Reading eBooks on the iPhone. 5 apps compared.

by Milind Alvares
Wednesday May 27, 2009

Reading eBooks on the iPhone. 5 apps compared.

by Milind Alvares on May 27, 2009

The iPhone is often compared with the Amazon Kindle. It’s not so. Here’s why:

The e-ink display on the Kindle is supposedly much better for reading than the LCD display on the iPhone.
It’s got a much larger display.
And it can last a whole lot longer in terms of battery life.

That said, along with Amazon releasing the Kindle app on the iPhone, companies seem to be serious about making the iPhone display useful for reading purposes.

Stanza

stanza Since the early days of the App Store, Stanza has been a huge success (in terms of number of downloads at least). They’ve got hundreds of thousands of downloads for their free ebook reader, which taps into free ebook sources like Project Gutenberg. At the time however the user interface felt very bland and inelegant.

However, now that I checked it out again, I find that the app is much improved. You can customise colours of your pages (although, it’s from a limited palette), it has a built in dictionary, has tap-to-switch pages, in-book search, and a huge selection of books. Downloading books from either of the libraries is effortless. At the sweet price of free, Stanza is definitely worth checking out.

Classics

classics-ui Next, I came across Classics. Andrew Kaz and team made one of the most awesome reading user interfaces on the iPhone. It featured a handsome ‘bookshelf’, and along with relatively good typography came a fancy page turning animation. I personally read half of Robinson Crusoe on my trip to Mumbai on the iPhone. The text is very easy on the eyes, and flipping pages is fun.

However, this app was limited in terms of selection of titles. You couldn’t add any books to it, and every update (which usually added another book or two to the mix) meant downloading the full app again. All these titles and more are available for download on the Stanza app anyway. Perhaps when the iPhone 3.0 In-App purchases feature goes live, Classics might be able to download some titles. Even at $0.99 it’s a tough one to recommend. On the one hand it’s got a great user interface, and on the other, it’s selection is very limited. If you think you want to read even one of the books from the selection, I think it’s worth picking up.

Kindle

The Amazon Kindle app on the other hand is the only one which allows you to read commercial titles on your iPhone. Once you purchase any book at the Kindle store (you can use the iPhone optimised website) they are synced over to the Kindle app.

The reading experience is excellent, now with the 1.1 update. If you already have an Amazon Kindle, the iPhone app should definitely be on your home screen. But even if you don’t have the Kindle, the app is a free download, which you can use to check out some of the free ebooks on the Kindle store.

Eucalyptus

eucalyptus-store The app which has managed to create a rather noisy launch, is Eucalyptus. This app combines the user interface goodness of Classics, along with the large library of Project Gutenberg to provide a slick reading experience. Eye candy wise I’d say Classics still rules, but the typography seems much better than all the rest. You can also pinch to enlarge the text which is a really handy feature.

The user interface of the app is a standard iPhone app interface, with tabs at the bottom for switching between Authors, Books, Search, Downloads, and an About page. So is the app really worth all that fuss? Yes, and no. It’s got a slick user interface, large book library, and I’ve seen no issues with the app so far. However, at $9.99, the app is kind of expensive considering you’re basically getting Stanza in a better interface. If you plan on reading a lot of books on your iPhone, I’d justify spending money on a better interface. However, as a trial round I’d suggest you just stick to Stanza.

eReader

I haven’t had much experience with eReader, but it seems like a solid app. You can purchase commercial titles for $10, as well as download ebooks from free sources. You can even upload your own ebooks in the eReader format. I haven’t quite explored the eReader catalog, but it doesn’t seem to have the popular books that the Amazon Kindle store has.

From a user interface point of view, it’s nothing fancy. One thing it does have, is the CoverFlow view which springs up when in landscape mode. However, the verdict on the usefulness of CoverFlow is yet to be passed. While reading a book itself, the typography is nothing special. There’s a ‘auto scroll’ feature which is more distracting and sluggish than useful. Nothing like the tilt-scrolling in Instapaper Pro. Overall the app is feature rich, but lacking in the user interface department, especially when compared with the rest of the apps. It’s a free download, so if you like what you see on the eReader website, you might want to check it out.

ebook-apps

Reading Books on the iPhone

At the end of the day however, can you really read an entire book on an iPhone? When it comes to reading an article, or going through RSS feeds, I think the iPhone is more than perfect. It easily connects to the net, and is very handy to whip out at odd places where you wouldn’t be caught with a book or a Kindle. But for lengthy reading, I think the combination of the small LCD screen, the battery life (which could be used for other things), and my preference for Audiobooks pushes me away from using any of these apps for an extended period. Your mileage may vary.

