the info I want. I have started looking up allmovie.com for the review of the movie which I copy and paste into DVDPedia.

The Amazon issue is with their API that covers all 6 official country stores (although Germany, France and Japan have only recently added the mobile clause).

Conor wrote:The Amazon issue is with their API that covers all 6 official country stores (although Germany, France and Japan have only recently added the mobile clause).

You know Conor, at first I agreed with the conclusion that Pedias without Amazon would be critically compromised (i.e. be bad for Bruji business). However, I have to agree that Bruji without the iPad would probably be worse off!

As dramatic as it might be...a version of the Pedias *with* Amazon support but no Pocketpedia *plus* a version of the Pedias *without* Amazon support but *with* Pocketpedia?

BTW, I'd recommend renaming any non-Amazon versions so as to prevent Amazon from confusing them with the Amazon-capable versions and continuing to send nastygrams! (Not that I have any *good* ideas, but..."CDPowerToThePeople" and "DVDFreedom" or various other bad '60s movement names come to mind. No..., I definitely don't have good name ideas at all!)

Just thinking out loud again; Convert PocketPedia to an open-source project

Disconnecting PocketPedia from Bruji makes it just a 'database' application. Combine it with a 'open' file-format (PocketPedia Exchange Format) to exchange data with the desktop, files that can be generated by any app (including Bruji Pedias, but also other software, like Excel, Bento, FileMaker). A rename of the application (PocketBase?) would be in place.

Advantages:

• Can be used with any application, not only Bruji apps
• No connection with Bruji apps
• If Amazon complains ... sue them, they have NO right to block a database-application to run on the iPhone

Apart from the 'sue them' part, I'm very serious about this;

• There's no way a generic database application is in conflict with Amazons rules, especially since the PocketBase project has no connection with Bruji (apart from the initial source code that has been donated by a nice guy called Conor )
• It's not illegal to export data from DVD/Book/GamePedia to a file
• It's not illegal to import data from a file to a database/application on the iPhone

Nora wrote:We'd love it too but I'm pretty sure the iPad falls under the Mobile Device category which means synching is not an option, see here.

Amazon sucks. But presumably, those of us with Pocketpedia1 and Pocketpedia2 (me!) will be able to continue using them on the iPad when it arrives? They will just transfer over via iTunes as I understand it.

I have ditched Amazon now as a source when I add new DVDs and get all the info from IMDb - I find that in Pocketpedia2 this allows DVDpedia to synch the summary page and all the info I want but of course no user reviews as these seemed to come from Amazon. IMDb also does user reviews of movies, so would it be possible to allow DVDpedia/Pocketpedia to synch with those instead of Amazon?

I'm not really sure why Amazon is so important to DVDpedia. Like I say, I have stopped using it and simply use 'manual add' now and input the movie title and ask it to search IMDb. This seems to populate all the important fields. I guess I am missing something here, but this works well for me and gives me an Amazon-free zone here. Because I hardly ever buy DVDs from Amazon (I can almost always source them cheaper elsewhere - at least here in the UK) I don't seem to lose any DVDpedia functionality at all doing things this way.

Amazon seem to be doing themselves no good at all with their intransigent and, frankly, stupid attitude. Good riddance to them I say.

Regards,

Keith

I'm not really sure why Amazon is so important to DVDpedia.

Hi Keith, I suppose it's more about the other Pedias. There's no "IMDb" for books, music, and so on.

noribori wrote:

I'm not really sure why Amazon is so important to DVDpedia.

Hi Keith, I suppose it's more about the other Pedias. There's no "IMDb" for books, music, and so on.

Ah, of course. My books and CDs are in an Uncatalogued System (AKA 'mess') so this isn't an issue I have been concerned with so far One day I ought to get around to the other Pedias but watching and managing my movie collection seems to be becoming a full time job.

