iPhone App

Will we see an iPhone app for LibraryThing?

I would definitely like to see an iPhone app for this amazing tool!

iPhone and LT in the same sentence? Just the mention of it makes me drool.

It's been discussed, but with all the other actual site enhancements, I don't know where they are with it or if it's still being actively worked on.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/52201

It's something that we definitely want to do. Right now we're pretty busy with getting all of the new main site features out the door and into your hands. After that we plan on doing some things like an iPhone version. We probably won't do a real iPhone app. We'll probably do an iPhone optimized version of the web site. But we'll see.

We do have AN iPhone app ready to go (or nearly ready). But it's not an app for dealing with your catalog entries. oooo...mysteries!

We do have AN iPhone app ready to go (or nearly ready). But it's not an app for dealing with your catalog entries. oooo...mysteries!

Dammit. You could have left that out, and I would have considered my curiosity satisfied, but, no, you have to throw in that last bit and leave me guessing still.

>6

There's a reason he's called TormentDawg . . .

I figured that somebody would bring that up.

How about something like this so we could scan books without the cuecat.
http://www.redlaser.com/
Would be nice in a bookstore to be able to scan the barcode and see if I have the book or not.

We've looked into this a bit.
I've tried the various barcode scanning apps on my iphone. I rate every one of them FAIL. Sure, they get it right some of the time, but most of the time they just can't make out the information well enough to produce a good result.

The problem isn't the applications, but Apple's completely inadequate selection of hardware when it comes to the camera. iPhone cameras can't focus on close objects (macro/micro) so that makes them pretty useless for barcode scanning.

When the 3rd gen iphones come out I suspect that they will have a much better camera so we could possibly do something along these lines.

10>

http://www.geeksugar.com/2554675

That helps out the camera immensely.

The thingy in 11 is Griffin's Clarifi case.
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/clarifi

I've just bought the Collectorz.com iPhone app that will let me show the core of my library on my iTouch - no need for an iPhone, or an internet connection.

I have an iPod Touch, and would like to have my collection downloaded to an application so I can access it when there is no internet connection.

I'm also a novice iPhone programmer, and have been messing around with the SDK and the JSON API that LibraryThing provides. I've gotten my application to parse and display book information.

Now the real work begins. Here are some features I'm planning:
1. Cached catalogs - access your books offline
2. Sort catalog and display by Author, Title
3. "Do I have this" feature - type in ISBN, Author, Title will display likely matches already in your library
4. Search LibraryThing for Author, Title, ISBN
5. Add books from application

Questions for Library Thing admins:
1. Are you ok with this usage of the JSON API? I will be pulling down entire libraries through the API when the user requests a sync. Also, this isn't exactly a browser, so some of your licensing becomes interesting.
2. Can we add some way to get the JSON number through a submit of the username and password? Otherwise, people will have to input their JSON into the application instead - not as user friendly.

Questions for the rest of you:
1. Feature requests - please be specific
2. Pricing info - how much would you be willing to pay for the application? I'm all for free software, but I'd like my effort to at least pay for the Apple developer license so I can distribute it ($100 a year even if you're releasing only free applications).

I'm specifically looking for such an application? Will it provide coverflow? I want something on my Touch where I can access my Library Thing covers offline.

After the iPhone app...

Could you throw a bone to us poor T-Mobile G1 users, please? ;)

Talk to all the hardware developers and get a common development platform.
Sadly, I have a real job as well as my iPhone hobby and only have time to learn to program the device I have.

Once I get the code together, I'd be happy to throw it to developers for porting to other platforms, but I fear that it would be easier to design and build this application from scratch for the G1.

Yeah. Cover images with the cached catalog is one thing I'd really like mattfreier. Though I don't have an iPhone (just a touch) I could see being able to photograph a barcode when then searches my library would be useful to folks.

As for price, I'd pay $10 I think. the Collectorz book app for iPhone is that much.

I have an ipod touch (1g) and export my library into Excel and read it with the 'files' app or as an attachment to my email - ie I email the excel file to myself, then while connected via wifi also download the attachment then it's on the ipod for when I'm offline - I just keep it to title and author so it's easy to see when I'm in a bookshop, and keeps the file size small too.

Can you see your library thing pages at all when browsing the web from an iphone? Can you check while shopping to see if you have such and such already in your library? Or would you do something like think ou don't have the book, and unable to check LT, purchase it...

Yeah, you can see any web page on an iPhone, so you can check your catalogue etc. I'm on my iPhone right now actually.

librarything.com/m

m for mobile :)

you can also browse your regular catalog without the m interface, but there's no way to sign in.

Edit: Apparently you can sign into the website itself now.

So, there's some back story here.

According to Amazon, iPhone applications that use Amazon data are forbidden by their terms of service. They have told us we can't develop one. Meanwhile, a number of other companies have developed them, and... Amazon has done nothing about it.

You can imagine how I feel about all this, particularly as Amazon is, through Abebooks, a minority investor of LibraryThing. It's no fun to have your minority owner directly competing with you, through Shelfari, and stopping you from doing what even even companies they don't own are doing. I hope they either enforce their rules and cut off the iPhone apps., or allow us to build one.

We will be debuting an Amazon app soon, but it will not be a cataloging app. For that, we need to develop an iPhone-optimized web version

>22 With an iPhone, you can indeed sign in to the regular site, and see every page. It looks exactly the same as from a computer.

