readMe: universal reading app.

[kyteflyer]

I've just bought another epub/fb2 reader this morning: readMe.
http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/readme/id335763726?mt=8

I have sideloaded a bunch of books from various authors, and its cataloging seems very similar to that of Stanza... not exactly the same, but close. One point in its favour

Its configurable for colours, font and font size. Another point in its favour.

No obvious brightness controls built in, but if you save a low light theme and set that as your night theme, should not be toooo much of an issue. Minus a half a point.

Loading books: Sideload via itunes (easy) or Phoneview or similar (also easy).

Download from the web via the builtin web browser, or from your computer. There doesnt seem to be any support for ODPS catalogs, so your stanza catalogs wont work (or they dont seem to). The usual caveats for the computer upload via the builtin server... I haven't yet been able to get mine to work on any reader, regardless of whether its using calibre or not, and my computer and phone are on the same network (I have only one!). Several minus points for these issues.

I'm going to go hit the website for this lot at Unrealmojo and see whats what. This reader feels right, just needs a few tweaks.

[edit] I've just emailed them, and requested a few additional features. However... for my money, this one is really worth a look. Its $1.99 on the au store.

[edit #2] About to sideload a couple hundred books to see how it copes.

[edit #3] I think I better post this as a separate thread

[artbatista]

I have to say that after buying a half dozen apps in my search or a Stanza replacement, I am pleasantly surprised by Readme.

It's simple, it's fast and besides doing a beautiful job with the ePub rendering, it also seems to be great at PDF too.

I was able to point it to the calibre web interface and load my books into it with no fuss. Simply point it to http://server address:8080 (no /opds at the end) and browse the calibre catalog in HTML.

The colors are very configurable and there's an icon in he toolbar to switch between day/night directly as well as options to configure full screen (no phone status bar) or not (show phone status bar).

Likewise, seems like every installed font is available for use.

Tap zones are configurable, but not as much as they should be. There are preset ways to set them, but are not individually user configurable, like stanza.

The library view is better than Bluefire's but seems to have trouble with HTML in the book description fields.

All in all, a very worthy first effort.

Cheers

Art

[kyteflyer]

Agreed. Its a good app. I'm hoping that the developers will reply to my email and also register and join this forum, since they say they want feedback. They will get plenty here.

as a followup to my first post, I sideloaded 400 books and readMe barely noticed. It was much faster at loading the new books than any of the others, and I suspect sideloading that many into *any* of the others might create crash issues.

Its fast, too, to load and present a file for reading. All in all, this has now become my first choice for iOS5 (unless Stanza rears its head again)

[Jane12]

Do you know if readMe works with Dropbox?

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by Jane12

Do you know if readMe works with Dropbox?

At this stage, its a very basic reader with lots of configuration options, and the capacity to add books by sideloading, downloading from the web (so you could put your dropbox address in there) and by uploading via its builtin server.

There are NO builtin book respositories, and the only way of adding one is by adding a web address.

In spite of these shortcomings, its a very nice reader. I'm going now to test it against my own dropbox and see how it goes.

[edit] Yes, works really well with dropbox within its own little web browser. I just downloaded one book, I think it would be one at a time but it works. No probs.

[frozennorth]

@ kyteflyer Could you test readMe with the attached file. I would like to know how it handles display styles like bold and italic.

Thanks

[Jane12]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

Yes, works really well with dropbox within its own little web browser. I just downloaded one book, I think it would be one at a time but it works. No probs.

Thanks for checking! Were you downloading using the Dropbox app, or were you using Safari (or other browser) to download directly from the Dropbox web site? I'm guessing if it works for one it'll work for the other, but I'm curious which route you tried.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by frozennorth

@ kyteflyer Could you test readMe with the attached file. I would like to know how it handles display styles like bold and italic.

Thanks

Sadly, not well. It only seems to display regular, italic and bold, but not combinations of same. Where you were using span and class it only seemed to do regular. So its defaulting to regular when it doesn't know what to do.

That said, however, at least its managing some. Other readers I have noticed dont manage at all.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by Jane12

Thanks for checking! Were you downloading using the Dropbox app, or were you using Safari (or other browser) to download directly from the Dropbox web site? I'm guessing if it works for one it'll work for the other, but I'm curious which route you tried.

As I said in my post, I was using readMe's builtin web browser. I dont know if using Safari will allow "open in" or not. It seems counterproductive to go outside the app itself if you dont need to, and... you don't need to

While I was at it, I also checked it against box.net. No problems at all. The builtin browser does make it a lot easier. I was trying to get books from box to (i think) bluereader or megareader yesterday and failed completely.

[mores]

Thank you. I now know what "sideload" means.

I think I'll stick to iBooks, I got burned by Stanza when they decided to stop supporting it, and iOS 5 killed it.
So, sticking with native Apple Apps, they have less of a chance of becoming obsolete in the near future.

[Jane12]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

As I said in my post, I was using readMe's builtin web browser. I dont know if using Safari will allow "open in" or not. It seems counterproductive to go outside the app itself if you dont need to, and... you don't need to

Doh! I totally missed what you meant by "its own little web browser." Thought you were referring to the iPhone's own little browser, not readMe's.

Having a built-in browser right inside readMe is indeed a plus! Thx!

[rxmom03]

I have had this app for 5 minutes and already love it It has a really nice look to it, and one thing I was really wanting from the tap zones. I set mine horizontally and can now hit either the right or left side to go forward (so i can do it with either hand). The small things that excite us...
Mary

[kjk]

Originally Posted by rxmom03

I have had this app for 5 minutes and already love it It has a really nice look to it, and one thing I was really wanting from the tap zones. I set mine horizontally and can now hit either the right or left side to go forward (so i can do it with either hand). The small things that excite us...
Mary

That is a huge thing for me!

[1611mac]

In trying out Readme I find that it is "crashing" quit often as I explore all it's options/features. Several times when I've touched a hotspot it just crashes.... I'm using an iPad(1) with iOS 5.0

[artbatista]

Originally Posted by Jane12

Do you know if readMe works with Dropbox?

I happen to use calibre2opds and upload my catalogs to Dropbox.

I can browse the catalog (HTML mode) fine, but when I attemp a download a book, I get a " frame load interrupted" error. Browsing the same page in safari downloads the book just fine.

So, so far I have not been blue to use Dropbox, but it will download just fine from the built in HTML server in calibre.

Cheers

Art