The inPhonite Migration: eBooks
Posted on | January 31, 2009 at 5:18 pm | 5 Comments
Sorry, I’ve been under the weather lately with a cold ever since I got back from our Estes Park vacation. It’s not that bad, but I have very little energy. Haven’t even been to the gym. And I haven’t felt at all like blogging. Except about ash trays and urinals.
Longtime readers of this here blog know that I’m a big advocate of eBooks. I like being able to read books anywhere without having to lug a big wad of paper around. eReader on my Palm T|X PDA was very useful, especially while on vacation. There are also eBook readers for the iPhone – how do they measure up? On my vacation last weekend, I was able to give the iPhone a thorough testing in this department.
Even though I installed eReader on my iPhone a long time ago, I couldn’t really use it initially. In the beginning, there was no way of getting the DRM-protected eReader-format eBooks I bought for my Palm PDA from the Palm eBook website onto the iPhone and readable by the iPhone’s eReader. That recently changed. The eReader website now has a “Personal Content” area, where you can upload eBooks acquired from other vendors and then download them to the iPhone. You then unlock the content using the same unlock code needed to read them on the Palm. Very handy. I stored all my eBooks in the web library and then downloaded them to the eReader application in the iPhone with no problem.
Besides eReader, there’s another eBook reader for the iPhone called Stanza. Stanza lets you acquire eBooks from a number of different sources. The main one is the Fictionwise website, which also has a Personal Content area where you can upload your eBooks acquired from other vendors and download them back into the iPhone. So I did that again with my eReader-format books and downloaded them back to the iPhone where I could read them with Stanza. Yes, this means that I have multiple copies of the books in the phone, but they don’t take up much space.
So anyway, I took the time during the vacation to read some chapters from A Feast For Crows, which I’ve been working on since my Pennsylvania vacation last June. Both eReader and Stanza compare favorably to eReader on the Palm, but I’m giving the nod to Stanza. It has far more settings than eReader, including the ability to change the foreground and background colors (I prefer white text on a blue background to the default black on white) and a much greater variety of fonts and font sizes. It’s kind of strange that iPhone eReader doesn’t have those abilities, since the version on the Palm does. Stanza also seems to be faster with loading and reformatting the book.
The Palm T|X screen is about the same size as the iPhone screen, so at my preferred text-viewing size, I get about the same amount of words on a single screen for both. Which of course means a lot of page turning, especially if you’re a fast reader. On both eReader and Stanza, you can turn the page by either tapping or doing the “swipe” gesture, but only Stanza lets you do either one at the same time. This also means you have to learn the art of tapping “differently” when you want to get the settings menu on Stanza rather than wanting to turn the page. The iPhone screen is clear and bright enough to read in almost any light, from full to darkness, although I don’t think I tried actually reading outside in sunlight. As I’ve probably mentioned before, one place eBooks come in handy is when you want to read in bed while your significant other wants to sleep, especially if the SO is disturbed by any type of light including a book light. The iPhone emits so little light that that’s not a problem. Even the gentle tap or swipe of a page turn is less audible than the actual page turning of a paper book.
So, thumbs up on the iPhone eBook experience. Both eReader and Stanza work fine, but I go with Stanza because of its greater range of options and ability to read more eBook formats. Both are free in the App Store.
Of course, if you do have the paper version of the book handy and don’t have to read in the dark, then by all means read the paper one. I did take the actual Feast For Crows paperback with me to Estes Park and used that whenever I could. Yes, I must admit there’s nothing like the feel of a real book in your hands. But it’s good to know I have an alternative.
The funny thing is that there are so many other diversions on the iPhone that if I’m alone waiting some where, I end up not automatically defaulting to reading eBooks like I did with the Palm on hand. Oh the wonders of being infinitely tethered to the Internet.
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: They can put a man on the moon, but they can’t cure the common cold.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “save me subtitles”.
Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: Lots of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
Comments
5 Responses to “The inPhonite Migration: eBooks”
February 1st, 2009 @ 5:11 am
re: your Pet Peeve – isn’t your employer a bit of a ‘glass house’ when it comes to making those sorts of remarks…?
I’m just saying, is all.
February 1st, 2009 @ 10:10 am
The two are not unconnected: no one who walked on the moon EVER GOT A COLD AGAIN!
February 1st, 2009 @ 11:49 am
isn’t your employer a bit of a ‘glass house’ when it comes to making those sorts of remarks…?
What, suddenly I’m in the biomedical or astronautics fields? I always thought it was computer services.
February 2nd, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
Ditto on Stanza. Bookz is a good iPhone reader, too. I paid for BookShelf on someone’s recommendation, but have used that the least of all! I like reading on the iPhone as much as my Cybook – E Ink is good stuff, but backlighting is very useful.
Have you gotten into podcasts on the iPhone? I have several I try to keep up with. As if there wasn’t enough media to consume and too few hours in the day and night.
As an aside, I love the fact that O is doing weekly radio addresses and they’re available everywhere from YouTube to iTunes to the official Gov sites. Timely updates from the president, in coherent English no less. What will they think up next?
February 2nd, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
I don’t have time to listen to all the music I download (all of it legal, of course), much less podcasts. Sounds too addicting anyway.