Ebook Reader Fury

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

At the time that I decided to do the Android port, I saw a lot of my users moving from Windows 10 Mobile to Android (and actually I personally was doing the same) - so I reckoned that most of the market for Freda would be people wanting an app that ran on Windows desktop/tablet and Android. An iOS port is possible in principle, because I used the Xamarin platform to build the Android port - and Xamarin does also support iOS. But in practice, it would probably take a couple of months of fairly concerted effort to get an iOS version of the app done.

Also I would, thanks to Apple's annoying policies, have to buy an Apple machine as a build-server.

So, up until now, the iOS build has been off the agenda because it would take a lot of time, and require me to spend a fair amount of money, and I'm not really sure how big a market there would be for an iOS Freda (Marvin is a *very good* alternative, and quite hard to beat).

But I am watching the Microsoft roadmap quite closely because .NET 5 might offer a really straightforward way to move my Windows app over to iOS within the coming year.

In short: it may happen. Particularly if it becomes easier, or if I come to think there's a big market for it.

A Windows version is not really all that useful. How many people read eBooks on a desktop or laptop? Not many. I don't. And most users on MR don't.

An iOS version would have a lot more users. As for Marvin, it's basically abandoned. Marvin has a number of issues that have been brought up to the author who chose to ignore them. So an ePub reading app for iOS that's got active support and is well written would get a lot of people to go for it.

As for Windows vs iOS, iOS would be a lot more readers. The choice of Android (IMHO) should have come after iOS. As we knew from the Surface with ARM processor that Windows Phone was going to tank. So that wasn't (IMHO) a good idea to write for. iOS has the most users with the iPhone and the iPAD. Personally, I know very few people with an Android phone. Most are using an iPhone.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by d351r3d

I agree. Or Android. Not a fan of windows.

IMHO, it's not a matter of being a fan of Windows or not. It's the fact that most Windows installs are desktops and laptops. Most people don't read eBooks on a desktop or laptop. I don't know anyone who does. Everyone I know who reads eBooks use a Reader or a tablet. I also use my iPhone. But that's iOS and IMHO, it was a waste f time write this program for Windows.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I've never seen any SSML tag in a purchased ebook. Who is creating them?

I don't think any real books do include SSML content (though I believe some arcane corner of the EPUB3 spec does provide a way to embed SSML in a book file). SSML is used, internally, by an e-reading app that wants to read some text aloud. Broadly speaking, the app has to construct a string of text, and pass it to the device's text-to-speech engine, which will then speak it.

For best results, that string of text should be SSML, not plain text. If the app decides that some part of the text should be read differently (e.g. 'with emphasis') based on some feature of the book content (e.g. tags h?, em, or whatever), then the app has to put the relevant SSML tags (<emphasis> in this case) around that part of the SSML text.

I'm currently working to get this to happen in Freda. It works OK in Windows, because the Windows TTS engine does understand <emphasis> in SSML. But on Android it doesn't seem to do anything; the TTS engine accepts <emphasis> tags, but ignores them (as far as I can tell).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Mister L

Most of those are aesthetic complaints, and as I said previously, I don't agree that an unattractive book is necessarily unreadable, it's just not as pleasant an experience. For some people it might be preferable (in particular cases where the CSS makes the book literally unreadable, such as in the case of low-contrast colours for colour-blind people). I personally am able and willing to edit the code to fix a book to my liking. Not everyone is, and they shouldn't have to. However the question of whether semantic code is more correct than unsemantic code is not a question of opinion; it simply is the case. As you say, italics and bold made using spans disappear if you disactivate the CSS; that's not the case if they are properly made with semantic tags, which has been more or less my point from the beginning.

With no CSS, the formatting gets in the way of reading. It makes it more difficult to read. There are things I don't like and do fix. I've seen eBooks where I could read as is even though there are some things I would fix. Thing is, with no CSS, the eBook is awful and unreadable. You can lose a lot. Bold/italic, section breaks, paragraph spaces too large, no embedded font (if it's needed or looks good), chapter titles can look like body text, centers, offset text, different font types (sans-serif and/or monospace), tables can be a mess, graphics not correct on screen or sometimes run off the screen, and other issue. So please don't say that an eBook that doesn't look good without CSS is because it's incorrectly coded. It's not. It's because the CSS is not there.

If you feel so strongly that an eBook can be readable without CSS, please post an eBook without CSS that you think is formatted well enough to be readable.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

IMHO, it was a waste f time write this program for Windows.

