iPhone Now the Biggest eBook Reader?

[MacRumors]

Forbes reveals that Stanza [App Store], a free eBook reading application for the iPhone, has distributed over 395,000 copies via the App Store.

Forbes notes that this exceeds the estimated number of Kindles sold for 2008 and likely makes the iPhone the biggest eBook reader on the market. To be fair Stanza is a free download, but the intent is still there.

Stanza, like Kindle, lets users download new content directly to their device. It has a snappy interface that allows readers to flip through a book simply by tapping the edges of the page and responds far faster than Kindle's poky E-ink screen, which takes about a second to turn pages. On the downside, the iPhone's LCD screen can strain eyes after hours of reading and chews through battery power far faster than Kindle or the Sony Reader, both of which can go without recharging for days.

At the moment, however, all of the titles available to Stanza are public domain titles while the Kindle commands premium pay titles. Stanza's developer is working on deals with major publishers to try to sell newer eBooks to its users.

"Once we've got that kind of deal done," says Prud'hommeaux, "you'll be able to do everything on the iPhone that you can now do on the Kindle: browse, purchase, download and read a book without interacting with your computer in any way."

Stanza users are said to have downloaded over 2 million of the public domain eBooks at this time.


Article Link

[sonex]

yup got the communist manifesto

[Shasterball]

Just because people download a free program, doesn't mean they use it...

[Mykbibby]

Hilarious... Apple managed to take over a market they didn't even want to take over.

[johnnyjibbs]

Originally Posted by Mykbibby

Hilarious... Apple managed to take over a market they didn't even want to take over.

Good isn't it?! Sounds like people do still read then, but we all knew the Kindle wasn't going to sell with a look like that...

[buddhahacker]

As it has previously been mentioned, the product is FREE! The fact that a few hundred thousand folks downloaded the product means little. Until you have monitized the product where it requires folks to hand over their hard earned cash you have no idea how successful a product is. If you gave out Sony Readers for free I have no doubt that millions would be "sold".

I have downloaded the product and used it twice. I found that it wasn't nearly as good as the other products which cost money and haven't used the product since. You need to get a certain number of lines of text on the screen to make an ereader feasible otherwise you are constantly moving your fingers to change the page. Older PDA's had a similar problem but at least the HP units had a simple thumb wheel on the side which made screen scrolling effortless. Screen scrolling with the iPhone is not effortless. The iPhone simply does not provide enough lines to screeen.

[nagromme]

I don't see much selection, and it's hard to browse. One section has authors sorted by a mix of first names and first initials! Maybe I'm missing something.

There's an older work (Sartre's Nausea) that I want to read, but I can't find it.)

Still, it's a start, and free. I like that the list views rotate to landscape, though.

What iPhone ebook readers do others recommend?

As for scrolling, I think I'd want:

* Landscape mode for big, wide lines of text

* Tap anywhere (other than a page-back-button in the corner) to auto-scroll down one screen (and then to the next page) so dragging is optional

* Ideally 3 screen-sized "segments" per page--no more than that

* Full-page-at-once view when in portrait mode

For the convenience of not always carrying a physical book or a second device, I think I'd find that useful.

[penguy]

Originally Posted by johnnyjibbs

Good isn't it?! Sounds like people do still read then, but we all knew the Kindle wasn't going to sell with a look like that...

I might agree, but a woman I work with has two, one for her and one for her husband. They LOVE the kindle. I played with it for a bit, and while it is not great looking, it works well, is easy to read and is seamless with its method of updating newspapers and book content. Not as bad as you may think!

[PowerFullMac]

Originally Posted by Mykbibby

Hilarious... Apple managed to take over a market they didn't even want to take over.

Ha! Gotta love Apple!

[SoSII]

Just another point, but the Stanza desktop is free as a beta at the moment but will cost money eventually...

[macdim]

Originally Posted by Shasterball

Just because people download a free program, doesn't mean they use it...

Exactly. I downloaded this app, but I rarely use it for no particular reason. I would think that if someone invests money into hardware for a particular purpose most if not all are actually using them for that purpose. I'm sure many people have downloaded this app and it is just sitting on their phone or even in iTunes doing nothing...

[SoSII]

dont forget there is also ereader which is free (and some others I think)..

[CADer]

Exactly - I and my wife downloaded it but since it sucks and does work with most of my ebooks I deleted it - Bookshelf is way better and has many more options - and as soon as Apple gets the act together the 1.2 Update to Bookshelf will be out with tons of additional features!

