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Entry tags:
kindle and stanza
I got an iPod Touch for, umm, a Christmas/baby-birthday present. It is the most awesome thing ever, not least because right now (and February was really, really bad this way) I spend fairly large amounts of every day in somewhat odd positions where I have one (or fewer) arms free and using a computer would be rather awkward. It was super awesome to have in the hospital.
I have two book-reading programs on it, kindle-for-iphone and stanza. Before I compare the two, I must say that reading on the iPod is a very different experience - because the screen is so small I am forced to read every word. Including descriptions. It's too much trouble to keep turning pages otherwise. This has borne home to me how little of a book I actually read the first time, and is rather embarrassing. D, of course, thought this was hilarious, the same way he thought it was hilarious that when we read Lord of the Rings together a couple of years ago (and I had to read every word because I had to wait for him to finish pages) I was shocked that Prince Imrahil showed up before the Pelennor Fields, at which I had this idea that he had appeared out of thin air. Because everything up till then is only worth skimming, you know?
Anyway. Stanza blows kindle out of the water. It is (almost) everything I feel that e-reader software should be -- the interface is very intuitive, it lets you do everything you want to do easily, turning pages is great, it lets you go to different chapters in an easy and intuitive way, there is a bar at the bottom of the screen that tells you how far into the book you are.
The Kindle software appears not to have been designed by anyone who actually reads books, or, at least, not the way I read them. If there is a way to group books together, I don't know what it is. (Granted, i haven't spent much time figuring it out.) Doing things like changing fonts is rather more fiddly and not as nice. I also don't know how to go to different chapters. Kindle has this weird system of numbered markers that not only bears no resemblance to anything like a chapter, the markers don't show up while you are reading, so it's anyone's guess what number you are actually at at any given time. GAH.
But then, amazon has going for it that it has all sorts of nifty books on it, so I have actually bought one or two from them. But anything that's available epub that I feel like I have to have, I'm totally getting in that format. (So far this has mainly included a lot of free books and only one book I have actually paid for, but, well.)
I have two book-reading programs on it, kindle-for-iphone and stanza. Before I compare the two, I must say that reading on the iPod is a very different experience - because the screen is so small I am forced to read every word. Including descriptions. It's too much trouble to keep turning pages otherwise. This has borne home to me how little of a book I actually read the first time, and is rather embarrassing. D, of course, thought this was hilarious, the same way he thought it was hilarious that when we read Lord of the Rings together a couple of years ago (and I had to read every word because I had to wait for him to finish pages) I was shocked that Prince Imrahil showed up before the Pelennor Fields, at which I had this idea that he had appeared out of thin air. Because everything up till then is only worth skimming, you know?
Anyway. Stanza blows kindle out of the water. It is (almost) everything I feel that e-reader software should be -- the interface is very intuitive, it lets you do everything you want to do easily, turning pages is great, it lets you go to different chapters in an easy and intuitive way, there is a bar at the bottom of the screen that tells you how far into the book you are.
The Kindle software appears not to have been designed by anyone who actually reads books, or, at least, not the way I read them. If there is a way to group books together, I don't know what it is. (Granted, i haven't spent much time figuring it out.) Doing things like changing fonts is rather more fiddly and not as nice. I also don't know how to go to different chapters. Kindle has this weird system of numbered markers that not only bears no resemblance to anything like a chapter, the markers don't show up while you are reading, so it's anyone's guess what number you are actually at at any given time. GAH.
But then, amazon has going for it that it has all sorts of nifty books on it, so I have actually bought one or two from them. But anything that's available epub that I feel like I have to have, I'm totally getting in that format. (So far this has mainly included a lot of free books and only one book I have actually paid for, but, well.)
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I'm waiting patiently for the 3G iPad. And then I'll have, iBook, Kindle Stanza all on the same machine. That ought to be great.
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Well, that's true. It was kind of funny because when I tried out the Kindle hardware, many of the things it doesn't do at all and thus that I quarreled with are things that Kindle for iPhone does poorly, but at least does, and Stanza does effortlessly well.
I want an iPad that is the same form factor as the Kindle. Then I'm totally buying it. The current iPad is a little too big for my current needs.
I also want to say, randomly, that the coolest thing about the iPad is that I always wanted those tablets in Ender's Game to be real, and now they are! Coolness!