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It’s been a real PITA trying to get back into reading. I used to read books fairly often when I was in high school, but the habit just kinda withered away and died when I got more PC and console games. This is going to sound ridiculously pathetic, but I actually get annoyed by having to hold the book up and turn the page. Yes, I realize I sound like a spoiled digital brat.
Luckily for me there’s Stanza. For the low low cost of $0 cash money I get an incredible ebook reader on the iPhone that even does wi-fi syncing of books from my PC. I’ve already read four books on the iPhone and am just loving the experience. You can swipe or tap to switch pages, you can edit text size, and you can even lock the orientation (something I wish I could do in Safari sometimes). The wi-fi sync is as simple as opening the desktop app, opening the book you want to sync, and then loading up Stanza on the iPhone to download the file to the device.
If you haven’t tried Stanza from the App Store for your eBooking needs, I highly suggest you give it a shot!
Their website is here, and you can find their App easily enough through iTunes.
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by nacho, on September 26 2008 @ 1:36 am
I tried out Stanza, and while I didn’t love it quite as much as you did, it isn’t half bad, and the price is definitely right. Might want to point out a couple of the flaws in it though before anointing it as the second coming…
I didn’t like how you had to convert all your ebooks to the special format that it uses. It would have been great if I could have loaded up a pdf or even a regular txt/rtf file and been able to read that automatically. Or if not that then at least be able to recognize those common filetypes and convert them on the iphone itself. Yes, I’m aware of the software that accompanies it…which brings me to my 2nd complaint about Stanza.
I’m not sure how big the Mac version is, but the PC version is the definition of bloatware. 52 megabytes for a program that converts from one text file to another and copies files? That should be 1-2 MB tops. Lord knows what other things it could be loading on my computer with 52 megs. I don’t like the fact that I have to install yet another program on my computer to interact with my iPhone. I HATE that it was a 52 MB bloated POS program that I was forced to load. An iTunes plugin would have been much more preferred.
by Ragart, on September 26 2008 @ 1:40 am
@nacho
haha, second coming! I guess I was pretty zealous there, wasn’t I?
Agreed that the process is sorta bloatware (although 52MB is chicken feed by today’s HD size standards). I just like it for wireless syncing. I didn’t have any trouble with the eBooks I have, and I don’t believe they were converted — unless it happened so fast I didn’t notice? I thought they just used the .pdf or .lit files I had and xfered them to my iPhone.
In any case, my joy doesn’t lie just with Stanza — but rather with the fact that I enjoy reading again. So whether it’s the eReader, Stanza, or something else the App Store comes up with, I’m just delighted to have such a cool reader with me at all times!
by Ragart, on September 26 2008 @ 1:44 am
the other quick thing I’d add here is that I don’t know of any other programs that can easily sync with the iPhone through iTunes. I’m taking a look at eWallet right now, and that also syncs through proprietary desktop software. Not through iTunes.
Have you found one that does? I would have thought that Apple had locked down iTunes for all of their own stuff, as big brother-y as they are
by nacho, on September 26 2008 @ 2:48 am
I don’t know of any iPhone apps that use iTunes to sync, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m hardly a power user. I know Phase for the clickwheel iPods uses iTunes to create and sync tracks for it so I just assumed that there was some sort of API for that sort of thing, but I guess there’s not.
As far as using the PDF files, I tried to use one without converting it and it didn’t recognize the file as a proper format. It didn’t let me see the file until I converted it with the software on the PC. Maybe it was too big though, I know that was a limitation with previous attempts at PDF viewers on the iPhone.
by wedgen, on September 26 2008 @ 9:19 am
I know what you mean! I’ve used this for a month now, i’m not as fast a reader as you to read 4 books, but i’m work’n on finishing the Hichhicker series. =) I recommend it to anyone, i’ve looked at the paid ones out there, and this one has plenty of features if not more for free. Thanks for the reveiw.
by Ragart, on September 26 2008 @ 9:48 am
@nacho
Just out of curiousity, how did you try to open the PDF on Stanza? How did you get it on the phone without — or did you mean you tried to open it in Stanza PC, but had to convert?
what I meant to say before is your guess is as good as mine. I really want to find an iTunes plug-in, but I think Apple is just too locked down
@wedgen
trust me, I’m no fast reader here — I just stayed up WAAAAAY too late reading. Maybe I should pick up the Hitchhiker series, too. I’ve heard it’s great fun.
by nacho, on September 26 2008 @ 7:22 pm
I uploaded the pdf to a website and then told Stanza where to look. It found the pdf but didn’t like it sinch it wasn’t the special format it was looking for.