23-Tim, does you minority investor, or even someone from Abebooks interface with you about these things? Is an LT iPhone app going to be something that would cut them out of the cheese, or would it be something that could get them more cheese. I bet, at the end of the day, an LT app would drive more sales one way or another to them.

And the way you point out that others are doing it even in violation of some of their fine print. Probably makes one want to tear their hair out. It would seem to me that the iPhone platform is one that ever more apps are wanted for. Certainly Apple rather having you develope for them then an Android phone...

>25

It's not rational. I think it's bureaucratic, although the LT/Amazon relationship is fraught generally--they didn't actually buy their share, they just got it, and they run a competitor and our many ties to other booksellers can't be a selling point for us internally.

I also think the decision is poorly though-out, and will get reversed. When Amazon cracks down on this and many other uses of its data it says it will, it's going to be a huge story and, I suspect, Amazon will retreat. Amazon has always built its developer community on favorable data terms. Now, when other options are suddenly available, Amazon is moving to restrict the whole thing. It's a dumb move, and when they hit the brick wall of tech opinion, they'll retreat. Meanwhile, they'll have stunted the growth of something that benefits their bottom line, and helped its competitors.

26: Any chance you could use this as a way to get Barnes and Noble data? "Amazon won't let me do this. Do you want to have a widget instead?"

LibraryThing has a contractual right to pursue relations with any data provider or bookseller. BN, however, does not own their own data. If we give up Amazon data—a possibility—we'd probably approach Bowker, our other minority investor, or Ingram.

The Amazon link is something I do use, as their ease of being a customer is the best I have found. They have my wish lists, they ship with two day delivery for my once a year fee...

So the LT/Amazon connection works well for me. I see something I like on LT, I read a little here, I press the Amazon link and I add it to my wish list for later there.

Love it...

We wouldn't take away the Amazon link, if we took away Amazon data.

I think there are so so many people who use Amazon data only, that there would have to be a search interface to data from another major US bookseller instead.

It would have to be replaced, definitely.

Soooo....Should I put my development on hold? I'm not affiliated with LT, but obviously I'd be using your (and Amazon's) data. Since I've gotten most of the data access and display structure in place I may complete the application just for my own use, but it would be nice to allow it to see the light of day as well.

I don't know. What are you working on? Message me?

34: Tim, see msg 14.

Not having an iPhone yet, how often are you not online? Even in an iPod Touch. If you are online, you have the benefit of using LT, so what percentage would Matt's app be needed because you couldn't surf to the LT site?

36: An app built for the iphone could display data better than the website itself, as that would involve a lot less zooming. Plus he mentioned cached catalogs as a potential feature, so that it could be used offline.

36: It is especially helpful due to the size of data we are talking about here. It would take several seconds to pull up each book over the iPhone cellular network. Even on WiFi, it takes about 5 seconds in my tests to get a 20 book catalog.

Most of this is cover data - a text only application would not necessarily need to cache data, but it would be a very slow application if you want covers to be displayed.

>38.

It sounds like once they release a Lynx browser app for the iThings (a term I coined while working for Apple), LT mobile's loading time problems will be a thing of the past.

Now all we need is less reliance on JavaScript. ;)

Well, they actually went ahead with killing off mobile use:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/amazon-killing-mobile-apps-that-use-its-dat...

I feel of two minds about it. I'm relieved to be sure they weren't just going after us. But it's a bad move overall, for Amazon, for LibraryThing and for others. There's nothing special about mobile—nothing that would justify changing their mind on the basic principle that open data helps Amazon's bottom line. So I have question what's really going on? Have they lost faith in that idea, or is this just a weird aberration?

>40.

It's a conspiracy! Amazon wants to prevent you from using their data while you're browsing through Borders!

The long term outcome I see of this is that fewer app developers will use Amazon as a source. That, or more people will be getting Amazon's "express written consent."

Does that mean that librarything.com/m can't even pull data from Amazon, as it's for use on a handheld device? Or any other site that uses the Amazon API that is accessible from a handheld?

Why did Amazon have to turn the Suck up to 11?

41>

Why did Amazon have to turn the Suck up to 11?

You're about ten years late on noticing that, IMO. That ship sailed long ago when they retroactively changed their privacy policy, with no way for users to remove data collected under the previous policy from the new, less restrictive, sharing policies.

Is there a Shelfari widget?

A widget? Yes. But not a Shelfari app.

Crap. I guess that kills off my app.

Unless using your API, which then uses Amazon data would be a legal workaround....

Tim, message me if there's a chance to even get out a text-based application here.

Crap. I guess that kills off my app.

Yeah. It's amusing that we've been discussing something that is pretty big news. If only TechCrunch read LibraryThing message boards...

LT can offer:

1. API to library data
2. Covers

#1 is good and will soon be very very very good. #2 is meh.

The problem is that most LT users will have Amazon books. So they'd need to be converted somehow.

But even if Amazon says no to using their data, which of course might be reversed, you can still view the web (slowly i believe you have said) and see the information that way?

Doesn't Amazon get a great deal of its data from Ingram? If not now, didn't it use to?

If LT has a scanned image in it's library of a cover, rather than an image from Amazon would that substitute for the APP plans? Can an LT App be done with out Amazon info?