I suppose it would be too much to ask the guys for a DVDpedia *only* version of Pocketpedia2? I'm thinking of the poor souls who didn't grab Pocketpedia when it was briefly available on the App Store, and those who will be clamouring for an iPad version (me!) as soon as the iPad is available. I know this would discriminate against the CD and Book owners but wouldn't it be better to have at least one iphone/iPad app even if it is just for DVDs? Maybe they could call it Pocket DVDpedia or something. Hey, Conor/Nora I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business here - just throwing in my 2 pence worth

Regards, Keith

It's the desktop apps (other pedias) that make Amazon important. We want people to be able to *reliably* find information from the pedias using the Desktop apps. Right now, hate to say this, the most reliable and complete API out there is Amazon's. IMDb is great, but is not as complete and realiable as Amazon and makes changes to their site quite often, resulting in a support nightmare because each time something changes requires a new build (hence a new version) of the application. And it gets confusing really fast: "which beta of *pedia are we on now?"

Imagine if we multiply that times the number of other sites. DVDpedia right now has a number of sites it can extract data from, but my guess is Amazon is the one used by most users.

The tinkerers and hackers amongst us wouldn't mind fiddling with sites and adding things manually, but the truth is that the average user (as far as such a creature exists) just wants the software to work out of the box and find their entries. Right now that is done via Amazon searches (for the most part).

Bruji is a very small company, the time involved in just supporting many different smaller search sites means time away from development, from making the changes our customers want and from evolving the products to constantly make them better. It's a fine line between support and development.

In response to making Pocketpedia open source, that won't solve the Amazon issue. I'm not the developer, so Conor might have other things to say on the subject (always consult with the boss), but it doesn't matter if your app is open source or not, you still cannot infringe the Amazon policy. I know what you're saying: making it open source means that Bruji cannot get penalized on the desktop side of things because we didn't develop it and we have nothing to do with the App. But then that means we lose the ability to edit it and troubleshoot and support it and make sure it's actually useful to our customers. We end up with a "plugin" that might or might not work, or we end up heading the development of the app, hence infringing Amazon policy and now we multiply our development time by a factor of however many other developers are working on this app, making sure that our changes don't break theirs, etc.

Honestly, I don't know what the solution is and, again, I'm not the developer, I'm just the hired help (more like a glorified maid really , so whatever I say here, take it with a grain of salt. We are looking into solutions to this, but making an Amazon-free version might be the way to go in the future. And, while I'm ranting, I'll also say that we're a bit put off by having thrown all our hard work and effort down the toilet not once, but twice, due to Amazon's inexplicable policy.
But fear not, we love Pocketpedia...

Alex wrote:It's the desktop apps (other pedias) that make Amazon important. We want people to be able to *reliably* find information from the pedias using the Desktop apps. Right now, hate to say this, the most reliable and complete API out there is Amazon's. IMDb is great, but is not as complete and realiable as Amazon and makes changes to their site quite often, resulting in a support nightmare because each time something changes requires a new build (hence a new version) of the application. And it gets confusing really fast: "which beta of *pedia are we on now?"

Imagine if we multiply that times the number of other sites. DVDpedia right now has a number of sites it can extract data from, but my guess is Amazon is the one used by most users.

The tinkerers and hackers amongst us wouldn't mind fiddling with sites and adding things manually, but the truth is that the average user (as far as such a creature exists) just wants the software to work out of the box and find their entries. Right now that is done via Amazon searches (for the most part).

Bruji is a very small company, the time involved in just supporting many different smaller search sites means time away from development, from making the changes our customers want and from evolving the products to constantly make them better. It's a fine line between support and development.

In response to making Pocketpedia open source, that won't solve the Amazon issue. I'm not the developer, so Conor might have other things to say on the subject (always consult with the boss), but it doesn't matter if your app is open source or not, you still cannot infringe the Amazon policy. I know what you're saying: making it open source means that Bruji cannot get penalized on the desktop side of things because we didn't develop it and we have nothing to do with the App. But then that means we lose the ability to edit it and troubleshoot and support it and make sure it's actually useful to our customers. We end up with a "plugin" that might or might not work, or we end up heading the development of the app, hence infringing Amazon policy and now we multiply our development time by a factor of however many other developers are working on this app, making sure that our changes don't break theirs, etc.

