So Marvin’s Gone!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I dunno about the other two but Hyphen’s been abandoned, too, so I don’t see it as a particularly viable alternative.

So far, MapleRead’s the next best I’ve found although I’m hopeful BookFusion could implement some must have features. In the meantime, I’m sticking to Marvin until it stops working completely.

I'm going to be giving BookFusion a go now that I have my choice of font and it has hyphenation. It seems to be good. I'll need to add some books tomorrow to try it out.

[grokdirector]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Apple purposely blocked the option to restore old apps from backups, even if you tried to use that ancient iTunes method of doing that. This happened in iOS 7 or thereabouts. It's pure despotism on Apple's part, nothing less. Until then, it was possible to restore older apps via third-party apps (Mac or Windows desktop helper apps), but in iOS 7 or thereabouts, Apple blocked even those last few remaining options. That's when I knew that I had to throw away the iPhone, and within a year, I switched over to Samsung's Note platform, and haven't looked back since.

Hey man, I suppose it’s hard to look back while grinding that huge freaking Apple-hating axe!

Anyways, I just joined MR because I bought a secondhand iPad and tried to install Marvin on it without doing a full migration from my previous iPad. (Getting old, needed a bigger screen…)

Surprise, I discovered Marvin’s no longer in the app store!

I would like to gently correct Faterson though, you totally can still migrate apps from a backup using iMazing (I have done this fairly seamlessly for at least the last two or three years) and I imagine other apps might be able to as well.

So while I WAS able to side-reinstall Marvin without it being on the App Store, sadly I was NOT able to restore the full purchased settings that make it a useful (if admittedly imperfect) app. Stupid red box wasting 30% of my beautiful 12.9” screen for no good reason... the Marvin dev feels like a bit of an asshole right now. It really is a drag, considering I find all the other iOS options comparable, but with at least one deal-breaking flaw each.

Anyhow, I hope someone here can blow my mind with something I’ve never heard of. Or I may have to wait for Bookfusion to add Dropbox and OPDS. Cheers!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by grokdirector

Hey man, I suppose it’s hard to look back while grinding that huge freaking Apple-hating axe!

Anyways, I just joined MR because I bought a secondhand iPad and tried to install Marvin on it without doing a full migration from my previous iPad. (Getting old, needed a bigger screen…)

Surprise, I discovered Marvin’s no longer in the app store!

I would like to gently correct Faterson though, you totally can still migrate apps from a backup using iMazing (I have done this fairly seamlessly for at least the last two or three years) and I imagine other apps might be able to as well.

So while I WAS able to side-reinstall Marvin without it being on the App Store, sadly I was NOT able to restore the full purchased settings that make it a useful (if admittedly imperfect) app. Stupid red box wasting 30% of my beautiful 12.9” screen for no good reason... the Marvin dev feels like a bit of an asshole right now. It really is a drag, considering I find all the other iOS options comparable, but with at least one deal-breaking flaw each.

Anyhow, I hope someone here can blow my mind with something I’ve never heard of. Or I may have to wait for Bookfusion to add Dropbox and OPDS. Cheers!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Marvin doesn't work proper with iOS 16 and the author has not bothered to fix it. So I see no reason for it not to have been removed from the app store.

As for Bookfusion, use the Dropbox app to send books to Bookfusion. Works for me.

[Faterson]

Yes, it's absolutely easy to load books from Dropbox (or whatever source) into BookFusion. Literally a tap away – no need (for me) to bother with Calibre anymore.

I especially love that I can load books into BookFusion using my desktop computers and any regular browser on them... I can organize them into bookshelves on my desktop computers, too. And then I instantly find all those books ready on all of my mobile devices! This is what I dreamed Marvin and Moon+ Reader would one day give us, but they never did.

Only last week, I loaded dozens of new books into BookFusion, organizing them into 10 bookshelves, and it was a breeze on the desktop. BookFusion's organization capabilities are very nice, though far from perfect. (For example: no option to sort based on book language; no option to assign more than one language to bilingual/multilingual books; and among languages, Old Greek is missing entirely, unlike Latin – what an insult to all the ancients!)

The reading experience itself is, in my opinion, still better today in defunct Marvin and in Moon+ Reader than in BookFusion, but it's nice to see BookFusion catching up. I hope I'll be able to get back to the BookFusion threads here on MobileRead soon, to provide more detailed feedback to skillachie the developer.