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by SoSII

dont forget there is also ereader which is free (and some others I think)..

I use eReader and have for several years. It is one of my most used apps. It supports multiple platforms. eReader also allows you to download directly to the iPhone.

[MacTraveller]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaa!!! A single FREE iPhone app .... overnight.... destroys the viability, worthiness and lead of Amazon's struggling Kindle. LMAO

[chameleon81]

Forbes and it's writers are stupid.

A single application does not make iPhone ebook reader. And even if it does then iPhone would not be the biggest ebook reader on the market. There are probably millions of people reading ebooks from their pcs which will make pcs biggest ebook reader on the market.

[jfinke]

I have been happy with it so far.

Right now I am in the middle of "Hound of Baskerville's". You can find lots of classic books + plato, socrates, etc.

It remembers what page you were on. Flipping pages is easy. Now, if they could automatically read it to me in a normal voice, that would be the killer app.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by chameleon81

Forbes and it's writers are stupid.

A single application does not make iPhone ebook reader. And even if it does then iPhone would not be the biggest ebook reader on the market. There are probably millions of people reading ebooks from their pcs which will make pcs biggest ebook reader on the market.

I think they're assuming the term "ebook reader" to imply portability, comparable to an actual book.

Originally Posted by CADer

BOOKSHELF Has all those features (except full page view)and the 1.2 update was submitted to Apple 18 days ago. -

Thanks! I'll check it out.

[Auctor]

E-Ink isn't designed to compete with LCD, plasma, or OLED. E-Ink is for people who love reading books and can't stand the strain of using the alternatives. It's not designed to be beautiful. It's not designed to be super colorful. It's designed so that you can continue to read at the same pace as your traditional book, while using no paper, and having multiple books in one place.

Look up any study on reading words per minute and you'll find that reading LCD, plasma, and OLED slow down your ability to soak up words, create headaches over extended periods, and are generally not good for your eyes (they're bright).

People who compare E-Ink with the iPhone, or Palm, or any other miniature LCD screen, just don't get it.

[dgMac]

Man, this story from Forbes is so missing the point.

How is eReader doing? THAT is the equivalent to kindle, not Stanza.

eReader is associated with the old Palm format, and its books are purchased from eReader.com or fictionwise.com. I've bought about 25 books over the last couple of years from fictionwise, originally reading them on Palm Pilot, and then switched to eReader as soon as it came out.

I've just finished reading "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson, a recently released book, and a variety of other books only available through purchase.

THIS is the equivalent to kindle (purchased books, reading experience on the device) that invites comparison!

How are THEIR sales doing? I emailed fictionwise.com awhile back to suggest they publish some downloads/sales figures, but they weren't interested in saying.

[krye]

You mean it's not the Kindle? Noooooooo!

[tvassila]

Not just books, there is art now too... ... Lydia Venieri, the well known Greek artist, has just released a performance of her poem. It's using the Syntazo reader, IlluminatedChronicle, that is a cross between an ebook and an audiobook. Its cool, and her art is pretty cool too.



http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=303834234

[RBenen]

I am new to the iPhone after a multi-year love affair with Palm. I postponed the move until there were some good ebook readers available that would also work for my library collection. I tried and discarded eReader because I prefer the Stanza interface. I also use and would recommend BookShelf and ReaddleDocs.
Why? Besides liking to have more than one book open I use them for different file formats, even though there is a lot of overlap.
Stanza gets eReader and Fictionwise formats mostly, BookShelf has mobi/prc files (from Baen ebooks mostly) and I ReaddleDocs for Office, pdf and text files.
The only thing I have found that they can't read are secure MobiPocket files that the Kindle uses. that's OK because I can usually fined them elsewhere.
As for the idea that only public domain books are available, that is not accurate. While there are many public domain books available from Project Gutenberg, you can purchase contemporary books from eReader, Fictionwise and Stanza (all now owned by Fictionwise) and Baen (for SF and Fantasy fans) and, I'm sure, many others.
While a Kindle might be nice my iPhone (and previous Palms) are always with me. . .

Outside of a dog, a book is Man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

[timiphone]

Continental Who's Who on Iphone
I purchased the 3g Iphone and found that business networking sites like Continental Who's Who are getting into the game by adapting their existing sites to give iphone users a whole new experience. creating an e-book would be a wonderful addition to the growing network.

www.continentalwhoswho.com/iphone

[Jack Green]

Yes, eBooks are very usable on iPhones. I use another platform.

Jack