If I had my iPhone with me and wanted to access my LT data, I would want to be able to see if I had the book already. If not, check a few things like the LT info page to see what others say about the book, maybe tag it into a collection for 'While window shopping, order later'

What seems dumb about the Amazon decision, is if I was browsing in Borders and felt I could score 30% off by going to Amazon with my two day delivery. A couple clicks on my iPhone, and then the amazon link and I could order it.

Tim Retaliate. Disable that feature on all mobile sign-ins...

Doesn't Amazon get a great deal of its data from Ingram? If not now, didn't it use to?

I'm not sure if it gets any from them now. I know much of it is not, but am not sure if any is.

If LT has a scanned image in it's library of a cover, rather than an image from Amazon would that substitute for the APP plans? Can an LT App be done with out Amazon info?

Yes and no. Members would be annoyed if things didn't match.

If I had my iPhone with me and wanted to access my LT data, I would want to be able to see if I had the book already. If not, check a few things like the LT info page to see what others say about the book, maybe tag it into a collection for 'While window shopping, order later'

Well, you can use the web as much as you like. And we can make a web version that's sized for the screen better.

What seems dumb about the Amazon decision, is if I was browsing in Borders and felt I could score 30% off by going to Amazon with my two day delivery. A couple clicks on my iPhone, and then the amazon link and I could order it.

Exactly. Why do they want to stop this? It makes no sense.

Tim Retaliate. Disable that feature on all mobile sign-ins...

What feature?

The ability to click on the Amazon link... If it is a mobile device, disabling that link would be retaliation, but I was being facetious...

(I may succumb tomorrow and get an iPhone...)

If LT goes Amazon-data free, we could have an absolutely kick-ass iPhone app--and be the only one...

How would that work with people who have books from Amazon in their libraries already? Or the current webpage widgets with covers, particularly those with LTFL?

I know John Buckman with Bookmooch was budgeting some money for a Bookmooch app on iPhone.

Is there a way to tell how many books that are listed in LT are covered by only Amazon material, and how many have reviews, or user supplied descriptions? User supplied covers rather than Amazon supplied covers. What else comes from Amazon?

On the description front, much of Amazon says they get it from somewhere else, like Publishers weekly. I wonder do they pay for that in a license, or is it given away for free by the publisher as part of the publishers marketing. (Without a description are you going to buy a book just based on a title, and a cover that is so small you may not be able to see it clearly?) What content that Amazon gives out is really content that they have created.

Then I post my reviews, which I actually type first in an engine at Living Social on Facebook (When are we getting that Facebook APP?) then copy it to here, then use the Amazon button to copy and post my review there, and finally, place it into a website I maintain of all my reviews. So who owns those reviews after I have written them (I really do according to the laws of copyright, no matter what Amazon would try to say and how many lawyers they might hide behind.) But the horading of content just strikes me as anti-Jeff Bezos and Amazonian. Much more Microsoftie and early AOLite.

Is there a way to tell how many books that are listed in LT are covered by only Amazon material, and how many have reviews, or user supplied descriptions? User supplied covers rather than Amazon supplied covers. What else comes from Amazon?

You can tell piece by piece if you know where to look, but it's not aggregated for you.

On the description front, much of Amazon says they get it from somewhere else, like Publishers weekly. I wonder do they pay for that in a license, or is it given away for free by the publisher as part of the publishers marketing. (Without a description are you going to buy a book just based on a title, and a cover that is so small you may not be able to see it clearly?) What content that Amazon gives out is really content that they have created.

They get reviews from various places, but the core bibliographic data is coming from publishers, mostly. They get ONIX feeds, mostly.

Then I post my reviews, which I actually type first in an engine at Living Social on Facebook (When are we getting that Facebook APP?) then copy it to here, then use the Amazon button to copy and post my review there, and finally, place it into a website I maintain of all my reviews. So who owns those reviews after I have written them (I really do according to the laws of copyright, no matter what Amazon would try to say and how many lawyers they might hide behind.) But the horading of content just strikes me as anti-Jeff Bezos and Amazonian. Much more Microsoftie and early AOLite.

Some sites claim copyright—Amazon's LibraryThing clone does. I don't know what LS does. But Amazon and LibraryThing only claim licenses to your review. In LT's case, you can define who gets to use it. You're right that, technically, FB may also have a claim, although I don't see them entering the book review licensing business. They'd be eviscerated.

Is there a way to tell how many books that are listed in LT are covered by only Amazon material, and how many have reviews, or user supplied descriptions? User supplied covers rather than Amazon supplied covers. What else comes from Amazon?

You can tell piece by piece if you know where to look, but it's not aggregated for you.

I meant could you Tim and LT Track that like in Zeitgeist and have a way to determine when you are adequately covered with site resources for such information...

With only 300K books reviewed out of of over 4 million titles, I gather we have a long way to go to get as much info as Amazon has.

Tim,

Would Google Gears support also be in violation of this TOS? Gears has a use on non-handheld devices (I used it on my desktop to keep up with my writing until I got plugged back into the 'net), and it can be used on a laptop (like, reading Google Reader on a train on your way to work). Granted, "Gears is available for Windows, Windows Mobile (IE Mobile, Opera Mobile), Mac (Firefox, Safari), Linux and Android." The fact that it's for IE Mobile, Opera Mobile, and Android would probably hurt the team... (and then there's coughGearsMonkeycough)

I suppose the next best thing would be to have the system "know" what was "Amazon Product Advertising Content," and just not do anything that'll use it. But that seems like a bit of overhead just so you don't accidentally send mobile customers to Amazon, or whatever their convoluted reasoning is (keep an eye out for an official Amazon iPhone App!).

