Comment: iPhone and ebooks

I haven’t talked about ebooks for a while. I do on the whole think that ebooks are a wonderful idea. I’m more than happy with my Sony Reader 505 (SR) that I had for Christmas last year. And since I’ve had it I’ve bought 13 books for it, which isn’t bad considering that I have more real books that you could shake a stick at.

The one thing I love about the SR is that I can put it flat or prop it up and touch a button and be on the next page. It’s that simple. I don’t need to told the pages in place or shift about the turn them (and if you’ve read a heavy hardback you’ll have done that, right?). There is something about the screen that means that I can scan the pages the faster than traditional book.

That hasn’t stopped me reading real books this year. Far from it. But if I know the book is going to be large I end up with the ebook. for example I bought Wolf Hall in ebook form even though the hardback was on offer for the same price. I’m happier with my content in a convenient form for me when it comes to books I want to read but not keep.

Ebooks are booming this year, with three strands that standout for me.

The first is that epub is being backed in the UK by places like Waterstones and WhSmith and you can buy several readers now including two new Sony Readers and  models from Cool-er, Bookeen and iRex to name a few . So you can take your DRM-wrapped ebook with you to a reader of your choice within reason.

The second and third have to do with the iPhone and the different ways they use apps for ebooks.

One way is app per book or an app per series of books. Peter James is latest one to land on my iPhone. Mostly because if you bought Dead Tomorrow you got Dead Simple included. I bought Dead Simple ages ago and this way I’m hoping I’ll get round to reading it sooner even if it’s not the book I originally bought.

As you can see the app itself is really well done and the team seemed to have learned a trick or two from the doing Hitchhiker’s Guide and Men Who Stare at Goats. Plus they’ve included some nice extras like a marked-up script and background material. A good buy for £4.99.

Are single book/series apps a good idea? It’s going to come down to personal preference. If you want to carry around Twilight, to name another best-selling app book on your iPhone then it’s there for you when you have a few minutes to read.

If publishers carry one including extras then I can see the appeal. I’m more likely to have my iPhone on me than anything else. The only downside is that you are limited to reading on the iPhone alone. You can’t move to another platform.

I can move between my Mac and Sony Reader but not my iPhone with my current set up. Or just my iPhone in isolation. If Sony sorted out an iPhone app that syncs to their eLibrary software I think that would be good solution. No one has yet made a Adobe-DRM iPhone app so I can read the books I’ve already bought.

For sheer painlessness I can see why way going with thread three. The one app where you can have all your books in one place. There is the ereader.com app or Stanza (that I hate with a passion)

But the one I think is going to have a prime place on my first page is the Kindle for iPhone. But not quite yet.

It popped up, as I u
nderstand it, on International Apple App Stores today. So now if you have an International Kindle Reader you can view your Amazon.com US purchased books on either a PC (Mac-soon), a Kindle Reader or the iPhone. Though you don’t need a Reader you can just use your iPhone or vice versa but with Whispersync (cloud-bookmarking) you can start off on one device where you left off on another.

And that for me is the killer app, as it were, I could read a book on my iPhone on the move and a Reader at more leisurely times. Though not yet.

Not yet as I’m not willing do use a US-centric service and I’m certainly not going to buy an expensive electrical device from outside the UK. I like my statutory rights and don’t fancy the hassle if anything went wrong by having to ship it back to the USA.

I’m kinda holding out to see if Amazon will embrace epub like they have with MP3 – all nice and DRM free though that’s not going to happen.

I like the app itself is easy to use. Lots of options on text colour and font-size. And quite readable.

It is seriously tempted. And I probably will migrate at some point when it’s properly in the UK but I’m hoping that they come out with a reader without the keypad by then.

I’m in no rush. I’m buying ebooks for their content rather than their collectability so as long as I read them before whatever I bought them for become obsolete I’ll be fine and if I want something to keep I’m going to buy a physical book.

Anybody getting an ebook reader for Christmas?