Of the currently active installs of Freda for Windows as reported by Microsoft's analytics, I have:

1,700,000 on Desktop/Laptop machines
__500,000 on Phones
___35,000 on Tablets

There's also a couple of hundred thousand on 'other/unknown' devices, and some of those might be tablets.

But I think it's pretty clear that most of my users are using Freda on Windows desktop machines. I do find that surprising because I personally use the app on phone and tablet. But the user is always right :-) [and this is why I've lately been putting in quite a lot of effort to make the app work better with keyboard-and-mouse]

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Of the currently active installs of Freda for Windows as reported by Microsoft's analytics, I have:

1,700,000 on Desktop/Laptop machines
__500,000 on Phones
___35,000 on Tablets

There's also a couple of hundred thousand on 'other/unknown' devices, and some of those might be tablets.

But I think it's pretty clear that most of my users are using Freda on Windows desktop machines. I do find that surprising because I personally use the app on phone and tablet. But the user is always right :-) [and this is why I've lately been putting in quite a lot of effort to make the app work better with keyboard-and-mouse]

Installs and active users are two different things. There are a lot of computers/desktops with programs on them that hardly get used. I think of an eBook reading program that's not used for downloading eBooks to be a not often used program.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Personally, I know very few people with an Android phone. Most are using an iPhone.

I think it may be a cultural/regional thing. Apple is dominant in North America, particularly among the professional/managerial/academic demographic. In Europe and Asia, there is a lot more use of Android.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

I think it may be a cultural/regional thing. Apple is dominant in North America, particularly among the professional/managerial/academic demographic. In Europe and Asia, there is a lot more use of Android.

Of the people in the UK that I know, most are using an iPhone.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Installs and active users are two different things. There are a lot of computers/desktops with programs on them that hardly get used. I think of an eBook reading program that's not used for downloading eBooks to be a not often used program.

I just took a look at the Microsoft analytics stats for the number of users who were running Freda yesterday. Desktop/Laptop is 95% of them; Phone is 4%; tablet is <1%. I think their stats only count sessions that lasted for ten minutes or so - which means the app is actually being used seriously by these people.

So if anything, it's the tablet users who just download the app but never use it, whereas the desktop/laptop users are coming back to it, and using it for serious reading.

It's not in line with how I personally use the app - but I do think the numbers from Microsoft are real, and they give me a pretty clear message.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

I just took a look at the Microsoft analytics stats for the number of users who were running Freda yesterday. Desktop/Laptop is 95% of them; Phone is 4%; tablet is <1%. I think their stats only count sessions that lasted for ten minutes or so - which means the app is actually being used seriously by these people.

So if anything, it's the tablet users who just download the app but never use it, whereas the desktop/laptop users are coming back to it, and using it for serious reading.

It's not in line with how I personally use the app - but I do think the numbers from Microsoft are real, and they give me a pretty clear message.

I do think you'd get more active users on iOS then you do with Android.

[Jim Chapman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Of the people in the UK that I know, most are using an iPhone.

Latest market share stats for UK show Android at 51%, Apple at 49%. In Germany and India, it's about 75% Android to 25% Apple. In Japan, the Android share is lower (but still ahead of Apple), whereas in China, Android is even more dominant.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Latest market share stats for UK show Android at 51%, Apple at 49%. In Germany and India, it's about 75% Android to 25% Apple. In Japan, the Android share is lower (but still ahead of Apple), whereas in China, Android is even more dominant.

55A/45i in Au and 58A/42i in NZ apparently. Re Windows, I can say that having spent the last hour or so adjusting settings to display devanagari on a Lenovo P10 tablet, I can see the appeal of the Win 10 version. My tablet is does not have a super fast chip, only a Snapdragon 450, but it does have 4GB RAM. The Freda install is markedly more sluggish and less responsive than Moon Reader Pro, the controls very laggy, while MoonReader responds smoothly and fast. No such issues of course on my Win 10 PC, whereon Freda runs just fine.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I do think you'd get more active users on iOS then you do with Android.

Give it a rest, Jon. I'm sure he has a better handle on his own market than some random self-appointed internet expert. He asked for help with the app, not distribution advice.

