iOS 5 Dumps Downloaded Books
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I don't know if Logos will change the way they store the data for the next major mobile release or not.
Despite the inconvenience of having to redownload all of our resources again, it would most likely be a bad idea for the offline resources to get stored as anything other than "temporary" data as they currently are. If they were saved as "app data" or something else that got backed up during the upgrade process, then that data would also be backed up to iCloud, necessitating much larger storage than the standard, free 5GB. Now, we could turn off iCloud backup for the Logos app, but I'd prefer that they stick to the Apple guidelines rather than resorting to a "workaround" resulting in one more thing I need to remember to take care of manually in the event of a restore. In short, this was a one-time occurrence due to the drastic changes in iOS 5. It wasn't a bug and it wasn't Logos' fault.
EDIT TO ADD: Also, it was completely unavoidable. Installing iOS5 required a complete wipe of the device...there was no way to retain ANYTHING stored on the device. So even if Logos had kept a record of which resources were offline use, the resources would STILL have had to be redownloaded, it just would have skipped the (admittedly extremely time-consuming) step of having to re-choose each resource to be downloaded. If that is what is being complained about, then that will be fixed by the "bulk download" feature that is being worked on. Either way, there is nothing to be gained and much to be lost by changing the way that Logos stores offline resources.
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Hi Kknight78,
I see it differently.
1) I would rather Logos give us the option of having the books backed up to iCloud. If I have an issue with the storage space or any other concern, I can always turn it off. Right now we have no choice. Nothing is backed up and that to me is not acceptable. Logos is only one of two apps I've used so far (out of 150+ apps I have on my iPad) that does not back up its data.
2) I don't fully understand Dave Dunkin's previous comment about sticking to the Apple guidelines and thus causing this current problem. Bottom line is, we didn't have to do anything to restore the offline books for Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, or any of the other major ebook apps. I don't understand why Logos couldn't do what everyone else is doing to preserve their offline books on the device during upgrades.
3) Yes, a major part of the complaint is the inability to re-download the books automatically even if nothing could be done to preserve them during upgrades. Although not the most ideal, I can live with keeping the iPad turned on for a couple hours while my books re-download if all I have to do is to tap one button to start the process. The current offline book download UI is extremely inefficient. You have to choose it one by one; can't even do a commentary series with one tap. There are 3 taps per book to download. If you're not careful and didn't tap exactly on the blue arrow, you end up opening the book instead. Then you have to go back to the Library, start over again from the top of the list (and it's unsorted), find your place, and continue on. This could also happen if the app decides to crash while you're going through this process. I've never seen a user interface as inefficient as this, sorry.
Bob Pritchett said he uses the iOS app on a daily basis. I hope he and Dave Dunkin have gone through this process themselves trying to download more than a dozen books and experienced the inefficiency themselves.
Off my soap box now... thanks for listening.
Peter
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Kknight78 states: In short, this was a one-time occurrence due to the drastic changes in iOS 5. It wasn't a bug and it wasn't Logos' fault.
Well, let's see, it wasn't Apple's fault, so I guess that leaves us. Hmmmm, why don't I feel guilty?
My iPod just finished an automatic (re)download of over a gigabyte of data to the GPS app on my iPod Touch. It was due to the OS upgrade. I didn't have to remember what data I had to download.
I'm not saying it was unavoidable. In my case I was not informed what the implications of the OS upgrade would be. Logos was undoubtedly aware of this. We weren't told to make a note of which resources we had downloaded for off-line use. Or maybe our church should have wireless access during services. Then I wouldn't have had any problems!
Gerry
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Alabama24 states: In short, this was a one-time occurrence due to the drastic changes in iOS 5. It wasn't a bug and it wasn't Logos' fault.
Gerald: Can you link to where I said that? I don't like you putting words into my mouth, so to speak. If you need to quote someone, please read the "Quote Someone" thread in my signature. Either way, the heart of these comments are not mine, but Dave Dunkin's:
Apple gives us several options for storing data in iOS applications: documents, application data, caches and temporary. Documents and application data are synced and backed up through iTunes and now iCould. Cache and temporary storage is not backed up. We follow Apple's recommendation of storing data that can be downloaded again in cache storage. In earlier iOS versions, all data was backed up, but Apple changed this because it made the backup process too slow and took too much space in iTunes.
iOS 5 is the first version I'm aware of that required a full reinstall. All previous versions have been upgradable, leaving all app data in place. Developers were not given notice that iOS 5 would be different. Had we known, we could have accelerated our plans to make bulk downloading and/or redownloading easier.
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alabama24 - Gerald was quoting kknight78, not you. It's the second post on this 4th page of this thread.
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Philana - I have no idea. Personally, I understand that some users (especially those in developing nations) do not have access to reliable internet. It should be noted that the apps are really designed to be used with the cloud. I think that Logos is probably getting the picture that there are some users who strongly desire/need to download resources. Hopefully they will be able to adjust their thinking in a future release.
