iPhone Wanting no margins in epub for iBooks

[Faterson]

So you are trolling. I'm finished talking to you, bye.

[JSWolf]

I do not use iBooks on my iPhone or iPad. At present, I use Bluefire Reader on my iPhone as it gives the least amount of margins of any good reading app that's not tied to any store/reader brand. Bluefire supports Adobe's DRM so you can use it for your DRMed ePub and even library ePub will work with Blurefire. This is something that won't work with iBooks and iBooks is tied to Apple (DRM). There's a good chance of paying more for your eBooks if you buy from Apple.

Now, as to the Marvin issue. Marvin is only available for the iPad. It's a work in progress. The next version due out is 1.2 and will be ready for use on the iPad (some issues currently make it not really ready (IMHO)). After the iPad version is mostly done, an iPhone version will be written. Marvin does not and will not support DRM. Marvin is for ePub without DRM. I like the way Marvin is going (development).

For the OP's problem of wide margins with iBooks and even Kindle, Bluefire Reader is the solution.

[Faterson]

I agree, Jon, except that the OP never mentioned whether DRM-protected books are important to him. So my own summary is: Stanza or Bluefire Reader is the solution for iPhone today, and Marvin might be the solution tomorrow. (Figurative tomorrow, but in the near future.)

By the way, as far as I remember, Kris did not conclusively rule out DRM support for Marvin one day, just that he's not interested in developing such a feature at present.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Faterson

I agree, Jon, except that the OP never mentioned whether DRM-protected books are important to him. So my own summary is: Stanza or Bluefire Reader is the solution for iPhone today, and Marvin might be the solution tomorrow. (Figurative tomorrow, but in the near future.)

Stanza is out. It doesn't work properly with iOS 6 and I highly doubt Stanza will ever be updated.

Marvin might be a solution sometime if DRM is not an issue and the iPhone version is finished.

[Faterson]

Who says everyone must be running iOS 6? I still have iOS 5 on my iPhone precisely so that I can run Stanza on it without any issues, until Marvin for iPhone comes out. Besides, Stanza isn't totally dysfunctional on iOS 6, just buggy (crashes in some scenarios). No matter how weird that sounds, but a buggy Stanza is still ten thousand times more preferable than flawlessly working, but utterly lame apps like iBooks and the Kindle app.

(Of course, it gets worse if you have iPhone 5 like the OP, because then Stanza doesn't utilise all of the availble screen and in that case, Bluefire Reader might indeed be the best option to use until Marvin for iPhone comes out.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Who says everyone must be running iOS 6? I still have iOS 5 on my iPhone precisely so that I can run Stanza on it without any issues, until Marvin for iPhone comes out. Besides, Stanza isn't totally dysfunctional on iOS 6, just buggy (crashes in some scenarios). No matter how weird that sounds, but a buggy Stanza is still ten thousand times more preferable than flawlessly working, but utterly lame apps like iBooks and the Kindle app.

(Of course, it gets worse if you have iPhone 5 like the OP, because then Stanza doesn't utilise all of the availble screen and in that case, Bluefire Reader might indeed be the best option to use until Marvin for iPhone comes out.)

Stanza was buggy from day one and it's never gotten better. I've never taken to a reader app just because it has good options/features. It has to first render well and then the features/options are second.

Bluefire uses ADE so it renders well. My suggestion (to the OP) is to use Bluefire if DRM is needed and when Marvin is ready for prime time on the iPhone and DRM is not needed, give it a try,

But given what's actually released for the iPhone, Bluefire is currently #1.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Stanza was buggy from day one and it's never gotten better.

Like a said, even a "buggy" Stanza was/is miles better than the competition. Also, I wouldn't really call Stanza "buggy" on older iOS versions -- but it did lack certain features that Marvin now offers on the iPad and will soon offer on the iPhone.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've never taken to a reader app just because it has good options/features. It has to first render well and then the features/options are second.

I've always found rendering in Stanza superb -- we must be reading different books. If you knew me, you'd know I'm extremely picky about how e-books are displayed. I found the beautiful display of books by Stanza its strongest feature, in fact. And the related customization options are more extensive and smarter in Stanza than in Bluefire Reader. But, Marvin blows both of them away.

[Richard Moody]

I must agree that rendering in Stanza was excellent - and that Marvin has now improved on their scheme with potentially more to come....