[Mister L]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

With no CSS, the formatting gets in the way of reading. It makes it more difficult to read. There are things I don't like and do fix. I've seen eBooks where I could read as is even though there are some things I would fix. Thing is, with no CSS, the eBook is awful and unreadable. You can lose a lot. Bold/italic, section breaks, paragraph spaces too large, no embedded font (if it's needed or looks good), chapter titles can look like body text, centers, offset text, different font types (sans-serif and/or monospace), tables can be a mess, graphics not correct on screen or sometimes run off the screen, and other issue. So please don't say that an eBook that doesn't look good without CSS is because it's incorrectly coded. It's not. It's because the CSS is not there.

If you feel so strongly that an eBook can be readable without CSS, please post an eBook without CSS that you think is formatted well enough to be readable.

Emphasis mine. You're kind of making my point for me here. Bold and italic should never be lost if you turn off the CSS. Neither should titles. Graphics are another problem but we are not talking about images, we're talking about text, so that's off topic.

I happened to have prepared a file to illustrate this for a class so here are a couple of screen shots to compare plain unstructured text and semantically structured text. If you want to do the demonstration yourself here's the code, you can paste it into Sigil and see for yourself.

No CSS, no structure:

Spoiler:

<h1>Text with no semantic structure</h1>

<p>All the text below is in p tags. There is no CSS.</p>

<p>The tags used on this page are: p, span.</p>

<p>Main title (h1)</p>

  <p>Sub title (should be h2)</p>

  <p>Here is some body text. This text has no CSS style added and has not been structured with semantic hmtl tags. <span class="italic">This sentence has a totally useless span class="italic" added to it, but you wouldn't know it to look at it.</span></p>

  
    <p>1<span class="superscript">st</span> item of an ordered list</p>

    <p>2<span class="superscript">nd</span> item</p>

    <p>3<span class="superscript">rd</span> item</p>
 

  <p>Here's another subtitle (h2)</p>

<p>This is a blockquote. Blockquotes are useful for setting off citations from the main body text for instance. The blockquote element can be further styled with CSS.</p>


    <p>An un-ordered list item</p>

    <p>Another item</p>

    <p>A last item</p>

No CSS, semantic html:

Spoiler:

<h1>Text with semantic structure, no CSS</h1>

<p><i>The text on this page has been structured using semantic hmtl tags. <b>There is no CSS.</b></i></p>

<p><b>The tags used on this page are:</b> h1, h2, p, i, b, strong, em, blockquote, ol, ul, li, sup.</p>

  <h1 id="sigil_toc_id_1">Main title h1</h1>

  <h2 id="sigil_toc_id_2">Subtitle h2</h2>

  <p>Here is some body text. This text has <em>not</em> been styled with CSS however it will display the default html styles for <b>semantic html tags,</b> which makes it easy to identify the structure of the document. For instance you can see at a glance when something is <strong>important</strong> or has been <em>emphasized</em>. Obviously it can be made prettier with CSS but at least you can see at a glance the different elements like titles, lists, pull-quotes... not to mention bold and italic text.</p>

  <ol>
    <li>1<sup>st</sup> item of an ordered list</li>

    <li>2<sup>nd</sup> item</li>

    <li>3<sup>rd</sup> item</li>
  </ol>

  <h2 id="sigil_toc_id_3">Here's another subtitle h2</h2>

<blockquote>This is a blockquote. Blockquotes are useful for setting off citations from the main body text for instance. The blockquote element can be further styled with CSS</blockquote>

<ul>
    <li>An un-ordered list item</li>

    <li>Another item</li>

    <li>A last item</li>
  </ul>

Bonus activity, add this CSS to a couple of paragraphs or spans and make some literally unreadable text:

.colourblindpeoplecantreadthis {
     color: red;
     background-color: green;
}

and try putting all your notes in this style:

.thistextiswaytoosmall {
     font-size: 0.25em;
}

Obviously, nice CSS styles on top of properly structured html are much better than plain html. But, bad CSS exists, unfortunately, and proper semantic html without CSS styles will let you immediately understand the structure of the text and be completely readable, especially since most reading apps will let you choose a font you like, adjust line-spacing and margins, etc.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Jim Chapman

Latest market share stats for UK show Android at 51%, Apple at 49%. In Germany and India, it's about 75% Android to 25% Apple. In Japan, the Android share is lower (but still ahead of Apple), whereas in China, Android is even more dominant.

I am amazed out how nice you are to Jon's purely speculation and opinions. Your data is certainly more meaningful than his bias. And I own an iPad and iPhone.

Dale