The Apple iPhone as an e-book reader?

[NDPTAL85]

I went to a SonyStyle store yesterday and checked out the Sony eReader. Its a great device, but just like the Kindle it costs way too much. If it were $50 then I'd get one.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by NDPTAL85

I went to a SonyStyle store yesterday and checked out the Sony eReader. Its a great device, but just like the Kindle it costs way too much. If it were $50 then I'd get one.

How much did you spend on your TV, as a matter of interest? $1000? More?

Don't know about you, but I spend far more time reading than I do watching TV. $300-400 for a good reading device seems like a bargain to me.

[NDPTAL85]

Around $150. Its a 20" CRT that I got like 10 years ago. I watch most of my TV on my computer monitor that was only like $300. I get your point but I've always had a smartphone to read my eBooks on. First my Treo and now my iPhone so spending for a separate reader just never made sense to me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How much did you spend on your TV, as a matter of interest? $1000? More?

Don't know about you, but I spend far more time reading than I do watching TV. $300-400 for a good reading device seems like a bargain to me.

Actually, he spent all his money on a seriously overpriced iPhone.

[NDPTAL85]

I'm in Roxbury JSWolf, you may want to watch it.

[robinson]

How long would the battery last on an iPod touch for ebook reading if wi-fi is off and the backlight turned way down?

I'm used to recharging my Clies and Palm every day--and don't ever read more than a few hours in a given day...

Of course, there's little reason to change from a PDA that still does so much so well--and still ahead of the iPhone/IPTs in many aspects.

But, put a decent camera and speaker on the iPod Touch, and I'd probably buy one immediately.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by robinson

How long would the battery last on an iPod touch for ebook reading if wi-fi is off and the backlight turned way down?

I'm used to recharging my Clies and Palm every day--and don't ever read more than a few hours in a given day...

Of course, there's little reason to change from a PDA that still does so much so well--and still ahead of the iPhone/IPTs in many aspects.

But, put a decent camera and speaker on the iPod Touch, and I'd probably buy one immediately.

I read on a Tapwave Zodiac 2, which is a Palm OS unit running OS 5.21. It has a 320x480 screen, 128MB of RAM, and two SD slots, among other things.

Screen brightness is the big variable in battery life. I keep the screen brightness dialed down to about 10% (which is comfortable for reading indoors), and turn the backlight off entirely to read out of doors. I charge it every night. I have yet to have it run out on me in the middle of use, unless something happened to jam it on in my bag and I didn't notice.

With the available software I have installed, I can read converted HTML, Mobipocket, eReader, PDF, Word, RTF, and plain text documents. I have about 3,500 ebooks on it all told, spread over two 2GB SD cards, and occupying about 1.7GB of storage. The only real issue is remembering which content is in which format.

Serving as an ebook viewer is about half of the Zodiac's purpose in life. The other half is a mixture of PIM functions, reference library (in formats other than ebook), MP3 player, photo and video viewer, word processing and spreadsheet editing, programming platform, and games device. (With an SD Wifi card, I can also go on line, but usually don't.)

I have no interest in a smartphone, so the iPhone is out for me, and the Touch, while a lovely device in many ways, can't do all of the things I do with the Zodiac. (I have no interest in a built in camera, either. I already have a small digital camera that meets my needs.)

eInk devices are lovely, but the only one with a fraction of the capabilities I currently have is the iLiad, at a price about four times what I paid for the Zodiac.

Personally, I'm staying put.
______
Dennis

[redbaron101]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I read on a Tapwave Zodiac 2, which is a Palm OS unit running OS 5.21. It has a 320x480 screen, 128MB of RAM, and two SD slots, among other things. ...

Hi Denis,

I know exactly where your coming from, having a Palm T3 - I used to do just about everything on it - it was only the failing blue-tooth and battery, and my personal wish to carry less around with me that I went for the iphone (and because the pda market is bottoming out in the uk). but then over 5 years of very productive use is good going for my palm, and i was seriously considering the treo, but after using an itouch fell in love with the iphone. I would say its been an uphill battle getting it to match the palm, but Im slowly getting there.

