5 ms·

The solution is called Stanza (owned by Amazon now I believe) and ePub books. I agree that the legitimate selection possilby isn't as good, but I see no advant

The solution is called Stanza (owned by Amazon now I believe) and ePub books. I agree that the legitimate selection possilby isn't as good, but I see no advantage to buying books, _books_ for chrissakes, that have DRM. I actually use Apple's book software a bit here and there, it works fairly nicely, and when they add PDF support I'll probably use it a bit more. But I'm not buying a page from Apple's book store until the DRM situation has changed. I waited them out on DRMed music, never bought a note before they offered DRM free files. Now I spend money there regularly, among other non-DRMed places. Its a shame the "powers" have to learn this lesson over and over and over and over...

joubert 16y ago
I think iBooks is a better app than Stanza (notes, bookmarks, PDF capability) and you can get your EPUBs in there via iTunes (even ones bought from other stores such as the one my startup runs, fifobooks.com).
- lt 16y ago
  I have been using Stanza on my iPhone for a while now and I think the opposite. I like the interface and usability of Stanza better. It does have PDF support, annotations and bookmarks. You can load your own ePubs and PDFs into it through iTunes. It has nice dictionary features, brightness controls, themes, support for third-party libraries. Overall seemed like a much more mature app than iBooks for the short time I spent with iBooks so far.
- commieneko 16y ago
  Both readers have their strengths and weaknesses, which is why I'm still playing with both. iBooks is certainly the younger of the two and I expect it to pass ahead, especially since the Stanza folks seem to be under the sway of Amazon, which has a vested interest in the fight. PDF capability will certainly be a big plus for iBooks when it comes to the iPad. I'm running the new version on my iPod Touch, but PDFs on such a small screen aren't that useful, at least to me. Frankly, all the readers I've used fall short when it comes to library management. I want something like iTunes (only better!) both to manage my library and create and manage reading lists. Right now everything just goes into one big pile that takes _forever_ to scroll through (I've around 800 titles in iBooks and several hundred in Stanza). iBook on iPad actually has crashed (!) a couple of times as I've gone scrolling from the top of the alphabet to the bottom. I'll admit I'm pushing iBooks harder, but that's because I expect so much more from Apple ;) The best desktop solution I've found for PDFs (and cbr/cbz comic files) is a comic book reading program called Comicbook Lover. I use it for PDF management (okay, I manage my digital comic book collection with it too...) It works very much like itunes. If they would add ePub support to it, and change the name, they could rule the world, at least for a while. Unfortunately their iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch app is woefully lacking in the very features that make it work so well on the desktop. Edit: And I do a slow burn every time I go to add documents to my iPod Touch or iPad. Syncing through iTunes is just _stupid_. I understand this is a problem with _many_ apps on the iOS platform, and that there are political and commercials issues involved, but I don't care. Apple needs to work this out, post-haste...
  - joubert 16y ago
    "I've around 800 titles in iBooks and several hundred in Stanza" Are these mostly for reference, or are they on your to-read list?
    - commieneko 16y ago
      A lot of Gutenberg books, a lot of science fiction from Feedbooks. I've also been playing with ePub convert software and have been making ePub "books" from various plain text sources. I also went on a late 19th and early 20th century math and geometry book binge a while ago and downloaded a _ton_ of titles from Google books. A lot of them were available in both ePub and PDF format. Most of the reference titles I have are in PDF format, though. I've been using a couple of different PDF readers on the iPad, none of which do everything that I would like. When the new iBooks comes out for the iPad, I'll give it a go as a PDF reader as well. The amazing thing is that _all_ the books on the iPad, all 1000+ spread across several programs, take up less than a Gig.

joubert 16y ago

I think iBooks is a better app than Stanza (notes, bookmarks, PDF capability) and you can get your EPUBs in there via iTunes (even ones bought from other stores such as the one my startup runs, fifobooks.com).

lt 16y ago
I have been using Stanza on my iPhone for a while now and I think the opposite. I like the interface and usability of Stanza better. It does have PDF support, annotations and bookmarks. You can load your own ePubs and PDFs into it through iTunes. It has nice dictionary features, brightness controls, themes, support for third-party libraries. Overall seemed like a much more mature app than iBooks for the short time I spent with iBooks so far.
commieneko 16y ago
Both readers have their strengths and weaknesses, which is why I'm still playing with both. iBooks is certainly the younger of the two and I expect it to pass ahead, especially since the Stanza folks seem to be under the sway of Amazon, which has a vested interest in the fight. PDF capability will certainly be a big plus for iBooks when it comes to the iPad. I'm running the new version on my iPod Touch, but PDFs on such a small screen aren't that useful, at least to me. Frankly, all the readers I've used fall short when it comes to library management. I want something like iTunes (only better!) both to manage my library and create and manage reading lists. Right now everything just goes into one big pile that takes _forever_ to scroll through (I've around 800 titles in iBooks and several hundred in Stanza). iBook on iPad actually has crashed (!) a couple of times as I've gone scrolling from the top of the alphabet to the bottom. I'll admit I'm pushing iBooks harder, but that's because I expect so much more from Apple ;) The best desktop solution I've found for PDFs (and cbr/cbz comic files) is a comic book reading program called Comicbook Lover. I use it for PDF management (okay, I manage my digital comic book collection with it too...) It works very much like itunes. If they would add ePub support to it, and change the name, they could rule the world, at least for a while. Unfortunately their iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch app is woefully lacking in the very features that make it work so well on the desktop. Edit: And I do a slow burn every time I go to add documents to my iPod Touch or iPad. Syncing through iTunes is just _stupid_. I understand this is a problem with _many_ apps on the iOS platform, and that there are political and commercials issues involved, but I don't care. Apple needs to work this out, post-haste...
- joubert 16y ago
  "I've around 800 titles in iBooks and several hundred in Stanza" Are these mostly for reference, or are they on your to-read list?
  - commieneko 16y ago
    A lot of Gutenberg books, a lot of science fiction from Feedbooks. I've also been playing with ePub convert software and have been making ePub "books" from various plain text sources. I also went on a late 19th and early 20th century math and geometry book binge a while ago and downloaded a _ton_ of titles from Google books. A lot of them were available in both ePub and PDF format. Most of the reference titles I have are in PDF format, though. I've been using a couple of different PDF readers on the iPad, none of which do everything that I would like. When the new iBooks comes out for the iPad, I'll give it a go as a PDF reader as well. The amazing thing is that _all_ the books on the iPad, all 1000+ spread across several programs, take up less than a Gig.