Big PDFs and readers - Page 2

emellaich · 11-04-2010, 10:25 AM

I love the iPad for pdf's and use it for that purpose myself, but 100MB? I don't know about those. I would want some way to test it out before I spent the money. One of the compromises inherent in the iPad is that its RAM is fairly small (256MB, I believe?). I have never had any problems with this, but I don't know how it would cope with huge documents.

You mention the need to head out to wikipedia to pull in stuff. None of the choices mentioned in posts above really work the way that your PC does today. They don't multi-task so it's not as simple as running your pdf viewer and wikipedia in separate viewers. Perhaps the iPad today (11/4/2010) is the fastest with this and it may be that the upcoming iOS update (one to two weeks) which is intended to add multi-tasking will smooth the way here. On the other hand, you will still be crippled by one of the strange design decisions made by apple -- its applications all have a wall between them for file storage. This means its not easy to save a file in one app and access it in another app. You need to move it out to a pc or to dropbox or something in order to pull it into your new app.

On the subject of notion ink adam, I'm not too hopeful. The ipad's pdf prowess comes from the app store in the form of iannotate. My concern is that I don't believe android tablets (including the adam) will have much app support at launch. Furthermore, I don't believe that Adam is big enough to immediately drive a bunch of app developers to it.

I am a big Android fan, and I believe it holds more long term promise than the iPad. I suspect the future will look very similar to the smartphone market today. The iPad may be the biggest selling tablet (or among the biggest), but all of the Android tablets collectively will have more in total sales. This means that over the long run the app market for Android (and the notion ink tablet) will be as big or bigger than for the iPad. However, I think that is a 12 to 18 month statement. For the next several months I think you will find the early tablets will be limited in their software outside of the stuff inherited from smartphones and the built-in stuff like web browsing, calendaring, etc.

HarryT · 11-06-2010, 04:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PossenteSpirto

The article I linked says, in substance: there's a limit of downloads you can simultaneously keep on your devices, this number may vary (generally 6 but could be 3, 2 or even 1) and (here comes the problem) you can't know it before you buy the book.

No, this is entirely incorrect.

There is a limit (normally 6) to the number of different devices that you can have any given book on simultaneously. A device is a Kindle, iPad, Android tablet, etc. Eg, if you were to buy 8 Kindles, you would only be able to install any given book on 6 of them at any given time. There is absolutely no limit on the number of times that you can download the book.

This really is not a practical problem for the overwhelming majority of people. Very few people buy more than 6 Kindles.

FranzG · 11-18-2010, 11:04 AM

Thank you guys for your help.

In the end, after some tests in shops, I've bought an iPad + GoodReader app, that allows me to order my books in folders, download directly from the web books and docs in the app, and reads my big-noOCR-full-of-pictures books. And I'm really happy with it

11-04-2010, 10:25 AM	#16
emellaich Wizard Posts: 1,101 Karma: 4388403 Join Date: Oct 2007 Device: Palm>Ebookman>IPaq>Axim>Cybook>Kndl2>IPAD>Kndl3SO>Voyager>Oasis	I love the iPad for pdf's and use it for that purpose myself, but 100MB? I don't know about those. I would want some way to test it out before I spent the money. One of the compromises inherent in the iPad is that its RAM is fairly small (256MB, I believe?). I have never had any problems with this, but I don't know how it would cope with huge documents. You mention the need to head out to wikipedia to pull in stuff. None of the choices mentioned in posts above really work the way that your PC does today. They don't multi-task so it's not as simple as running your pdf viewer and wikipedia in separate viewers. Perhaps the iPad today (11/4/2010) is the fastest with this and it may be that the upcoming iOS update (one to two weeks) which is intended to add multi-tasking will smooth the way here. On the other hand, you will still be crippled by one of the strange design decisions made by apple -- its applications all have a wall between them for file storage. This means its not easy to save a file in one app and access it in another app. You need to move it out to a pc or to dropbox or something in order to pull it into your new app. On the subject of notion ink adam, I'm not too hopeful. The ipad's pdf prowess comes from the app store in the form of iannotate. My concern is that I don't believe android tablets (including the adam) will have much app support at launch. Furthermore, I don't believe that Adam is big enough to immediately drive a bunch of app developers to it. I am a big Android fan, and I believe it holds more long term promise than the iPad. I suspect the future will look very similar to the smartphone market today. The iPad may be the biggest selling tablet (or among the biggest), but all of the Android tablets collectively will have more in total sales. This means that over the long run the app market for Android (and the notion ink tablet) will be as big or bigger than for the iPad. However, I think that is a 12 to 18 month statement. For the next several months I think you will find the early tablets will be limited in their software outside of the stuff inherited from smartphones and the built-in stuff like web browsing, calendaring, etc. Last edited by emellaich; 11-04-2010 at 10:28 AM.

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11-18-2010, 11:04 AM	#18
FranzG Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2008 Device: Sony PRS-505	Thank you guys for your help. In the end, after some tests in shops, I've bought an iPad + GoodReader app, that allows me to order my books in folders, download directly from the web books and docs in the app, and reads my big-noOCR-full-of-pictures books. And I'm really happy with it

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