Tagged as: app store, iPhone, kindle

Reader Comments

David Smith May 28, 2009 at 12:42 am travelingclassics.com: Given your preference for audiobooks, might I recommend our latest app, Audiobooks. It was released over the weekend and has jumped to be the #1 book app. It includes over 1,800 public domain audiobooks for free.

http://travelingclassics.com/products/show/191

I myself am partial to the new Eucalyptus app for traditional eBooks.
Rick Dobrowolski May 28, 2009 at 9:12 pm: With Stanza you can read commercial books from Fictionwise. It is not just the Kindle app that can. Fictionwise tends to be more expensive than Kindle though.
Eddie Raos May 29, 2009 at 2:32 am: I use Stanza to read books every day while commuting to work and back. If you setup your preferences right it’s very pleasant to the eyes. Already finished 5 books

Stanza has a desktop app which shares any open ebook via wi-fi to your phone. So basicaly any .pdf .epub .html .txt and so on can be transferred from your desktop computer to your iPhone.

Mega goodness.

I love it
Re May 29, 2009 at 3:10 am: Nice article…
Regarding your question at the end of your blog… I have been able to finish reading all of classics’ books (on my iPod touch) and a few others in Stanza. I also own Files and I love it (Files it’s, actually, the app that I use the most for doing my reading). I reckon is just a matter of getting used to the small screen since most apps allow you to increase the font’s size.

Although, being fair, I must say I knew, even before I bought my iPod, that I would be using it pretty much for reading books and for listening to music (I almost have no games or any other app that is not reading oriented).

I have tried all of the apps afore mentioned except for Eucalyptus. At almost $10, and the fact that I own Stanza and Files, I see no real reason to buy it; I can access all the same books from Stanza and all sorts of pdf,doc, xls, docx, xlsx and more in Files, all for less than $5!!
Milind says that “…the typography seems much better than all the rest…” I don’t know you, but when I get into my reading, typography is the last thing I pay attention (unless its illegible, but then, I wouldn’t read it, would I?), specially if I ought to pay 10 bucks just for that.

One last thing, to anyone who doesn’t own any of these apps I would recommend Stanza, not only because it’s free but also cause you can change the screen colour, I have it set on black background, white letters, setting it in such a way gives you more battery live and makes it comfortable to read in dark places.
If you own lots of pdfs or need to read lots of reports on the go (doc and xls files) I totally recommend Files; it lets you bookmark, read in landscape and all sorts of nice little thing, totally worth the almost $5.
Feldin May 29, 2009 at 5:21 am: HI!

I use stanza a lot.
Just one problem. If I’m downloading a book to my touch, how can I export it from my stanza to my macbook?
This is the only thing I didn’t found and miss.

If you guys know, please help!
Feldin May 29, 2009 at 5:22 am: HI!

Stanza is the best for me too.
But how do you export books to a macbook from it?
I couldn’t found it…
Feldin May 29, 2009 at 5:26 am: sorry, delete one.
My net is a rebel
askblair July 15, 2009 at 5:31 pm: I first used eReader on my Palm and have used it on my iPhone for the last year. Books (including current titles—many costing significantly less than the $10 you mentioned) are available at fictionwise.com and other vendors. Size of type and color can be changed. You can annotate text, look up words in the dictionary, etc. with a tap of a finger. This is a feature-rich app with which I’ve read hundreds (yes, hundreds) of books on my iPhone without any issues. I love being able to read in the dark while riding in the car and the instant availability of new reading material.

It’s interesting to me that you would review iPhone reading apps when you don’t actually enjoy reading books on the iPhone. In fact, it sounds like you haven’t ever read an entire book on the iPhone. It’s also interesting that you would provide a mediocre review for a product that you admit you’ve barely looked at.