As far as beta testing goes, I don't think that Logos had a large number of beta testers (testing the Logos app on iOS 5 before its launch). This may have very well caught Logos off guard.
Thanks, I wasn't sure about how Logos does beta testing, just seems that the app would have dumped the libraries of beta testers...that's why I thought Apple might have changed it last minute.
Couple of suggestions to pastors/teachers:
1. If you can get wi-fi at church, this is very helpful, I was able to use Logos for teaching with wi-fi at my church it was open to the congregation. Extra things that can be a good thing if used well...
- Interaction with apps that allow members to access sermon notes and interact.
- Get members Tweeting and posting on Facebook & Google+ highlights and Scripture from the message, rather than sports highlights.
2. If you need to use Logos for the weekend when a iOS update comes out and don't have wi-fi at church, wait a day or two to update the Logos app and check out for issues popping up on the forums so you can make sure you don't loose your books if you need them.
I do hope Logos can change how books are stored. Is the app perfect, no. But it sure has come a long way. I am anticipating the upcoming notes and highlighting features, but what they are working on will be better!
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Philana - I have no idea. Personally, I understand that some users (especially those in developing nations) do not have access to reliable internet. It should be noted that the apps are really designed to be used with the cloud. I think that Logos is probably getting the picture that there are some users who strongly desire/need to download resources. Hopefully they will be able to adjust their thinking in a future release.
As far as beta testing goes, I don't think that Logos had a large number of beta testers (testing the Logos app on iOS 5 before its launch). This may have very well caught Logos off guard.
Thanks, I wasn't sure about how Logos does beta testing, just seems that the app would have dumped the libraries of beta testers...that's why I thought Apple might have changed it last minute.
Couple of suggestions to pastors/teachers:
1. If you can get wi-fi at church, this is very helpful, I was able to use Logos for teaching with wi-fi at my church it was open to the congregation. Extra things that can be a good thing if used well...
- Interaction with apps that allow members to access sermon notes and interact.
- Get members Tweeting and posting on Facebook & Google+ highlights and Scripture from the message, rather than sports highlights.
2. If you need to use Logos for the weekend when a iOS update comes out and don't have wi-fi at church, wait a day or two to update the Logos app and check out for issues popping up on the forums so you can make sure you don't loose your books if you need them.
I do hope Logos can change how books are stored. Is the app perfect, no. But it sure has come a long way. I am anticipating the upcoming notes and highlighting features, but what they are working on will be better!
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Hello Dave, I have downloaded my library books to my IPad2 after running IOS5 for the second time and it is not saving my downloads for offline use. Is there an incompatibility problem with Logos and the IOS5 system on the IPad2 for this version of Logos?? Originally I'm personally aware of the wipe out of the downloaded information after I upgraded to IOS5, but now its happening after the upgrade has been done. Any suggestions????
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Thanks for the detailed replies Peter. You and I are in agreement more than we aren't:
1) I would rather Logos give us the option of having the books backed up to iCloud. If I have an issue with the storage space or any other concern, I can always turn it off. Right now we have no choice. Nothing is backed up and that to me is not acceptable. Logos is only one of two apps I've used so far (out of 150+ apps I have on my iPad) that does not back up its data.
Here, I see the point you are trying to make, but books aren't "data" in the sense of having to re-create work if you lose them. Functionally, there is no difference between re-downloading them from Logos and re-downloading them from your iCloud backup (IF items 2 & 3 are addressed below) EXCEPT that re-downloading them from Logos doesn't cost you anything, while backing them up to iCloud will most likely require you to purchase more than the default 5GB of storage, unless you have a small library and/or you have nothing else on your iPad or other idevices that you want backed up. Either way, the resources are stored in and have to be re-downloaded from the cloud. There is no benefit to using iCloud instead of Logos' existing cloud infrastructure (again, assuming that items 2 & 3 are addressed).
2) I don't fully understand Dave Dunkin's previous comment about sticking to the Apple guidelines and thus causing this current problem. Bottom line is, we didn't have to do anything to restore the offline books for Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, or any of the other major ebook apps. I don't understand why Logos couldn't do what everyone else is doing to preserve their offline books on the device during upgrades.
I agree, but this could be solved by Logos syncing "offline flags" rather than changing what type of data the books are stored as. Everything was wiped from your idevice during the upgrade, including your other e-book apps and their associated books. The difference (and I admit that it is a significant and important difference, especially with Logos' limitation #3 that you stated) is that all the other e-book apps pulled their books back down automatically with no input from you. Functionally, it doesn't matter whether those books were backed up to the cloud before removing or whether they were just flagged to be re-downloaded from the vendors' servers...either way, they had to come back down from the cloud.