If it was between no mobile application or no Amazon images/etc., though, I'd take the latter.

Of course, if I had a handheld LT app, I'd only be using it for CK and catalogue-related edits (if I'm at a remote location while reading a book, and I'd like to add a CK item, this would be IDEAL), and not so much remote adding of books. I do that at the mothership. But, I'm not everybody. Some people might want to catalogue a book while leaving the checkout counter at the store ("No bag, thanks, It'll just add another step to the cataloguing process!")

And just to top off the morning with a stupid question: Did you try to get express prior written approval?

Gears

We've thought about it. There are also some nasty provisions about caching that might come into play, though. Can you run gears on a mobile device?

As far as knowing and not knowing, it could sub in and out content as necessary. Most Amazon content could be subbed. But there would be subtle differences. I think people would be weirded out by it.

Did you try to get express prior written approval?

No explicitly. But they won't grant it.

According to the Gears site, it currently works on IE Mobile, Opera Mobile, and Android.

But personally, I'd love to be able to use LT on my Palm when AFK. I'd definitely tolerate any weird-out factors.

Is it a Palm PRE?

I'm actually in doubt about whether we can make a PRE application. The rule Amazon communicated to me—still not "out there" on TechCrunch and etc.—was that it can't be a compiled mobile application. But I gather PRE applications are HTML and JS underneath, so maybe that's okay?

Did they mean that you couldn't compile in Amazon's data? I can understand them not wanting their data actually compiled into an application.

However, querying their data using code that is compiled into an application is different maybe?

>58.

HP iPAC with CE. Probably shouldn't have called it a "Palm." Sorry, I slipped into making it a generic term for "palmtop computer."

I think I've figured it out—see my Tweet: http://twitter.com/librarythingtim/status/2541547281

What's so dispiriting here is that Amazon grew with the grain of the internet—making their data free so that others would create value for them. They drew on the power of the crowd to create things they never could have done themselves. Now someone short-sighted must be looking at the situation and saying "Hey, we could get that value and don't need the middlemen!" This makes short-term sense, but it ignores how Amazon grew, and the power of these dynamics in other hands. The web is stronger than proprietary software or proprietary data.

Anyway, what I really fear is that, if Amazon is willing to favor Snaptell over all other mobile developers, including LibraryThing, what's the say they won't favor Shelfari over LibraryThing in the same way?

Hey Tim...Pre owner here who would love to see an LT app or at least a more comprehensive mobile page. I can access the full web page with no problem, but have to do a lot of pinching and zooming.

How does Snaptell make money? If you take a picture of a thing, and send it to Snaptell and they tell you all about it, they have expenses. They only make a buck I would think if you go that last little bit and purchase.

So how is that different then LT who is adding way more useful content about books then Snaptell will be able to. Maybe it is about talking to the right guy at Amazon and getting noticed... Amazon is a big place. Any ideas how many LTers actually work there?

Delicious Library just got slammed by Amazon for their iPhone application (article link).

"Amazon gave D-M an ultimatum: pull the iPhone app, or lose the API access for the desktop version of Library. Despite Shipley's requests for a mobile device exception, the big A did not relent."

Yeah, see message 40 too.

Just downloaded the Redlaser app for iPhone, which is currently #2 in the US app store.

Seems like building librarything integration wouldn't be too difficult, since they offer a super-easy do-it-yourself link-builder to use their interface to search other sites:

http://occipital.com/blog/2009/10/01/create-redlaser-custom-app-in-60-seconds/

and also cos they have an SDK with tools to build custom apps with their technology....

http://www.redlaser.com/SDK.aspx

Sounds like more fun than my cuecat. Any chance that someone at Librarything would take redlaser integration on as a project?

M

I'll never rule it out but we're not developing a standalone cataloging iPhone app right now. Mostly due to restrictions regarding Amazon data.

That could all change tomorrow though. Or the next day. Or the next.....

Or in "two weeks"?

heh ...

 

My big desideratum is the description stuff about stores. Can we just dump some text above the image? (The image should be a little less gigantic, but whatever.) I think the info is useful.

What would an iPhone or Android app do? Anyone else want to help work on it?

We don't have any problem working on an app. We'd love to. In fact we have a LibraryThing Local iPhone app ready to go and we are ready to work on one for cataloging.

The problem lies in the fact that any app that uses LT data is also using Amazon data and Amazon will kill the app, with prejudice.

So until we can free our data (we're working on it) any mobile apps will have to wait. Unless you like lawyers, in which case you may proceed. :)

I can see how a barcode scanner on my Android phone would make cataloguing easy. In the book store, the bar code would trigger reviews of the book that's scanned. Because gps tells my Android in which book store I am, it can produce pricing and other store specific data. Or it can take me to an Amazon page where I can order the book with one click. Amazon could make me a special offer, depending on the store I'm in. LT would notify me that two other LT members are currently in the store.

...and that one of the two was young, of your preferred sexual preference and with an agreeabole BMI.

>73.

There's an app for that?

Actually, I'm surprised that no dating sites have done that yet. "Get our iPhone/Android/Blackberry app, and get notified of matches within a specified distance of your current location!"

Time to visit the USPTO...

In the book store, the bar code would trigger reviews of the book that's scanned. Because gps tells my Android in which book store I am, it can produce pricing and other store specific data. Or it can take me to an Amazon page where I can order the book with one click. Amazon could make me a special offer, depending on the store I'm in.

