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Old 10-12-2011, 11:14 AM   #80
ilovejedd
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Posts: 5,111
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: in the middle of nowhere
Device: PW4, PW3, Libra H2O, iPad 10.5, iPad 11, iPad 12.9
Quote:
Originally Posted by nookkatz View Post
I don't know if this will help, but I keep my Calibre library in Dropbox and use the Dropbox app on my iPod Touch to access the books. I can open the files in the Bluefire app with no trouble. I don't have an iPad, but things ought to work the same way on the iPad.
True but as far as I'm aware, Bluefire can't read metadata information embedded in ePub. I don't think there's a way to sort ebooks in Bluefire by categories, either. I just checked my iPhone and I've got 2,704 ebooks in my Stanza library (accumulated since 2008). Stanza is smart enough to recognize the <subject> tags in the metadata file so all those ebooks are automatically sorted into collections. Imagine doing that manually via iBooks.

Besides, being able to access your library via Dropbox is a vastly different experience to being able to use the Calibre OPDS feed. With Calibre OPDS, ebooks can be sorted via authors, publishers, tags, series and whatever custom categories you might want to create. You also have access to a very robust search function. I reckon for a lot of folks, the organization and Calibre OPDS support are two of the reasons they stay with Stanza.

The Kobo reader app is actually able to display metadata information (no formatting, though). Caveat, you're going to need to manage collections yourself.

I've already pre-ordered an iPhone 4S but I'm still not sure if I want to keep it or sell it. Stanza is the only thing that's keeping me on iOS and there's a good chance I'll lose that with iOS 5.

I've actually found a relatively decent alternative for Stanza on the Android platform (Mantano Reader). I don't think it supports OPDS just yet, though, but it's on the developer's laundry list (native support for Calibre's database is also under consideration). There are, however, plenty of apps on Android that support OPDS in the meantime. What I do right now is use FBReader to access Calibre (and other OPDS feeds) and use Mantano Reader for reading.

Last edited by ilovejedd; 10-12-2011 at 11:20 AM.
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