Honestly, I don't know what the solution is and, again, I'm not the developer, I'm just the hired help (more like a glorified maid really , so whatever I say here, take it with a grain of salt. We are looking into solutions to this, but making an Amazon-free version might be the way to go in the future. And, while I'm ranting, I'll also say that we're a bit put off by having thrown all our hard work and effort down the toilet not once, but twice, due to Amazon's inexplicable policy.
But fear not, we love Pocketpedia...

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your long and detailed response to the issues raised under this topic. I do hear what you are saying, and as someone who only uses DVDpedia, I have a different view to the other pedia users who don't have an 'IMDb' available. IMDb serves me very well for movies but, yeah, I've been a vicitm of their regular site changes and it must be a headache for you guys who constantly have to keep modifyng DVDpedia to keep up with them.

All of these issues, of course, have arisen with Amazon because of their strange attitude to mobile devices and your own great work in producing Pocketpedia - the main desktp app is unaffected of course (thankfully!). I see Pocketpedia as a nice adjunct to my main database on my Desktop but to be honest I could live without Pocketpedia, although I wouldn't want to. I am now getting all my movie info from IMDb and bypassing Amazon entirely, so for me at least, Pocketpedia2 is doing a great job. I use Pocketpedia every day, usually for 'sofa browsing' my collection but I thknk this whole issue will come into sharper focus when the iPad is available. The bigger screen will give you more opportunities that the iPhone does and I am hopeful that you will develop a sort of 'Pocketpedia on Steroids' for the iPad - the problem is, of course, if Amazon's intransigence means you can't continue with mobile apps, then an iPad version of the Pedias will probably never see the light of day, which would be a great loss to us all. This is why I floated the idea of a Pocket DVDpedia, because at least that one app could be very usable thanks to the IMDb. HST, I also appreciate that you don't want to be developing and supporting numerous different versions.

I hope there is a solution although it does look unlikely that Amazon will change their view any time soon. Maybe we will eventually see what they are planning for mobile devices themselves and then we may at least understand their attitude, which with the current level of knowledge, makes no sense at all right now.

Meantime, I am a 110% satisfied user of DVDpedia and a very happy user of Pocketpedia too, especially since I visited a certain German site recently I wish you every success in your development of your great products and I hope that Amazon do eventually learn the difference between an opportunity and a threat.

Kind regards,

Keith

Let me double that; thanks for the long response, Alex. Some ideas on your answers;

making it open source means that Bruji cannot get penalized on the desktop side of things because we didn't develop it and we have nothing to do with the App.

That's what I meant. But strictly, not PocketPedia, but the desktop pedias are in conflict with Amazons license; Bruji is allowed to use Amazons data as long as it's used on the desktop. It's not allowed to send it to a portable device.

But then that means we lose the ability to edit it and troubleshoot and support it

True, on the other hand; It doesn't stop employees of Bruji to be involved in development; Amazon has an agreement with Bruji as a company, not it's individual employees. I do understand your fears of having no control over PocketPedia, however, imo the alternatives (no PocketPedia) seem to be worse to me.

Having said that, I'm really starting to wonder what, according to Amazon is to be regarded a 'mobile' device; A laptop? A small laptop? A netbook? An iPad? Although some consider the iPad a big iPod, other think of it as a small laptop. It would be nice to have clear what Amazon considers 'legal', what not.

Amazons way of handling this still makes me angry; One-way communication is NO communication. If Amazon had some decency, at least they would communicate their decisions, make things clear (that way, maybe we could even agree with them, or find a solution that suits both Amazon -and- Bruji)

[update] Only just saw this topic; http://www.bruji.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3665. Unfortunately, conversations with Amazon do not appear to be fruitful.