Honestly, I find this so offensive. Being in a store doesn't require you to buy from it, but there's some minimal level of decorum, and some promise of fair play, like not using someone's expensive physical store as a browsing place for online purchases! You might as well browse Match.com during a date.

>75.

To add insult to injury: using the store's free wi-fi to do it.

That's like checking Match.com at your date's HOUSE, after being invited in for coffee.

About the only mutual benefit I could see is by using some price comparison engine to find the lowest book price in a store near you, and then convincing the bookseller that you'll get all your books there if they promise to match local prices. But then, you'd have to convince the bookseller that you were not just some crazy nut waving an iPhone at them.

It's like browsing Match.com during sex!!!

Okay, it's not that bad. :)

The best way to convince a bookseller of your sincerity is to be a regular customer.

I would love an app that scans barcodes to access book reviews and tags on LT. I am going to buy books while in a bookstore, I just need to pick which ones! I already use my iphone to do this (just accessing the normal site), but a faster way would be lovely.

77. Haven't you ever done that?

Robert

"Honestly, I find this so offensive."

There's an option in your phone to turn gps off. Also, most apps have an option to disable gps in that particular app, exactly for the reasons you mention.

72 - 77 > And then the local bookstore's AI could interface and there could be a virtual bidding war.

And, whenever the bookstore loses they charge for wireless.

And air.

They would charge for wireless unless you scan enough books and occasionally buy one at their store. They charge double soon as you press the "Buy now at Amazon" button. So in the end, there's a business model for everyone.

Seriously, Tim, you should talk to Amazon about an Android app and an iPhone app.

There's no question Amazon is not going to let us build it. We're going to have to use another data source if we want to do it.

hm..

As it's been a year, has anything changed regarding making an iPhone app?

Thanks.

Nothing's changed with Amazon's terms that I know of... Otherwise, Tim would be bouncing off the wall with a "LT has an iPhone app!".

I believe there's been some discussion about changing the mobile interface or providing an alternate mobile interface.

Have you seen the existing page? http://www.librarything.com/m/

I'm late to this discussion ( came here by googling librarything app) - I checked out the mobile site - pretty bare but if I could download a text list of my catalog, that would be enough. I Homeschool seven children who love to read and thought I'd try cuecat before investing in a few thousand RFID tags :). This year I bought double of many books on my list and mostly I'd like an easy way to have an updated list on me (in time for Homeschool convention in April!)... Any chance of that? I'm really enjoying the site :)

Yes, you can export your catalog in comma-separated or tab-delimited versions (the TD has a lot more info), then manipulate it however you like in Excel (or Calc, or other spreadsheet program). It's under the More tab, then Import/Export.

I'm not sure if this would work or not. But in Ontario amazon's main competition is indigo/chapters the main difference is that indigo has actual stores as well as an online store. So they might be more open to an app you could use in store. I'm not sure where they get their data from, since they compete with amazon I would hope they have their own source.
Typically they have the same titles as amazon every once and a while they miss one but it is typically obscure.

It'd be nice to get this sorted out, I find standing in store and trying to go through the current website extremely time consuming.

Just got an iPhone so I read this discussion with great interest, since it's not easy to use the site itself on the phone. The mobile app is a great help though, since it will make it less likely that I'll buy a book I already own. But, oh, how I hope the Amazon problem will get worked out . . .

Is there any way to distinguish between data that has come from Amazon and thus can't be shown in a mobile app, and other data?

That is, would it be possible to create a (simple) catalogue app that simply doesn't display Amazon-provenant data?

Is it, for example, the case that even if Amazon's cover images were to be excluded, and the "add book" feature on the mobile were not to use Amazon as a source, that the simple fact that a book entry of mine may have the title or subtitle originate from Amazon (based on my original ISBN query) would come under Amazon's TOS?

I believe it's the Amazon cover images (avoidable by leaving off cover images) + having Amazon as a data source on the website. So if Tim turned off Amazon as a source on Add Books, he could distribute an iPhone app.

Which was one of the aims of creating the Overcat source. It's very handy, and much better data, usually, than Amazon - but it does fail on new and not-yet-released books ('fail' meaning you can't find the book there but you can on Amazon). If Overcat could be expanded to include LT manual entries as a source, only the first person would have to enter a new book...that would solve most of the problems. And I doubt the hinky data would be much of a problem in manual entries. But for now, Amazon is still firmly entrenched.

If Overcat could be expanded to include LT manual entries as a source, only the first person would have to enter a new book...that would solve most of the problems.

And any books that use Amazon as a source right now, would need to be switched to use Overcat or something else, or they wouldn't appear in the app, right?

Eh. Amazon covers, yes, but I for one have a lot of books that say Amazon as source but I've changed just about every bit of data from them. That's part of what makes it complicated. As of right now, there's no way to change what's listed as the source for a book - except to delete and re-enter it, and that's not gonna happen. Tim has suggested that it will be editable/alterable at some point, though.

#98, I also have a lot of heavily edited Amazon entries, partly because Amazon was the only source for some new books (see #96) and partly because I didn't know any better when I first joined LT. But I am reluctant to delete and reenter them because seeing when I entered a book is meaningful for me and I don't want to change the entry date. If there could be some way of changing the source without changing the entry date or my edited data, I would definitely go back through my collection (slowly!) and change all the Amazon-sourced books.

