Apple book printing
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
I use a Mac PC at home and it came with this iPhoto software. Which has led to tears.
I haven't found any use for the software other than to make a book of street photos from my (first) four years in Tokyo. I ordered one (it came to about $100) and when it finally arrived it turned out to be quite a nice piece of work. Very decent print and binding quality, good colours, nice sharp images. Yay!
So I've been showing it around. A friend asked me for a couple of copies, so I went back to the software, touched up some mistakes, and tried to order the copies for my friend. Incredibly, it turns out that Apple clients cannot order copies to be sent to any address outside of the country in which the client is registered. So my overseas friend is out of luck unless I do something daft like:
- changing the address I've got registered with Apple, so that Apple thinks his address is where I live (a dumb thing to have to do, and then his books arrive in my name!)
- having the books sent to me, then I forward them to him (wasteful, slow, too much work)
Apple support sent me this explanation (link requires an AppleID for login).
Naturally, this craziness scotches any attempt at sending (let alone selling) books to other people who want copies. Way to go, Apple, job well half-done. To paraphrase Master Yoda, "Do or do not, there is no half do."
P.S. One of the really weird angles on this is that the book wasn't even printed in "my country", it was printed in Sweden.