Just finished reading my first ebook on the iPod Touch

[Leep]

Originally Posted by kelly1010

The book I got yesterday was a Kindle book. But I did also download the Stanza app and will try that next. And then will come B&N ereader. I started my book last night and found that the font wasn't too bad, considering the smaller size. The only (minor) annoyance was that the screen would go dim every few minutes, but after one tap, it would come back. But for $5 for a book I just had to have NOW, I can't really complain too much.

You can reset the font size in Stanza, and you can change your iTouch settings to solve the light dimming issue. Also you might want to read on a dark background with white letters which I also think is better

cheers

[Juliette]

I've read a lot more than I'd thought on the touch- ten books. Probably because of the night mode- if I'm trying to doze off, it's better not to have too much light in the room. I've used epubs sent to the device through Stanza, though I downloaded the books through Stanza itself.

[narbeauchamp]

I finally just bought a touch (Monday) and read a full book on it already-I can see its definitely going to be a favorite way to read on the go !

[bthoven]

Originally Posted by narbeauchamp

I finally just bought a touch (Monday) and read a full book on it already-I can see its definitely going to be a favorite way to read on the go !

I concur with you. I've been reading ebooks for several years since Palm III. In my opinion:

Stanza:

+very good features, like swipe up/down for backlight adjustment.
+can read rss feed offline (retrieved by desktop Calibre)
+ use up all screen with very minimal margin
= can move your own ebooks via home wifi, moderately convenient.
- no offline dictionary lookup; but have online dictionary lookup; but cumbersome

Kindle App:

+ for jailbroken iphone/itouch, we can copy ebooks/enews from/to PC easily via usb cable
+ very good for offline full-content enews feeds created by Mobipocket desktop on PC
- defult margin is too wide for the precious small screen and cannot adjust
- no dictionary lookup features

eReader/B&N:

+ support offline dictionary, very great feature
+ small filesize
+ use up all screen with very minimal margin
- transfer your own ebooks to it is very cumbersome, need internet connection

For me, I use eReader for reading novels; use Kindle app for reading enews feeds. I'll go back to Stanza if it has offline dictionary look up in the future; or if Kindle also have offline dictionary lookup, it will be a tough choice for me as well.

Regarding backlight goes dim, if I read on bed, I'll set the Autolock to "never", and set the backlight to its minimum.

I read all Dan Brown novels on my iPhone, everywhere I go!

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by bthoven

use Kindle app for reading enews feeds.

I don't understand this. I don't get why people hack news feeds into apps never meant for them when there are a multitude of perfectly good apps that are keen at accessing and reading them on the go?

Honestly, why?

I use Byline for my newsfeeds. It syncs to google reader. Any RSS/ATOM feed will work. It will locally cache the articles. No need for cumbersome hacks and conversions to get to your news.

[bthoven]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

I don't understand this. I don't get why people hack news feeds into apps never meant for them when there are a multitude of perfectly good apps that are keen at accessing and reading them on the go?

Honestly, why?

I use Byline for my newsfeeds. It syncs to google reader. Any RSS/ATOM feed will work. It will locally cache the articles. No need for cumbersome hacks and conversions to get to your news.

I have no experience with Byline. If Byline can do the following, then I'll definitely try it because it will be more convenient like you said. But so far I still cannot find native RSS app which can satisfy my following need:

"retrieve full-content feeds, including photos in the news, for offline reading; not just synopsis or a few sentences offline, and you need to go online to read the full feed"

So far I only find Mobipocket desktop and Calibre which can do that and store on my PC; then I just move that full-content files to my iPHone Kindle/Stanza

[Ea]

Originally Posted by AJW

Stanza handles most formats but as has been said, You get all but the first image taken out (which it uses for the cover) and much of the formatting is removed. I've never found this a problem to reading though.

Same here. I use Stanza on the desktop computer to move files to the Touch - I don't download directly from any bookshop.

I've used .prc, .lit and .epub files and I can't say I've noticed any difference. In some cases, there's been sections in a book where there's suddenly an empty line (or just extra space...) between paragraphs.

Two years ago I tried using only the Touch as an ebook reader fro a couple of months, but over time charging the battery al the time became annoying and the screen was smaller than I would have liked for reading at home.

[mores]

Originally Posted by AJW

Stanza handles most formats but as has been said, You get all but the first image taken out (which it uses for the cover) and much of the formatting is removed. I've never found this a problem to reading though.

Inline images stay where they are in ePub format - just have a look at "Le Petit Prince".

[kjk]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

My understanding is no matter what format you read with Stanza you basically get a single size font and all formatting is dropped. of course, they could have changed this in more recent versions.

BOb

Stanza handles ePubs rather oddly-it does replace the fonts specified in the CSS with what you specify in Stanza (irritating), but it seems to respect the font size in headings H1/H2 etc., and for some reason respects what I believe is the deprecated < small > and < big > settings for fonts. It also maintains italics, underline, and bold, as well as borders, and separators.

Also, it no longer strips out images, so illustrated ePubs are in fact supported.

Really wish there were a dedicated ePub reader though, with Stanza's dead-simple interface and navigation.

[peajayar]

Originally Posted by CarsP1

I think it's cool that you can read books on the iPod. I've already read a few pages of my first book but I have problems with the size of the letters, they're too small for my old eyes. I can only read a few pages at once before my eyes start to hurt.

I can very easily change the font size on my touch.Using Stanza.
Here's how:
On an open book page, tap in the centre to bring up the controls.
Tap on the gear icon (the one that looks like a ragged wheel)
Tap on Appearance at the bottom of the 'page'
There, on the Settings page is Font Size. Tap on this and use the slider to increase or decrease font size.
There's a whole lot else you can do in here.
I from time to time blog about being an ipod user on http://peajayar.blogspot.com