O'Reilly 4+

First off, I love the content of this app and appreciate the developers who have made it a reality so I hope the poor rating and following statements only encourage the platforms growth.

My biggest complaint is how painful the transition process is between devices. I would love to pick up where I left off on my iPad when I switch to my MacBook and, then later, back again. I'm thankful that the history seems to sync up (most of the time) but in the scenario provided I generally have to go searching through the book to find where I was on the other device. The irony is the highlighting seems to persist so clearly the location could likely as well.

Also, (another major pain point) I like to have a few books I'm consistently working through but often open up a number of other books for reference throughout the day. This result in an absolute disaster in my history. It would be nice to pin a few books to the top of the history view or very least filtering and sorting capabilities so these books don't get lost in the clutter. Obviously deleting the others is an option but then you lose visibility to the fact that you've referencd the book before so it's only a half-baked remedy to an unsolved problem.

Over a quarter of a century ago, facing being laid off for the first time, I realized I had no marketable skills. I vowed to never be in that situation again, and started a lifelong habit of reading one Techncial book a month. It cost me $40-50, but worth it.

Jist like programming skills, problem with technical books is the knowledge rots. Every few years you need to update your knowledge of the tools you already know, on top of learning new skills. Even worse, a new project at work might involve a scramble to figure out which books to buy. No time to research, and no time to pop down to a store or wait for a book. Internet time!

Ten years ago I discovered O’Reilly. Thousands of books. New one all the times. Preprints of not yet published books. Heaven!

New project? Check out 2-3 books and read the most relevant chapters. New technology? Read a primer then pick out the advanced book that catches your eye. Refresh? Read the newest version of the classic book about your favorite technology.

Online courses and special streaming events? Bonus.

If you are an employer and have not purchased this for your employers, then hang your head for 10 minutes and feel shame, the fix it.

If you are a tech person, do not rely on your employer - get your own subscription so your reading lists never expire.

Do what I did, and take responsibility for your own education.

I don’t recommend using the app at all. In the old days the app was like an extension to the website where you could easily pick up where you left off. Now all you get are “Trending”, “Upcoming Conferences”, “Recommended For You” and “Recently Added”. No history of what you had been reading or watching on the web. There’s a tab for your playlists, but that’s a poor substitute for a history* view since that means users that often search for several distinct technologies must now save every single result to a playlist.

If you’re fortunate enough to only work in one domain and it uses a trendy technology, the app might be okay. But for anyone that used to use O’Reilly Media as a technical reference library - I’d say save yourself the time and hassle and skip this app.

* - The history feature is also broken in the web interface anyway, so I’m not really sure their learning platform as whole is worth the price anymore. It’s been broken for months now and I think that’s kind of a telling sign. Here you have a media company whose primary focus is publishing technical literature with an emphasis on software development. In that domain is website and app building - and these are the products they release. An app that basically tells you nothing more than Google and a website that only half works. Perhaps the developers should read some of the books contained in the learning platform...