3) Yes, a major part of the complaint is the inability to re-download the books automatically even if nothing could be done to preserve them during upgrades. Although not the most ideal, I can live with keeping the iPad turned on for a couple hours while my books re-download if all I have to do is to tap one button to start the process. The current offline book download UI is extremely inefficient. You have to choose it one by one; can't even do a commentary series with one tap. There are 3 taps per book to download. If you're not careful and didn't tap exactly on the blue arrow, you end up opening the book instead. Then you have to go back to the Library, start over again from the top of the list (and it's unsorted), find your place, and continue on. This could also happen if the app decides to crash while you're going through this process. I've never seen a user interface as inefficient as this, sorry.
I agree 100% with you here. If this were fixed/improved drastically, then it would fix almost the whole problem (with the rest of the problem being fixed by syncing "offline flags" to let the app know which books to automatically keep available for offline use.)
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Well, let's see, it wasn't Apple's fault, so I guess that leaves us. Hmmmm, why don't I feel guilty?
I think you are missing my point. See my reply to Peter just now.
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I do hope Logos can change how books are stored.
Changing how the offline books are stored would not have stopped the need for a lengthy re-download after updating to iOS 5. It WOULD have saved the hassle of having to go back through your library and re-mark all your books for offline use one-by-one, but there are MUCH better ways to do that than changing how the books are stored. Refer to my post two posts ago.
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Kknight78, thanks for your reasoned analysis of the problem at hand. I agree with your analysis.
Thanks,
Peter
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Kknight78 states: In short, this was a one-time occurrence due to the drastic changes in iOS 5. It wasn't a bug and it wasn't Logos' fault.
Well, let's see, it wasn't Apple's fault, so I guess that leaves us. Hmmmm, why don't I feel guilty?
Actually I don't see why it wasn't Apple's fault. If the stated facts are correct, that previous iOS upgrades didn't wipe the machine and that Apple didn't announce this behavior to app developers in some sort of release notes, then it was - at least for a good part.
I still would expect Logos to test such an upgrade and inform users over the forum about inconveniences to be expected and necessary manual workarounds (such as a list of the downloaded books) - and I would expect people who are "heavy" users of Logos on their pad to check the forum prior to a big OS upgarade to verify whether there are problems to be expected. If I contemplated switching to Windows 8 on my PC, I'd do.
Mick
Have joy in the Lord!
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I got an IPad 2, upgraded to IOS 5 and and don't have any books in my library, though they are still on my Iphone. I know there are tons of complaints about this, but has a solution been suggested? I'm very new to Logos, and find it wonderful but confusing. Advice?
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Hi Cindy
Unfortunately one of the side-effects of upgrading to IOS5 is that the cache which the Logos app uses to hold offline resources is cleared. This is why they need to be downloaded again.
I assume the reason that you still have them on your iPhone is that you haven't upgraded it.
I haven't seen any solution to this problem apart from having to re-download the resources again.
Graham
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Cindy - I don't fully understand your question. When you said that you "don't have any books" in your library, do you mean in both online and offline mode? If you are offline, you will need to get online and download the books you want. If you are online, do you have anything typed into the search field (see screen shot below).
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Good news! Apple solved this issue by introducing: "don’t-purge, don’t-back-up file store" in iOS 5.0.1 that's currently under beta testing. It should be released soon. Hopefully Logos will then be updated to use this new file store.
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Okay, a friend at church gave me the password to one of the wi-fi points in the church. so I decided to give my Logos app one more try. I successfully logged in, brought up the Logos app, checked that Logos had my correct information. All was okay until I hit the library button - nothing. The screen is blank, though I own over 1,200 resources. If I touch on "Recent Books", it shows me a handful of books which I can access, but touching "Library" brings up nothing but a blank window.
Now I'm home and on my own wireless connection my library is still blank. Yes, it used to work, but not now. I'm sure glad my Logos desktop software works better than this. Also I'm glad I had my Bible with me today.
Gerry
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Now I'm home and on my own wireless connection my library is still blank. Yes, it used to work, but not now. I'm sure glad my Logos desktop software works better than this. Also I'm glad I had my Bible with me today.
This sounds like a 'log in' problem.
I would suspect that the app is not connected to the same account as the one on your desktop/laptop.
You could check the information in 'More – Settings"
Sounds like a call to customer support is in order.
tootle pip
Mike
How to get logs and post them.(now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs) Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS
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Gerald - Two thoughts: First, there was a problem with the servers yesterday which led to the app being down for a bit. Did you notice if Logos was searching, or was it just blank? Second, did you check to see if anything was in the search field? It is possible to have some type in the field which would make it appear like you have no resources.
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Gerald - Two thoughts: First, there was a problem with the servers yesterday which led to the app being down for a bit.
That's it! I just checked it and it's working okay now. I did check the search field yesterday. They were apparently down for the entire day as it still wasn't working late last night. And Mike, I checked my iPod yesterday to see if Logos had my account information correct and it did.
Seems like Sunday would be the worst day of the week for Logos to have problems with their servers.
Gerry
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Seems like Sunday would be the worst day of the week for Logos to have problems with their servers.
Probably loaned them to the Anglicans and Catholics
tootle pip
Mike
How to get logs and post them.(now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs) Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS
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