Apple were the first off the block. At 9am on the 27th June I receieved an email noting that my photo book had been dispatched. For some reason they are printed and mailed from “abroad” (with a Dutch customs declaration, the value in US Dollars and a German postmark) which explains why it took until 3rd July to arrive. Unfortunately I was out when it first came, so I didn’t actually pick it up until the 5th.
So how does it compare with the PhotoBox book that arrived last Saturday? It arrived in typical Apple fashion. Inside an ordinary card box is a white card box with the normal Apple branding. Inside, wrapped in clear plastic, is the book.
The book itself is black and nicely bound. Rather than having a hole in the cover showing a print on the first page, Apple chose to have a photo (and some text) bound to the cover. Since this is a book of our wedding, it’s nice to have a description of what it is on the front. Similarly, the first page is a text page of credits, an option that wasn’t available with PhotoBox.
The photo’s are pretty much as good as those in the PhotoBox book, and possibly higher quality than the Vietnam photo-book from last year (but since they’re different bindings — hard cover as opposed to soft — it’s difficult to give a direct comparison). The problem with the varying colours seen in the PhotoBox book is still present in the Apple version but not as pronounced. The Apple branding in the book is more pronounced than with PhotoBox but it still fairly subtle: the very last page has an Apple logo and says “Made on a Mac.”
Overall this is the best of the two books seen so far. The quality is at least as good, if not better because the colour balance, and the presentation is better. MyPublisher will have to be very impressive to beat Apple’s efforts.
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Thanks for taking the time to compare all the process and post it in such a detail. It is indeed a very useful information. I’d like only to note that there is an option in iPhoto9 (and I think also in iPhoto6) that allows you to remove the apple from the last page of your photo book. On the lower bar, selecting “Settings”, you can deselect the option “include apple logo”. In this way the apple disappears from the last page of the book, at least in the computer. I haven’t yet printed my book, but I hope it will also be absent from the printed version.