MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - iPad Kindle books on ipad

Rob_E · 08-09-2010, 12:56 PM

I don't think showing the number of pages of an e-book is terribly helpful for exactly the reasons specified: You change the font, you change the screen size, you flip it sideways(? not sure about that one) and your page numbers change. I haven't played with Kindle stuff enough to know how their method works, but I really like they way Stanza tells you simply the percentage of your way through the book. To me, that is a number I can attach some meaning to. To me, iBooks tries too hard to be a digital representation of a physical book, whereas Stanza tries to be an efficient way to read electronic print, ignoring the limitations that come along with trying to replicate a physical book. Page numbers in particular lose meaning not only because they change based on font size, but because they lack context when all books are exactly the size of your device. If I'm page 150 of a book, and can look at the book and see where page 150 is in relation to the thickness of the book, and that will tell me something. But if the book is electronic, I can't see the thickness of the book, so I have to look at the total page numbers and figure it out as a percentage to put the values into perspective. Might as well start with a percentage and save me the effort.

Sure, placing the text inside a picture of an open book looks cool, giving it page numbers makes it more familiar as does giving you a page turn animation, but all of that seems to exist to make you feel like you're reading a real book at the expense of some of the benefits of electronic versions.

That said, I do make use of Stanza's page information when I want to see if I'll be at a good stopping point soon. Tap the screen, and it says that at your current screen/font size, you're 20 of 24 screens (or pages) into the current chapter. To me that is useful information and so much better than the physical book method of flipping through the pages and trying to catch the next chapter heading as you flip by (and then, sometimes, reading with a finger sandwiched in that spot so you know how far you have to go).

08-09-2010, 12:56 PM	#11
Rob_E Connoisseur Posts: 73 Karma: 154004 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: iPod Touch/iPad	I don't think showing the number of pages of an e-book is terribly helpful for exactly the reasons specified: You change the font, you change the screen size, you flip it sideways(? not sure about that one) and your page numbers change. I haven't played with Kindle stuff enough to know how their method works, but I really like they way Stanza tells you simply the percentage of your way through the book. To me, that is a number I can attach some meaning to. To me, iBooks tries too hard to be a digital representation of a physical book, whereas Stanza tries to be an efficient way to read electronic print, ignoring the limitations that come along with trying to replicate a physical book. Page numbers in particular lose meaning not only because they change based on font size, but because they lack context when all books are exactly the size of your device. If I'm page 150 of a book, and can look at the book and see where page 150 is in relation to the thickness of the book, and that will tell me something. But if the book is electronic, I can't see the thickness of the book, so I have to look at the total page numbers and figure it out as a percentage to put the values into perspective. Might as well start with a percentage and save me the effort. Sure, placing the text inside a picture of an open book looks cool, giving it page numbers makes it more familiar as does giving you a page turn animation, but all of that seems to exist to make you feel like you're reading a real book at the expense of some of the benefits of electronic versions. That said, I do make use of Stanza's page information when I want to see if I'll be at a good stopping point soon. Tap the screen, and it says that at your current screen/font size, you're 20 of 24 screens (or pages) into the current chapter. To me that is useful information and so much better than the physical book method of flipping through the pages and trying to catch the next chapter heading as you flip by (and then, sometimes, reading with a finger sandwiched in that spot so you know how far you have to go).