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Old 10-03-2008, 10:30 AM   #1
macgirl
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Thumbs up iPhone now the biggest eBook reader?

EDIT: I see I'm a little late to the party and that others have posted the link to the Forbes article in question already. Mods, feel free to delete/close as you see fit...

Posted over at MacRumors.com:

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Forbes reveals that Stanza [App Store], a free eBook reading application for the iPhone, has distributed over 395,000 copies via the App Store.

Forbes notes that this exceeds the estimated number of Kindles sold for 2008 and likely makes the iPhone the biggest eBook reader on the market. To be fair Stanza is a free download, but the intent is still there.

Stanza, like Kindle, lets users download new content directly to their device. It has a snappy interface that allows readers to flip through a book simply by tapping the edges of the page and responds far faster than Kindle's poky E-ink screen, which takes about a second to turn pages. On the downside, the iPhone's LCD screen can strain eyes after hours of reading and chews through battery power far faster than Kindle or the Sony Reader, both of which can go without recharging for days.
At the moment, however, all of the titles available to Stanza are public domain titles while the Kindle commands premium pay titles. Stanza's developer is working on deals with major publishers to try to sell newer eBooks to its users.

"Once we've got that kind of deal done," says Prud'hommeaux, "you'll be able to do everything on the iPhone that you can now do on the Kindle: browse, purchase, download and read a book without interacting with your computer in any way."

Stanza users are said to have downloaded over 2 million of the public domain eBooks at this time.
I thought this was interesting to see - it's nice to know that ebook reading is becoming quite popular on the iPhone, which will hopefully only make ebooks more popular and more widely available as publishers realize the potential of this market.

I used to own an Amazon Kindle, but I switched to reading 100% on my iPhone when the eReader app became available, and I love it. I always have my iPhone with me at all times (even when I go from room to room at my house - weird, I know ) and it is absolutely fabulous having easy access to any ebook in my eReader library anywhere and anytime. Not to sound like an eReader commercial, but their mobile site also makes buying new books easy right on my iPhone, and then they can be immediately downloaded in the eReader app.

I have the Stanza app, but haven't really used it yet since I've been more engrossed with my eReader library, but I plan to give it a more thorough work-out.

Last edited by macgirl; 10-03-2008 at 11:09 AM.
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Old 10-03-2008, 10:34 AM   #2
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On my cell phone I have a calculator, camera, IM, and a bunch of free games I downloaded. That doesn't mean I use any of it.

Point: Just because someone downloaded it doesn't mean they use it.
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Old 10-03-2008, 10:41 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate the great View Post
Point: Just because someone downloaded it doesn't mean they use it.
I posted the exact same thing as a comment on the TeleRead bolg entry about this article.

BOb
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Old 10-03-2008, 10:48 AM   #4
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Actually, the biggest reader is the new iRex DR1000 with a 10.2" screen. Makes the iPhone even smaller by comparison.
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Old 10-03-2008, 11:07 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate the great View Post
On my cell phone I have a calculator, camera, IM, and a bunch of free games I downloaded. That doesn't mean I use any of it.

Point: Just because someone downloaded it doesn't mean they use it.
Point taken the first time you posted this reply.

I doubt Apple goes so far as to track how often people use an app on an iPhone (though I'm sure it could be tracked and gathered in a hidden log file somehow). Regardless, I do think it's heartening to see that so many people are at least curious enough to download an app that lets them read ebooks on their iPhones. Of course, not all may use it regularly or even keep the app, but this kind of distribution of an ebook reader app will hopefully draw the attention of publishers and cause them to focus more attention on ebook distribution and availability.
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Old 10-03-2008, 11:09 AM   #6
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On my end I do see a lot of users browsing through the catalog every day. Can't tell if they're reading all of the books that they've downloaded (although I'm pretty sure that e-ink users do not read 100% of what they download either), but they're at least using the application, and browsing through the catalog a lot.
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Old 10-03-2008, 12:31 PM   #7
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Nate,
You may not use any of the extra applications on your cell phone, but for some of us, they are very useful. I use Opera Mini on my Cell Phone regularly. As well as Google Maps, and some of the games . I also use both stanza and eReader for for reading ebooks on my iPod Touch. I am reading my third book in 2 weeks. Its not perfect, but if I was to get a device with roughly twice the screen real-estate as the current one (i.e. a 5" screen), I think it would be just about perfect.

