4 ms·

Ibis Reader: First ereader on the iPad

12 points by mikecane 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago
Wow, a web page that shows text. Amazing innovation, and buzzword compliant to boot...
- abdelazer 17y ago
  Try visiting on an iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Droid, or Nexus One for the installable HTML5 version. It will then allow you to view both text and images without an internet connection _even in a darkened room_.
  - mbrubeck 17y ago
    Yup, and in addition to the HTML5 offline feature (which work in Android and in newer desktop browsers too), it also uses some nice iPhone-specific extensions like "apple-touch-icon" and "apple-mobile-web-app-capable" to display fullscreen in the iPhone OS when saved to the home screen, so it looks and acts more like a native app: http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/codinghowtos/Mobile/UserExperience/index.html#GENERAL-CREATE_A_HOME_SCREEN_ICON_FOR_MY_WEBSITE_OR_WEB_APPLICATION http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/codinghowtos/Mobil...
  - keltex 17y ago
    Nice. It needs to be web-based because I'm sure Apple will remove all eBook readers for the iPad once they start shipping. Because of the conflict with their own eBook reader. Side note: I wonder if this will happen to the Kindle app?
    - colinplamondon 17y ago
      The conspiracy theorizing about the App Store never ceases to amaze me. Apple is shipping iBooks as a non-bundled application to be downloaded in the free section of Books in the App Store. Do you really think they would delete every other app in the category they put their offering in? Further, iBooks is only available in the United States at launch. Will they nuke reader apps in Finland despite iBooks not being available there?
      - mrtron 17y ago
        Probably? They decided the whole world isn't prepared to see boobies on their phones and that doesn't even compete with one of their own products.
        colinplamondon 17y ago
        They said from the beginning porn wasn't allowed, they loosened a bit, there was a flood of soft-core porn apps into every conceivable category, and they nuked em to prevent them from taking over the entire App Store. I'm all for porn, but that was just largely a matter of spam prevention.
- mikecane 17y ago
  It's more than that. Firefox, for example, cannot display an ePub eBook without an extension. This permits ePub display without any such additions.
mortenjorck 17y ago
It's a nice start. To really take advantage of the iPad, though, will require a lot more thought as to how the UI scales up. What about that list page? It's not necessary (or necessarily advisable) to mimic the Delicious Library / iBooks "shelf," but could the covers be scaled up relative to the type? Maybe the list becomes two across instead of one with all that white space on the right? The field here is incredibly ripe for experimentation. The winners in this market will be the ones who don't settle for a quick solution.
- lizadaly 17y ago
  Agreed, there's even a list in the post of what we want to improve. Scaling up the covers is a certainty. I've also considered the two-column list though we haven't tried it out yet.

12 points by mikecane 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago

Wow, a web page that shows text. Amazing innovation, and buzzword compliant to boot...

abdelazer 17y ago
Try visiting on an iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Droid, or Nexus One for the installable HTML5 version. It will then allow you to view both text and images without an internet connection _even in a darkened room_.
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  Yup, and in addition to the HTML5 offline feature (which work in Android and in newer desktop browsers too), it also uses some nice iPhone-specific extensions like "apple-touch-icon" and "apple-mobile-web-app-capable" to display fullscreen in the iPhone OS when saved to the home screen, so it looks and acts more like a native app: http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/codinghowtos/Mobile/UserExperience/index.html#GENERAL-CREATE_A_HOME_SCREEN_ICON_FOR_MY_WEBSITE_OR_WEB_APPLICATION http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/codinghowtos/Mobil...
- keltex 17y ago
  Nice. It needs to be web-based because I'm sure Apple will remove all eBook readers for the iPad once they start shipping. Because of the conflict with their own eBook reader. Side note: I wonder if this will happen to the Kindle app?
  - colinplamondon 17y ago
    The conspiracy theorizing about the App Store never ceases to amaze me. Apple is shipping iBooks as a non-bundled application to be downloaded in the free section of Books in the App Store. Do you really think they would delete every other app in the category they put their offering in? Further, iBooks is only available in the United States at launch. Will they nuke reader apps in Finland despite iBooks not being available there?
    - mrtron 17y ago
      Probably? They decided the whole world isn't prepared to see boobies on their phones and that doesn't even compete with one of their own products.
      - colinplamondon 17y ago
        They said from the beginning porn wasn't allowed, they loosened a bit, there was a flood of soft-core porn apps into every conceivable category, and they nuked em to prevent them from taking over the entire App Store. I'm all for porn, but that was just largely a matter of spam prevention.
mikecane 17y ago
It's more than that. Firefox, for example, cannot display an ePub eBook without an extension. This permits ePub display without any such additions.

mortenjorck 17y ago

It's a nice start. To really take advantage of the iPad, though, will require a lot more thought as to how the UI scales up. What about that list page? It's not necessary (or necessarily advisable) to mimic the Delicious Library / iBooks "shelf," but could the covers be scaled up relative to the type? Maybe the list becomes two across instead of one with all that white space on the right? The field here is incredibly ripe for experimentation. The winners in this market will be the ones who don't settle for a quick solution.

lizadaly 17y ago
Agreed, there's even a list in the post of what we want to improve. Scaling up the covers is a certainty. I've also considered the two-column list though we haven't tried it out yet.