The main annoyance is to get anything productive on the iphone is that you have to 'jailbreak' it, and even more annoying is you need an apple to do any programming for the iphone, to rub salt into your wound you need a fairly recent apple as well, even my really old g3 updated to its max (os x 10.1) isnt good enough has to be 10.3+ Saying that it has great potential, you can run mysql, sqllite (databases), web server (cut down apache), ssh etc tie that in with a very sexy interface, plus the obvious phone functions and you've got a very handy device. For those of you not into modding, the offical App store is starting to churn out good useful stuff (not quite as good as jailbroken apps, but getting there). Retiring the palm was an incredibly hard thing to do for me, but the iphone while not quite there, is slowly getting there.

I can read text, pdbs, pdfs, although pdfs are a pain with the iphone (what with the constant zooming etc). Having said that I am still looking for a dedicated ebook reader (prob will shell out for hanlin v3 - their second version of the v3 model seems to tick all the boxes at the moment)

sood

[robinson]

The Zodiac sounds incredible! I've never seen one in person and it's probably been years since I googled a picture of one. I'll have to check it out-- maybe there's a decent one for sale out there.

Of course, there is some magic and some fun in a new device with a new OS... and even enjoyment getting it to work or fulfill one's needs/wants!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by robinson

The Zodiac sounds incredible! I've never seen one in person and it's probably been years since I googled a picture of one. I'll have to check it out-- maybe there's a decent one for sale out there.

It's a sweet device. Tapwave was originally trying to make a device that was a handheld gaming platform as well as Palm OS PDA, so it has things like an ATI video chip with 2D acceleration and 8MB of onboard RAM, Yamaha stereo sound, and 128MB of RAM. They went belly up in July 2005, but Zodiacs are still around. My first one was purchased on eBay for about $250. My second pair came from a clearance sale by Tapwave's former authorized repair center, who had a bunch intended to be in-store demonstrators on the shelves. It was a two-fer deal: buy a re-purposed demo unit, and get another sent back on an RMA as a source of parts.

It has a few quirks, because Tapwave's engineers implemented a form of DRM to sooth games manufacturers concerned about piracy. Software that uses advanced features of the Tapwave API (mostly concerning the ATI chip) must be digitally signed to run, and is locked to the device it is installed on. I have a couple of programs not written for the Zodiac which are allergic to something it does, and refuse to run. It also has a non-standard button arrangement, and lacks the "hard buttons" of most Palm devices, so some older software written to use them is problematic.

Most Palm software runs fine. I use Launcher X for my launcher. Most of my ebooks are converted HTML read by Plucker, an open source offline HTML viewer for Palm devices, but I have Mobipocket, eReader, and PDF files (read by the open source PalmPDF) viewer, and PalmDOC, zTXT, plain ASCII text, Word doc and RTF files, read with PalmFiction, another open source product.

I got the original Zodiac when my Tungsten E was dying. The TX wasn't out yet. My specs were a 320x480 screen, more RAM, and a faster processor. Anything else was gravy. Conversations with another Zodiac owner on a Palm oriented board indicated the Zodiac would be a good choice, so I got one.

About half of its purpose in life is being an ebook reader, but it also has the PIM functions, plays MP3s and views videos, among other things. The open source Core Pocket Media Player port for Palm OS has support for the Zodiac's video, and there are extensive threads elsewhere on the best way to rip movies from DVD to play on your Zodiac.

The biggest wins from my viewpoint are the 320x480 screen and two SD slots. It means I can carry my entire ebook library on my device...

Of course, there is some magic and some fun in a new device with a new OS... and even enjoyment getting it to work or fulfill one's needs/wants!

Certainly. Getting the Zodiac where I wanted it took some doing, because some things I had done on previous devices didn't work on it, but I'm quite happy with what I have set up now.
______
Dennis

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by robinson

How long would the battery last on an iPod touch for ebook reading if wi-fi is off and the backlight turned way down?

About 5-6 hours.

[robinson]

Say appreciate the detailed descrip of the Zodiac... sounds like a great device!

And thanks Harry for the battery life info. That's a good amount of time.

[questionfear]

Just make sure if you're using an ipod touch as an ebook reader that you turn off wifi, you dont want to unnecessarily drain the battery.

I have to say, on the subject of iphone as ebook reader, it's ok but not great. A big part of that is the battery life; do too much on an iPhone in general and you'll run the battery down inside of a day. (I learned this the hard way at a rugby tournament-I took a teammate to the ER and couldn't read on my iPhone while she was in x-ray because the battery was so low it was either send/receive calls on her condition or read. Needless to say, I chose being able to update everyone.) Lesson there is don't depend on any "all purpose" device to to get you anything spectacular as far as usage goes.