I agree that not everyone of the people who download the app is going to use it, just as not everyone who buys a kindle or a PRS-505/700 is going to use it (at least not regularly). Granted the regular app users are probably fewer simply because the cost of entry is so low, but still, I imagine a lot of the Stanza and eReader downloaders are in fact like me and are actually using them to read. Keep in mind, that eReader is an even better way to track the trends simply because fictionwise also sells books for the reader. They can tell how many people are downloading books they paid for onto the reader. If someone is downloading (over time) multiple books that they paid for, it can be reasonably inferred that they are actually reading said books. Currently, I think there have been something like 300,000 books downloaded from fictionwise to the iPod/iPhone eReader... I am not sure how many of those have been free books versus paid for books, but still...

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Old 10-03-2008, 12:50 PM   #8
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If you download the free eReader, which imho is easier and more comfortable to use, you can read public domain freebies AND buy new releases I found deleted books on Stanza to be very poky, especially if you want to delete more than one at a time. And I disliked the page turn animation, which I could not turn off. I am sticking with eReader for now
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Old 10-03-2008, 01:37 PM   #9
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Ficbot,
I like both the eReader Software and the Stanza software. I would say that Stanza's big advantage is that as long as you router is configured properly, sharing books between your computer and your iPod Touch is incredibly easy. eReader does have some solutions, but Stanza's works better.

Now, the beauty is that even though the development platform is not as open as it should be, the iPod Touch offers a far more open environment than the Kindle or the Sony readers. So ultimately, some readers can use eReader, others Stanza, Bookshelf or BookZ.

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Old 10-03-2008, 01:46 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by macgirl View Post
Point taken the first time you posted this reply.

I doubt Apple goes so far as to track how often people use an app on an iPhone (though I'm sure it could be tracked and gathered in a hidden log file somehow). Regardless, I do think it's heartening to see that so many people are at least curious enough to download an app that lets them read ebooks on their iPhones. Of course, not all may use it regularly or even keep the app, but this kind of distribution of an ebook reader app will hopefully draw the attention of publishers and cause them to focus more attention on ebook distribution and availability.
Do you mean two posts or two sentences? I don't beleive I made another post on this.

But if you are referring to the two sentences, then yes the second one was redundant and repetitive. It was also redundant and repetitive.
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Old 10-03-2008, 03:34 PM   #11
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Quote:
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Do you mean two posts or two sentences? I don't beleive I made another post on this.

But if you are referring to the two sentences, then yes the second one was redundant and repetitive. It was also redundant and repetitive.
I was referring to the two identical posts you made in this thread.
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Old 10-03-2008, 03:51 PM   #12
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I was referring to the two identical posts you made in this thread.
Yeah, but that was due to a bug; Nate didn't deliberately post the same message twice. (At least, I assume he didn't, as I've been bitten by the same bug before, and I doubt Nate would repeat himself this way.)
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Old 10-03-2008, 04:15 PM   #13
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I was referring to the two identical posts you made in this thread.
What double post?
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Old 10-04-2008, 07:40 AM   #14
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I hve four e-book readers installed on my iPod Touch - BookZ, BookShelf, eReader and Stanza.

I find that I use BookShelf more than all the others combined for several reasons:
a) I can connect driectly to www.baen.com and download books from the free library and books I've purchased directly to the device
b) I can set fonts and colors which I find easy to read on the rather small screen
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Old 10-04-2008, 09:20 AM   #15
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When eReader came out, we downloaded it to my wife's iPod Touch. When the update came out and iTunes said there was an update, we updated. But neither of us has read a single book using her iPod Touch. We use our Sony's to read eBooks. So count us in as one of the eReader downloaders who do not use it.
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