Could you make a server-side script to walk through all "amazon" entries and compare whether some other source would offer compatible data? Then switch from amazon to this other would not be visible to users?

Of course this would not work with all entries, but at least it would be a step to "right" direction...

Sounds like I can stop waiting for the "real" LibraryThing iPhone application. Shame on Amazon, but guess there's nothing to do about that...

Question: what if someone would export their data from LibraryThing as a file, sync via iTunes to iPhone and load with some custom application designed to display such an export... Would Amazon still come hunt down that application? No idea what's inside such an export, got to check.

Basically I just want an easy access to list of MY books. Don't really care about cover images, reviews, author links, ISBN and all that other mysterious data I can see on website. Author, title and tags might be just enough. Or at least a good start.

101: I think some type of export would work, as long as the viewer app wasn't created by LibraryThing.

101> That's what I do - export in TD, clean up and convert to CSV in Excel or Calc (depending on which computer I'm using), then display it on my Android phone (and before that on my Palm PDA) in HanDBase. Wonderful database app - if you ever want to have or make databases of - stuff, just about anything you can think of, HDB does it. And yes, they have an iPhone version; and all their versions sync to a desktop app as well.

102> Checked my own export, CSV file 270kb and XLS file 569kb. Didn't look differencies, but seems like even CSV would contain way more than enough details to make a simple list application with search feature.

103> Good idea, but would really prefer a custom app. Too lazy to do data conversion :)

Anybody know, whether LT has web services API to export data? Something with JSON... Or would Amazon object to that? 3rd party mobile app having any connection to any part of LT data? Difficult...

Anybody know anything about import e.g. if someone would modify old exported data with e.g. change tags or reviews, do modifications on real website and THEN try to import that modified old export what would happen (was that confusing enough :))

Just thinking...

104> LT has various APIs:

http://www.librarything.com/services/

But honestly, they don't get a lot of love. Any feature that's been added since they were created (and that's been a while) is generally left out in the cold. And there's bugs that have been around forever that probably won't ever get fixed. It's just not something that's a priority for their limited resources (understandably).

I believe there's a merge option on input that's supposed to incorporate changes you've made to the data, but I have no idea if it works.

105> Thanx, didn't know about those! Got to check properly some day, but first comments...

Main problems are max 1000 calls a day per developer key and max 1 call a second. This kills every plan to use APIs in mobile client - used even by a single person, not to mention what would happen if it was released publicly. Key would be blocked immediately and client would stop working. Developer key owner would be banned for life from LT, if (s)he was lucky.

Let's say I have 100 books, so with those APIs it would take minimum 100 seconds to fetch a list of all my books. 1 minute 40 seconds is pretty bad user experience, as a best case :) And if I would happen to have more than 1000 books in my list, I would need to wait until next day to complete the full list...

Another problem is that license allows using APIs only via JavaScript in web browser - and no own local cache. This would mean embedding web browser and ALWAYS calling server (max 1000/day max once a second). Can't help wondering why bother making APIs at all... Sorry, something got into my eye (sniff)

One more possibility might be using directly GET http://www.librarything.com/export-csv, but the cookies are such a mess, it would take long time to figure out what they mean and what is really needed.

Doesn't look good at all, I'm afraid :(

106> Ok, first version could be read-only.

Was thinking whether iPhone camera could be used to scan new book barcodes and submit to my collection... or whether I could scan barcode, get book entry from my library, update it and submit the update back to LT.

Using year numbers as tags to check whether I've read a book earlier and mark when I read it again. I have kids, so I keep reading same book :)

Unfortunately, the CSV export has several bugs and many fields left out. You're probably 108> best off using the tab delimited version, which has bugs and shortcomings but less of both.

Barcode is something that's been talked about in other threads, so you might want to try searching. Not sure where it wound up.

Wasn't there a way to tweet a message, possibly an ISBN from a scan, to add a book to your library? Or is that something else that stopped working.

Was thinking about something simple, like Tab1 alphabetical list of all authors, where author would contain list of all related books. Tab2 alphabetical list of all books, which no/few details about the book. Tab3 global search for all known keywords (tags).

Tabs 1 and 2 would do search as filtering down the related lists. Tab3 is more difficult, how to display search results. Too many options.

Not a mobile LT client, but a kind of emergency field list of my books, to be used as reminder in book stores and libraries. Covers would be nice, I'm better remembering visual things, but text list would be a good start.

Still thinking...

>111,

If you didn't mind doing the updates on an as-needed basis, one option would be to create a server-side program (e.g. PHP/MySQL) that could take in the tab-delimited export file from LT. Then build code to display it as you like.

For my needs though, I'd prefer a truly local catalog which can be browsed without need to access the Internet. I am experimenting with an iPhone app called "My Library" to see if it can handle 7,100+ from my collections. One issue is that the fields don't correspond well between the LT export and the ML import. Another is the situation of cover images. I'd like my cover images to be shown and I have a lot of non-ISBN books. It is possible that such limitations can be overcome. This option will still require some occasional manual updates by taking the LT export and importing to ML. The latter program can do "adds" to its database instead of wiping everything out. However, the LT export is an all-or-nothing proposition so I'd have to delete books entered since the last update from the Excel view of the LT export file.

James Keeline

110> Stopped working. Something Twitter did - follower limits, or something?

