MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - iPod Touch as an e-book reader

Liviu_5 · 11-30-2007, 01:28 AM

After I saw a demonstration video of the ITouch (IPhone) and pdf reading and after checking for myself in an Apple store with a pdf math book available online from the author's site, I was very impressed and got a 8GB one since my classic Ipod is getting old though I still use it for music, while this one I use for pdf's and video and some txt/html e-books though I still prefer my 770 for that last.

It took a little bit of work to get going (jailbreak, install UNIX tools, Apache to access internal files with Safari and Books to read txt/html - the pdf reader is junk, iPhone browser to transfer files from my Pc over USB).

Everything was fast and trivial (jailbreak site over Wi-FIi and jailbreak took 1 minute, install the applications another 4-5 minutes with the install button) except for modifying the Apache config file (/etc/httpd/httpd.conf) to read files from the big 7+ GB media partition, not the default system 300 Mb partition since after all I want to load quite a few pdf's. Using the terminal and vi (with a list of commands found in 1 minute on Google) it took me another 10 minutes or so - there are 2 lines to be changed - and then restarting Apache from the terminal another 1 minute.

Iphone browser works quite fast (transferred about 200 Mb of files in 2 minutes) and the only thing you need is make your pdf and ebooks folders in the Apache directory (I chose Media for it) with mkdir, and move the files with mv *.pdf, *.txt, *.htm* from Media where Iphone browser deposits them to Media/Pdf or Media/Ebooks and you are set.

Then with safari you open your pdf, play with it (rotate, enlarge) and it's amazingly fast and nice. There are about 14-15 lines of text per screen at a readable zoom without horizontal scrolling and moving around is amazingly fast with the fingers.

The drawbacks - safari does not open pdf's larger than ~10 Mb so those need to be split and it does not bookmark so every time you open a pdf you have to get back where you were, but that takes several seconds of scrolling with your fingers so it's not a big deal for me.

Also you can open as many windows as you want and move between them easily so you can have as many books displayed as you want.

I tried the Books application and is ok, fast with regular txt or html books and you can change the colors to black background and white text, customize fonts and so on, but I like my 770 more because of higher functionality. Still a good experience though.

Hopefully if and when Apple follows the promise to open the Touch, there will be many improvements, but right now I am quite happy to finally being able to read pdf's fast and convenient on the go.

11-30-2007, 01:28 AM	#1
Liviu_5 Books and more books Posts: 917 Karma: 69499 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: White Plains, NY, USA Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)	iPod Touch as an e-book reader After I saw a demonstration video of the ITouch (IPhone) and pdf reading and after checking for myself in an Apple store with a pdf math book available online from the author's site, I was very impressed and got a 8GB one since my classic Ipod is getting old though I still use it for music, while this one I use for pdf's and video and some txt/html e-books though I still prefer my 770 for that last. It took a little bit of work to get going (jailbreak, install UNIX tools, Apache to access internal files with Safari and Books to read txt/html - the pdf reader is junk, iPhone browser to transfer files from my Pc over USB). Everything was fast and trivial (jailbreak site over Wi-FIi and jailbreak took 1 minute, install the applications another 4-5 minutes with the install button) except for modifying the Apache config file (/etc/httpd/httpd.conf) to read files from the big 7+ GB media partition, not the default system 300 Mb partition since after all I want to load quite a few pdf's. Using the terminal and vi (with a list of commands found in 1 minute on Google) it took me another 10 minutes or so - there are 2 lines to be changed - and then restarting Apache from the terminal another 1 minute. Iphone browser works quite fast (transferred about 200 Mb of files in 2 minutes) and the only thing you need is make your pdf and ebooks folders in the Apache directory (I chose Media for it) with mkdir, and move the files with mv .pdf, .txt, .htm from Media where Iphone browser deposits them to Media/Pdf or Media/Ebooks and you are set. Then with safari you open your pdf, play with it (rotate, enlarge) and it's amazingly fast and nice. There are about 14-15 lines of text per screen at a readable zoom without horizontal scrolling and moving around is amazingly fast with the fingers. The drawbacks - safari does not open pdf's larger than ~10 Mb so those need to be split and it does not bookmark so every time you open a pdf you have to get back where you were, but that takes several seconds of scrolling with your fingers so it's not a big deal for me. Also you can open as many windows as you want and move between them easily so you can have as many books displayed as you want. I tried the Books application and is ok, fast with regular txt or html books and you can change the colors to black background and white text, customize fonts and so on, but I like my 770 more because of higher functionality. Still a good experience though. Hopefully if and when Apple follows the promise to open the Touch, there will be many improvements, but right now I am quite happy to finally being able to read pdf's fast and convenient on the go.