MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Is the iPhone too small for reading ebooks

toddos · 12-22-2010, 10:07 PM

I read pretty much exclusively on my iPhone 3GS these days, despite having a Sony PRS-300 and an Android tablet. I have two suggestions for reading comfort:

Use a reader with a "night" mode, or one that will allow you to change the color scheme to white-on-black. For this I most prefer Stanza with its huge amount of user customization, but others like Bluefire are acceptable. Kindle's grey-on-black mode doesn't provide enough contrast for me to read comfortably, and iBooks outright fails without any night mode at all. Apple seems to think using the "invert colors" accessibility option is sufficient, which is completely wrong.
Books with excessive margins need to be edited. The iPhone's screen is small enough that you can read comfortably with text going edge-to-edge. Unfortunately a lot of book editors seem to think that 1em left and right margins are a good idea, which on an iPhone wastes a ton of space and gives you maybe 3-4 words per line max (depending on font size). If you're reading DRMed books, you'll either need to get proficient at liberating them so you can remove excessive margins or you'll just have to deal with ebook editors who don't "get it".

Stanza is by far my preferred ebook reader, but BlueFire is coming up strong as a close second. Once they add in generic OPDS support and a lot more formatting options (must have more fonts!), BF could beat Stanza for my preferred ebook reader.

12-22-2010, 10:07 PM	#14
toddos Guru Posts: 695 Karma: 822675 Join Date: May 2010 Device: Kobo Aura, Nokia Lumia 920 (Freda)	I read pretty much exclusively on my iPhone 3GS these days, despite having a Sony PRS-300 and an Android tablet. I have two suggestions for reading comfort: Use a reader with a "night" mode, or one that will allow you to change the color scheme to white-on-black. For this I most prefer Stanza with its huge amount of user customization, but others like Bluefire are acceptable. Kindle's grey-on-black mode doesn't provide enough contrast for me to read comfortably, and iBooks outright fails without any night mode at all. Apple seems to think using the "invert colors" accessibility option is sufficient, which is completely wrong. Books with excessive margins need to be edited. The iPhone's screen is small enough that you can read comfortably with text going edge-to-edge. Unfortunately a lot of book editors seem to think that 1em left and right margins are a good idea, which on an iPhone wastes a ton of space and gives you maybe 3-4 words per line max (depending on font size). If you're reading DRMed books, you'll either need to get proficient at liberating them so you can remove excessive margins or you'll just have to deal with ebook editors who don't "get it". Stanza is by far my preferred ebook reader, but BlueFire is coming up strong as a close second. Once they add in generic OPDS support and a lot more formatting options (must have more fonts!), BF could beat Stanza for my preferred ebook reader. Last edited by toddos; 12-23-2010 at 12:44 AM.