113> Oh, that's too bad! Planning to do Twitter integration into a bigger iPhone app and trying it first with LT would have been a nice warm up exercise :(

108> Found ZBar iPhone SDK, which should be ok for creating a book barcode scanner. Custom app could connect "directly" to LT APIs, if suitable one were found. Not too big work effort estimation for first version, but a real app would require lots of time and iterations for UI design, layouts and navigation. Sigh, another one on todo list...

http://zbar.sourceforge.net/iphone/index.html

112> 7100 cover images equals hundreds of MB data, offline is a must! Guessing exported LT data is about 6MB, but it has to be parsed and stored separately == another 10MB+ needed. Maybe total 400MB for whole setup.

Thanx for "My Library" tip, I'll check what it looks like :)

As discussed before, one iPhone barcode solution is the Red Laser app which is $2 or less. I have used it many times to take a stack of similar subject books with ISBN-13 barcodes, scan them, email the list to myself, open the attached text file, and upload to the LT import page. On that latter page you can select the data sources and set the subject and tags to be applied to all of the entries. This is the reason for scanning similar books in a batch.

I have read that Red Laser also allows you to take some other action for a scan and I think people have experimented with using it to add individual books to LT. However, I think the process would be slow and potentially buggy. The batch upload does work and may be more useful.

If you are cataloging at home, there's always the option of a modified USB CueCat barcode scanner.
_____

The thumbnail images presented on the LT site are pretty small compared with the originals I upload which are 500k-2M. However, I recognize that if you have a lot of them it will add up.

James

So, Amazon has recently relented. After allowing everyone else--all our competitors--to put their data on mobile sites, and NOT us, they finally decided to let us do it too. They were, I think, tired of my angry emails.

So we've got to make a mobile site. We'd like use the LibraryAnywhere infrastructure, but we aren't sure if we can bolt a scanner onto that or not.

116>

Hooray!

116> Excellent news! Just to check, does this mean you'll dig out your iPhone app from around 2009 and release any day now?

Btw interesting comment about angry emails... you recon it might help to get LT APIs updated, too? ;)

>118

The API is in a similar situation. It's not clear whether it's allowed by Amazon's terms which, of course, we're very careful with, but our competitors aren't.

All I can say is, I'm sorry we don't have better ones. The flip side is that LT will almost certainly never have its API access revolked, so users will never lose their data.

Wonderful news!

Glum: Bad news. It's a lot of work. I would rather they had acted on their TOS with Goodreads than allowed us in more than year later...

So true. Though it's a tough choice between loose incompetence and efficiently ruling with an iron fist.

I also suppose there's not much (any?) money in an iOS app.

>122

Right. We'd probably have to give it away, although the scanning license will cost us a buck.

Sorry. Bad mood today. I can't move anything today. I should avoid Talk :)

The timing is bad, but it's still better than nothing.

I'm very excited to see LibraryThing get it's own app!

As a newish iPhone owner, I'm thrilled! And I for one would be happy to pay for an LT app.

123> What's a "scanning license"? At least ZBar is open source licensed under GNU LGPL 2.1 and thus should be free for even commercial software? Anyway, to cover expenses I wouldn't mind paying "a buck" for iPhone client.

http://zbar.sourceforge.net/index.html

...nope, I have no connection with ZBar. Was just checking open source barcode scanner libraries for iPhone "just in case". Seemed like it contains enough features and "good enough" scanning quality. Some reported problems with iPhone 3G focusing, I recall...

I have no understanding of most of what you folks are talking about, but I would be willing to pay for an LT app.

k4k

This might be a good place to mention that I think the LT site *as it exists* performs very well on the iPhone — better than many so-called mobile sites. The only difficulty (for first-time users) is in the Add Books tab. When you click "Search" the focus returns to the same field, so it appears that nothing is happening. Maybe that behavior could be changed for mobile devices. Personally, I've gotten used to it and now do a lot of book entries from the phone. I did not expect to find that convenient.

The problem with the main LT site for mobile use is not that it doesn't work - in fact it works spectacularly on my iPhone. The problem is that it is not optimized for the tasks I want to do while away from a laptop. Lately I have fallen into a trap where I don't add books to my library (I use it in great part as a virtual "to read" bookshelf) in favor of adding to my Amazon wish list which is basically one click. Worse, I've fallen into buying kindle books more frequently than I should which I probably could check out from the library because the number if steps to look that up (ESP when on a phone) is long.

In my frustration I started laying out screens and interactions of what the app would look like. I then started checking out what public API there was and couldn't tell if I could get a listing of my library programmatically ... And then I found this thread.

So, can I write an app? Are there plans for an LT official one? (maybe I could help?)

There are plans for an LT official one (see msg 116). You might try offering your schemes, if only as "what I would like to see in the app". I don't know if you can actually help them or what.

130> I think you can also write your own app, as long as you stay within the Terms of Service. Just make sure you make it clear yours is the unofficial one.

In my mind BookCrawler is the best iPhone app at the moment, and I've been using it for several months whilst I wait for an LT one. You can import CSV files into it, but unfortunately it wants a different format to the one that LT asks for.

Therefore I've written a script that converts an LT CSV file into a BookCrawler-compatible file. Are there any other BookCrawler users who would find this useful?

133: I think that would be useful. :)

I've made available the script to convert LT data into a BookCrawler compatible format. Let's take discussion of it here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/117292

How about:
A custom url for use with a barcode scanner app, to queue up books to add to your catalog.
like

librarything.com/m/fuzzysteve/(some semi-random string of characters, like a salted hash of the username)/(isbn)

Which can then be used with a barcode scanner like https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.zxing.client.android

As long as there's a scanner app that can post to a custom url, people have an easy way to add books.

