MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Aldiko for Motorala Droid. Other Suggestions?

wodin · 06-26-2010, 03:31 PM

Here is a short review of iReader (paid version).

I downloaded it from the market, and played with it a little. It has obviously been written by a geek (nothing wrong with that, I’m a geek, and most of my friends are too). The trouble with geeks is that we relate better with gadgets than we do with people. This app needs a people person to work out the interface. Things are a little clumsy, and sometimes not real obvious.

I loaded up a Mobipocket DRM file, entered my PID (yes it supports putting your own multiple PIDs in), and opened the file. Yup it worked! After a few seconds the book was open. I adjusted the font size for my ancient eyeballs, and began reading. The first thing I noticed was that it supports multi touch zooming, and if my eyes get a little tired all I have to do is pinch out and wallah! Bigger text. Pretty cool!

Now the stuff that needs work:

1. No support for background/text color. I like black text on a beige/tan (parchment) background. This is black and white.
2. No choice of fonts, you get san; that’s it.
3. Doesn’t open the last book when you open the app. You have to open it each time. While it tries to remember your page, it misses a little and opens a page or two later.
4. Page turn is either by volume buttons or sliding (scrolling) the page up or down with your finger. FBReader uses finger flicks and turns a whole page. I’m not sure if I like that better or not. Time will tell.
5. As I said in the first paragraph, the interface is a bit rough. This should clean up as revisions are released.

I’m used to de-DRMing books and converting them in Calibre, I’m not sure if the convenience of native DRM support is worth the inconvenience of using less than mature software. I’ll run it for a while and see. One advantage I can see is that I can download DRMed books directly to my EVO without having to go home and convert them. Again, time will tell.

edit. Whoops, tried that and I can't download from Books on Board, it says "Can't determine the file size." Bummer!

As AnemicOak said, eReader, not EPub. As most of my stuff is de-DRMed and converted from Mobi, I still have all of those Mobi files, so it works for me

06-26-2010, 03:31 PM	#21
wodin Illiterate Posts: 10,279 Karma: 37848716 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: The Sandwich Isles Device: Samsung Galaxy S10+, Microsoft Surface Pro	Here is a short review of iReader (paid version). I downloaded it from the market, and played with it a little. It has obviously been written by a geek (nothing wrong with that, I’m a geek, and most of my friends are too). The trouble with geeks is that we relate better with gadgets than we do with people. This app needs a people person to work out the interface. Things are a little clumsy, and sometimes not real obvious. I loaded up a Mobipocket DRM file, entered my PID (yes it supports putting your own multiple PIDs in), and opened the file. Yup it worked! After a few seconds the book was open. I adjusted the font size for my ancient eyeballs, and began reading. The first thing I noticed was that it supports multi touch zooming, and if my eyes get a little tired all I have to do is pinch out and wallah! Bigger text. Pretty cool! Now the stuff that needs work: 1. No support for background/text color. I like black text on a beige/tan (parchment) background. This is black and white. 2. No choice of fonts, you get san; that’s it. 3. Doesn’t open the last book when you open the app. You have to open it each time. While it tries to remember your page, it misses a little and opens a page or two later. 4. Page turn is either by volume buttons or sliding (scrolling) the page up or down with your finger. FBReader uses finger flicks and turns a whole page. I’m not sure if I like that better or not. Time will tell. 5. As I said in the first paragraph, the interface is a bit rough. This should clean up as revisions are released. I’m used to de-DRMing books and converting them in Calibre, I’m not sure if the convenience of native DRM support is worth the inconvenience of using less than mature software. I’ll run it for a while and see. One advantage I can see is that I can download DRMed books directly to my EVO without having to go home and convert them. Again, time will tell. edit. Whoops, tried that and I can't download from Books on Board, it says "Can't determine the file size." Bummer! As AnemicOak said, eReader, not EPub. As most of my stuff is de-DRMed and converted from Mobi, I still have all of those Mobi files, so it works for me Last edited by wodin; 06-26-2010 at 03:37 PM.