However, since you guys mentioned Dropbox & BookFusion: I'd welcome an extra, comprehensive one-tap backup option in BookFusion. Both Marvin and Moon+ Reader offer this, but BookFusion does not, at this point. Yeah, BookFusion uses its own server to synchronize both books and annotations, but what if a catastrophic event happens one day and the BookFusion server goes down or gets destroyed? There should always be an additional backup option.

So, skillachie, if you're reading this, please consider implementing a one-tap, comprehensive backup option in BookFusion (sending backup to Dropbox, Google Drive, or whatever service the user prefers). Moon+ Reader has a nice switch for this, too: back up everything or only annotations and app settings – and it would be nice to have this option in BookFusion as well. On some occasions, I might prefer to back up everything including book files; on other occasions, only the annotations and/or app settings. (An additional backup alternative might be: back up only book files already stored on/downloaded to the current device – or back up absolutely all books in the BookFusion account.)

[desertdaisy]

After reading this thread, including all the bloat, I decided to try Bookfusion. Purchased the 20GB plan and uploaded 3223 books - at which point my account was restricted because I had exceeded the 20GB limit. My calibre library of 13000 books uses 48GB on Dropbox. Not sure why my books are so much bigger on Bookfusion. I've submitted a help desk ticket there. Any ideas from here?

[Turtle91]

Did you check the total file size of the books you wanted to upload??

Highlight the 3000 books and either check the total size at the bottom of the explorer window, or right-click, select properties.

[Wiggo]

Originally Posted by desertdaisy

After reading this thread, including all the bloat, I decided to try Bookfusion. Purchased the 20GB plan and uploaded 3223 books - at which point my account was restricted because I had exceeded the 20GB limit. My calibre library of 13000 books uses 48GB on Dropbox. Not sure why my books are so much bigger on Bookfusion. I've submitted a help desk ticket there. Any ideas from here?

Yes, you have chosen the most bloated of your books

[fermin]

Hi everybody

I'm in the same situation - long time Marvin user, also originally paid for it - and gladly. And while it has been great, the time to move on has unfortunately finally come. I do know about the trick using iMazing, and I actually have a licensed copy of iMazing. But Marvin has begun to show some errors, for example marking a word and looking for a definition or searching for it on the Internet locks up the whole app. There's currently no guarantee it will even work on iOS 17 and/or iPhone 15.

In my mighty quest to replace Marvin I've looked at and tried:
- KyBook 3
- FBReader
- MapleRead
- Yomu
- PocketBook
- Apple iBooks
- Kindle
- tiReader
- Aldiko Next
- BookFusion
- Bookmate
- ... and some others I have forgotten about because the moment I wanted to start them they either crashed or looked their age...
- i2reader Cloud

Of some apps I also purchased the full version, sometimes in the hopes to unlock a missing feature. And while some of the apps have been good, there was always something missing.

But I think I found my replacement. It's the last app in my list, i2reader Cloud. It can be found at http://en.i2reader.net/

My personal selection criteria - and I'm well aware that your mileages will vary - have been:
- Not "abandon-ware". Regular updates; it doesn't have to be every two weeks. But updated in the last 1-2 years, even if it's only "fixed compatibility with iOS 16" or "fixed display on new iPhone 14 Pro with 'dynamic island'" or something similar is good enough.
- Download books from an OPDS catalog with authentication.
- Show metadata on downloaded books, at least: Author(s), title, series name, number of book in series. Bonus if it also shows categories.
- Should use pretty much the whole screen, no unnecessary white space on top and bottom of screen.
- Horizontal scrolling, NO animation.
- Navigate one page back on left edge of screen and to next page on right edge of screen.
- Customizable style - I prefer white background and black letters. But in combination with easily reachable adjustment settings for screen brightness.
- I don't mind paying for the App, but prefer a one-time purchase instead of a monthly/yearly subscription. (on the other hand, if the author releases a "major" version every 3-4 years I'll probably upgrade and pay just to support their work)

Just to clarify: I'm in no way affiliated with the author. I also don't get a free version for this mini-review, since I also already bought all the in-app purchases; even the ones I'll probably never use like auto-scroll and auto-turning. It amounts to about 9 US$ and is, in my opinion, well worth it to support a developer.

