There doesn’t seem to be an option to download the PDF version of the third edition.
New book updates will be accessible exclusively via the online reader.
When did they change the policy?
Kind of restrictive and will probably result in my not purchasing any more books or courses. There are various other sources of SwiftUI material.
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There’s been a recent downsize in Kodeco, with a shorter staff, it’s more difficult to manage publications. Especially those that often involve staff to reach out to third-parties and remove unauthorized copies of files (such as PDFs). In other words, PDFs cost a lot more than just hitting the “publish” button.
I won’t be buying anything else from Kodeco.
This policy to only offer an online only method just doesn’t sit right for me. I like to be offline when working and focusing and a downloadable PDF option was the main reason I bought so many Ray Wenderlich and now Kodeco books in the past.
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Sorry, that is just an excuse and fits right into the direction that Kodeco has been going. No wonder you had to downsize. No updates, no new books, like for Swift Data, or Vision Pro Development, or Apple Intelligence. No recent tutorial articles. Everything that I loved about Ray Wenderlich has stopped. Now there are the shady bootcamps promising me to become a Vision Pro developer in a couple of weeks, and lots more other non-sense. You have truely joepardized everything that was great about Ray Wenderlich. High-quality content. Always up to date. All gone. Too bad, you now cannot even make a PDF format for all of us that are still here.
This is such a bummer. I don’t want to use your reader. I want to read the book on my iPad making my annotations. That’s how I always used to do it. Kodeco sucks.
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There have been a couple of reactions to this new policy that are similar to mine - not to purchase anymore content from Kodeco.
So, perhaps you can target the distribution of PDF copies of your books to those who legitimately own them. Watermark them, encrypt with a password, or whatever.
If you stay on this path your downsizing will become progressively worse as some of us - who have been loyal customers - find alternative sources of information.
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These are all good points, I have shared them with the right people at Kodeco. We hear you, and the good news is that something is in the works.
I also learned that PDFs actually take a lot more work than just hitting the Publish/Save button. Most book formats (Kodeco’s online, ePub, etc) are one continuous page (easier formatting), PDFs have to be broken up correctly (paginated), images adjusted and a bunch of other details. Some of these books are over 1,000 pages long! Each one page would require at least one person (in reality it’s a team; editor, SME, writer(s), etc), to make sure it’s done right.
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