Yes yes! I certainly would.

My features for an iPhone App -

1) In-app scanning and uploading and adding to LT account (Amazon app does in-app scanning to retrieve product listings)
2) Mobile listing and search of personal library

Those are the most important to me. Others that would be nice...
- local book event push notification and add to calendar function
- other social features of LT like seeing other libraries

Of course, I'd be willing to pay for this App on top of my lifetime subscription. The ability to just use my phone to scan up items would be a life saver and encourage more use of LT by more people I think. Dragging out the Cue Cat (which I can't find at the moment) and hooking up a laptop over by the bookshelf is a bit of a hassle.

CliffordtheRed,

You can scan books with your iPhone today. I use the Red Laser app (http://redlaser.com) which I see is available for the iPhone along with the Android. It works best with an iPhone 3GS or later because of the autofocus. It was $2 when I got it and now it's free.

With it you can scan a stack of books. The list of books can be emailed to yourself. The attachment in the email can be imported into LT with http://www.librarything.com/import For each import file you can set tags and collections so it pays to scan similar books in a batch.

It's not an ideal method of entering books but would be as good as any function that would be issued as part of a hypothetical iPhone app.

James

I also agree hugely on being able to see and add to my collections on the fly. I use an iPod Touch, so if it could be offline with syncing capabilities, that would be fabulous.

Also, I would definitely pay for this.

That is great news. However, I would suggest that the site could use some updating and streamlining at this point, and if that were undertaken with a responsive web design approach (see http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_responsive_web_design_revolution_coming...) it could also solve the problem of mobile access. It would also mean LT staff would not have to maintain 2 (or more) parallel systems.

Can we have an update on the status of a LT app for iPhone?
Messages 71 and 116, together with the recent announcement that LT have integrated scanner capability with LibAnywhere seem to reasonably raise the expectation that an app could be available soon.

Message 119 doesn't seem to relate to the current message 118, when it says
"The API is in a similar situation. It's not clear whether it's allowed by Amazon's terms " similar to what?

I think it's pretty clear that many users would be willing to pay for an app that let them scan barcodes and add to their own collection, can we have a clear statement of the state of where this stands at the end of 2011?

Given the level of interest in this, it might even be worth writing some background as to why it's not available instead of the "We're developing a full-fledged LibraryThing app." statement over at http://www.librarything.com/more/sites

Thanks
DrBob

I agree, would like an update on the status of an LT app, in my case I would love one for the Ipad.

Thanks,
Mei

I'm not so interested in the scanning capabilities as I am in being able to see my entire library without having to use the Librarything mobile page. When I'm booksale-ing, my internet connection is tenuous at best. An app that I don't need to hook up to the internet (except to update every now and then) would be awesome!

Adding my plaintive cries to the chorus -- could we have an official status update please?

Here's my plea as well. I'd be glad to pay for such a useful app, and I can envision using it daily on my iPad or iPhone.

Please please please do this! I've been considering importing my LT library into ANobii, just because I love their app and the fact that you can enter books by scanning the barcode (plus, the interface is nice: simple and functional). But the thing is: I don't WANT to have to use two different services (three, if you count weread on Facebook). I love LT. But its lack of a smartphone app is a huge drawback in my book.

Would love an app that lets me search my collection and add books to it, at the bare minimum. Would also be willing to pay (up to $5) for such an app.

I'll see your five dollars and raise you five.

I would also be willing to pay for the app.

Me too

An Android scanner app would make LT almost perfect. Please consider.

I don't much care about an app that would add books (though if it existed I'd probably use it to add to my wishlist when I find something interesting in the bookstore), but I'd love to be able to check whether a book is in my library -- even making the existing mobile site collection-aware would handle this (though the ideal would be to allow me to just scan a barcode and it would tell me "in your catalog", "in your wishlist", "not listed".)

Amen to that, lorax.

Tiiiiiiiim, are you there?

That's exactly what I want as well, Lorax.
Having it be able to remember your complete list without an active internet connection would be the coup de grace (it could operate on daily updates, "push" or something). My internet speed sux on my phone.

"allow me to just scan a barcode and it would tell me "in your catalog", "in your wishlist", "not listed".)" YES. I would also be willing to pay for this.

Another vote for "please"!

Add another mention for wanting a good LibraryThing iPhone app. Need to be able to look at my catalogue, my wishlist, not listed, and see immediately where it is. Let us know if we can help!

Separate development projects like this require devoting a developer's time and money to pay them. Obviously, from other threads, Tim, Jeremy and Co. have other features and maintenance which has a higher priority than this right now.

I've seen some messages to suggest that people would be willing to "pay" for an iPhone (or Android) app. The real question is "how much?" If it is merely $2-$10 that most apps go for, that might not be enough with perhaps 1,000 purchases to recover the development investment.

If an app were scoped out and estimated costs determined, perhaps there would be a way to finance this with a system like kickstarter? Then, people would be encouraged to pledge as much as they could afford or wished to. Payment would be collected if the funding goal was reached.

James

Another vote.

Unfortunately, my usage of LibraryThing is dropping because I don't have good (read: fast) mobile access.

To answer Keeline, I'd easily pay $5, possibly more but I wouldn't flinch at $5.

Sean