Regards
Fermin

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by fermin

…for example marking a word and looking for a definition or searching for it on the Internet locks up the whole app. There's currently no guarantee it will even work on iOS 17 and/or iPhone 15.

Good to hear you found one you like!

In regards to the marking a word or searching causes it to lock up the whole app…. I am not seeing this at all. I use both of those features extensively every day. I am running iOS 16.6 on an iPhone 11 Pro Max. I think I’ve also seen someone post that Marvin works fine on their draft iOS 17(??)

Do you have a specific set of reproducible steps we can try which show this error?

[Wiggo]

For me „Look Up“ freezes Marvin too and „Search Web“ works (latest iOS/iPadOS)

[fermin]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Good to hear you found one you like!

In regards to the marking a word or searching causes it to lock up the whole app…. I am not seeing this at all. I use both of those features extensively every day. I am running iOS 16.6 on an iPhone 11 Pro Max. I think I’ve also seen someone post that Marvin works fine on their draft iOS 17(??)

Do you have a specific set of reproducible steps we can try which show this error?

Do you have a specific set of reproducible steps we can try which show this error?[/QUOTE]

I have the latest iOS and an iPhone Pro 14 Max. Steps to reproduce:
- Long press a word; either leave it at that (just one word selected) or expand the selection to multiple words.
- Select "Look Up".
- It works. The word is looked up in the dictionary, which slides over Marvin from the bottom up to about half the screen.
- Closing the dictionary takes me back to Marvin, but the page is frozen with the selected word(s) still chosen. I can't deselect the word or do anything in Marvin. Just going back to the home screen and reopening Marvin brings me back to the same situation, still frozen app. I have to close the app and restart it again.

Doing the same and selecting any other function, e.g. "translate" or "search web" doesn't freeze Marvin. So for me it's the "look up" function that's broken.

[Turtle91]

I tried this multiple times (50+) with no errors or freezing.

- I tried with different orientations since I usually have it locked in landscape and you mentioned the dictionary only came up half-screen
-- I also tried changing orientation mid look-up

I thought you may have been using a customized look-up function rather thatn the default selection (forced by Apple). Are you?

Then I noticed you and Wiggo are both from different countries, so I thought it may be that you have different dictionaries selected that may be causing the problem. Which ones do you use??

Sorry for all the questions, but it would be nice to figure this out so you don't have this issue.

[fermin]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I tried this multiple times (50+) with no errors or freezing.

- I tried with different orientations since I usually have it locked in landscape and you mentioned the dictionary only came up half-screen
-- I also tried changing orientation mid look-up

I thought you may have been using a customized look-up function rather thatn the default selection (forced by Apple). Are you?

Then I noticed you and Wiggo are both from different countries, so I thought it may be that you have different dictionaries selected that may be causing the problem. Which ones do you use??

Sorry for all the questions, but it would be nice to figure this out so you don't have this issue.

Hm, strange that you couldn't reproduce. So:
- My phone is usually locked in portrait mode, so I didn't bother locking the orientation in Marvin. It's set to 'allow device rotation'.
- I didn't set up any customized look-up. Just going with what's there by default.
- I live in Switzerland. My phone's language is set to English, locale settings like date and time formatting are set to Switzerland.

No problem about all the question, I appreciate your effort and wanting to help very much.

Actually, while looking stuff up in Marvin to answer your questions I might have solved the problem. The lockups are gone. All I did was to do a lookup, expand the lookup overlay window to its' full height and scroll all the way down where it says "Manage dictionaries". I clicked on that, which took me to the iPhone dictionary settings. Didn't change anything there, just went back to Marvin. There I could then deselect the previously marked text and continue using the app. Since then, I can do normal lookups, no need to repeat the process. Hm, strange. And I say that as somebody who works in IT and also occasionally writes code. Oh, well

[Turtle91]

Well Awesome! I'm glad we have a potential work around/fix. If anyone else has this kind of issue we can point them to there!!

Cheers,
Dion

[fermin]

I'm still switching to i2reader since Marvin has been abandoned and I probably won't be able to import it to my next iPhone. Actually, the import won't be the problem, but it's fairly certain my purchases will be gone. And i2reader is actually really good!