What was your reader app journey - RIP Stanza

[Quoth]

Bluefire, Aldiko Basic, Lithium, pocketbook on Android.
Was using Xodo for PDFs, but will use Pocketbook for PDFs not being annotated.

I've used KOReader on Android eink for epubs and on Elipsa for PDFs, but don't need it for PDFs on Kobo now.

I've tried many of the others and found them poor to terrible.

Most epubs are read on a Kobo Sage using native reader.

[issybird]

Back in the day, I used Stanza to read PD books on an iPod Touch.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Back in the day, I used Stanza to read PD books on an iPod Touch.

I never could stand Stanza as I found it was very poor at respecting CSS.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I never could stand Stanza as I found it was very poor at respecting CSS.

Heh. This was back when Gutenberg books were very iffy. CSS was the least of the issues.

I'm not that fussy (I don't mean that being fussy is a bad thing -- there must be a better word). As long as a book is clean (no typos, weird line breaks, etc.) I don't care. And yes, I do think nicely formatted books are better and add to the subliminal (subliminal for me) appeal, but most CSS issues are background for me. They're far from making me nuts. I just have different issues.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by issybird

I just have different issues.

Would you mind elaborating what issues are those? Not for argument, I'm genuinely interested. You're one of the folks I really like and respect here, so I always read your opinions with interest, even though they're often different from my own.

[Quoth]

Originally Gutenberg ebooks didn't even have separate css.
Mobi is really HTML3 with inline styles.
And before that they didn't have mobi. They did start in 1972 and I was downloading plain text from them more than 20 years ago.

Early Mobipocket Reader, before they added the mobi format and that was before Amazon bought them in 2005, didn't do styles at all. They sold ebooks for Palm OS, Symbian and Windows CE. So the Kindle 1 was obsolete ebook software in 2007 when it came out. The precusor to epub2 was in 1998, but Gutenberg never used that. Eventually they added epub2 and HTML and renamed mobo to Older Kindles.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Originally Gutenberg ebooks didn't even have separate css.
Mobi is really HTML3 with inline styles.
And before that they didn't have mobi. They did start in 1972 and I was downloading plain text from them more than 20 years ago.

Early Mobipocket Reader, before they added the mobi format and that was before Amazon bought them in 2005, didn't do styles at all. They sold ebooks for Palm OS, Symbian and Windows CE. So the Kindle 1 was obsolete ebook software in 2007 when it came out. The precusor to epub2 was in 1998, but Gutenberg never used that. Eventually they added epub2 and HTML and renamed mobo to Older Kindles.

I thought the precursor to ePub was LIT format which I think came out in late 2000.

[Renate]

I went from B&N NST through all the B&N models before jumping ship for Onyx Poke3 & Poke5.
I've been using my own custom reader for a decade now.
It's "lean and mean" and probably wouldn't suit anyone else.
The one unique feature it has is one button toggling between text and footnotes.
That's using my custom 4 button Bluetooth key fob.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Renate

I went from B&N NST through all the B&N models before jumping ship for Onyx Poke3 & Poke5.
I've been using my own custom reader for a decade now.

Fascinating!

[ZodWallop]

I read comics on an app. I convert all my purchases to .cbz files and use an Android app called Perfect Viewer. I've been using it for... a decade?

I've never used an app for books. I wasn't really interested in ebooks until I bought my first e-ink device.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I wasn't really interested in ebooks until I bought my first e-ink device.

Yep, same. On rare occasions I do read on my phone, usually because I don't carry my eink readers with me (I have no car and they might break, get lost or stolen etc). But I've always preferred eink for books. OTOH, I read web articles, news and stuff on my phone/tablet/laptop all the time. Just not books.

[issybird]

I wasn't interested in buying ebooks until I bought my first eink device, but I'd been reading public domain ebooks for years before that.

[jonathan2022]

at the time got my first ereader (kindle generation 4 ) . a lot of people in my neck of the woods hadnt heard of kindles. Apps i started off with kindle for pc . 2. Freda app for windows 10. it then was updated and text to speech became a pain on it. I now switch between Cool reader and Calibre reader. Cool reader has a lot more text to speech voices.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by issybird

I wasn't interested in buying ebooks until I bought my first eink device, but I'd been reading public domain ebooks for years before that.

Me too.
Also I didn't buy an eink ereader to buy ebooks, but proof MSS from Word & LO Writer, via mobi, then azw3, then epub. Also of course to read the PD ebooks, which I still think is best reason to buy one.
Buying 40 reprint PD classics can cost twice the price of a 6″ reader and an 8″ Sage with 3rd party pen can be cheaper. Any keen reader of Hugh Walpole to Conan Doyle, of Romance, Detective, Adventure, SF, Fantasy, Children's classics Gothic or horror can easily find thousands of PD ebooks on Gutenberg in just one of those genres and "tidy" them, if desired, with Calibre. Mac, Windows or Linux and without a PC and Calibre the downloads are still possible, even on an Android phone with OTG adaptor, file manager and an ereader with USB Mass Storage and no WiFi.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jonathan2022

at the time got my first ereader (kindle generation 4 ) . a lot of people in my neck of the woods hadnt heard of kindles. Apps i started off with kindle for pc . 2. Freda app for windows 10. it then was updated and text to speech became a pain on it. I now switch between Cool reader and Calibre reader. Cool reader has a lot more text to speech voices.

Cool Reader doesn't respect the CSS well enough. That's where it goes wrong.