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I'm wondering how to download The Swift Programming Language Book (Swift 5 Edition) from the Apple Books Store?

Easy using iPad or iPhone, but I'd really like to use the download on an alternate machine (Program on Mac, reference on nearby big screen using Windows or Linux...). The link shows 4.3 MB of data, it must be a file somewhere, somehow.

Anyone know how do I download this book? (and/or other free book resources as well?)

For reference, here's another valuable resource from Apple:

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The books dowloaded from Apple Books Store are generally available to read only under the Books app on macOS or iOS.

For The Swift Programming Language book, it could be read on a a different device by accessing the Web version on Swift Programming Language homepage here:

The web-page also includes the link for downloading a DRM free ePub version of the latest edition of the book. To download the book for Swift 5 version use the following link (available from the above mentioned web-page):

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  • This is awesome, but do you know if I can download the iOS documentation as a book?
    – astroboy
    Commented May 13, 2023 at 11:43
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    @acmpo6ou Can you elaborate on what you mean by iOS documentation? The official Apple Developer Document website has the documentation organized as API references, guides and articles. There is no singular book that can be downloaded as a book. However, some articles/guides are available as PDF downloads.
    – Nimesh Neema ♦
    Commented May 13, 2023 at 13:30
  • Thank you, I meant how do I download the SwiftUI docs: developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui You were able to download Swift docs even though I can't find a download button on their site, but is it possible to download SwiftUI?
    – astroboy
    Commented May 13, 2023 at 15:26
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Assuming you are using iCloud Library for Apple Books, the location for the raw .epub files (can be accessed from the terminal.app) is:

/Users/<YourUserName>/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents

As for opening books downloaded from Apple Book Store in Windows/Linux, the books are DRM protected (even the free ones).

Source:

  1. http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/296462/ddg#297650
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  • DRM is applied to books by Apple ONLY if the author requests it. There is normally no DRM on free books, and several publishers do not use it even on paid-for books. Even without DRM, books in the .ibooks format can only be read on Apple devices. .epub format books without DRM should be readable on any platform.
    – Tom Gewecke
    Commented May 31, 2019 at 16:24

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