[Archived] Marvin ePub reader for iPad

[eVeNtInE]

Thanks kguil, that sounds absolutely wonderful/perfect.

[kguil]

Turtle, parental controls on specific books is a brilliant idea. I will definitely be adding it to 1.3.

I haven't thought of Windows yet. I'll feel around for how much people would be interested in it.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Faterson

You mean the "metro" Windows or the "old" one? I think an Android version should definitely have priority over Windows. And iPhone comes before Android.

Absolutely! Those (1. iPhone, 2. Android) would fall under the "something better to do" category!

I was just wondering because with Windows 8 and it's support for touch/apps there are more tablets coming out being run by windows. I'm looking at getting the Surface Pro when it comes out later this month...Just imagine...a fully operational windows machine in a tablet...I could edit/create my epubs with Sigil/Calibre and read them with Marvin all on the same machine while I'm on the road!! Sweet!!!

But, until that day....I will remain VERY happy with an iPad/iPhone solution for reading.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I'm looking at getting the Surface Pro when it comes out later this month...

Ugh. You've got to be a wealthy person to be willing to sacrifice almost (or even over) $1000 for a tablet. I hope you won't be disappointed.

I was asking about the Windows version because if there's going to be a "metro" Marvin one day, it will probably pass me by. I'm staying away from Windows 8 in any shape or form, although my main desktop machine is a Windows 7 (supplemented by a MacBook running both Mac OS and Windows 7). Then again, Marvin would make little sense on Windows 7 (or Mac OS) because we don't really use those OSs to read e-books nowadays anymore; this is no longer the 1990s or early 2000s.

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Just imagine...a fully operational windows machine in a tablet...

I already have that... an Acer tablet running full-blown Windows 7, and it's awful. As clunky and awkward to handle as one might expect a mobile Microsoft offering to be (sorry). Impossible to read on it reasonably, so I'm not even listing it among my reading devices here on MobileRead. Yeah, Windows 8 is supposed to be geared better towards tablets, but I have had too long a history of acute suffering with Windows mobile devices, going back to the pre-iPhone era and various PDAs running Windows Mobile. The only bright spot in using them was the superb Mobipocket Reader, until Amazon bought it and intentionally stifled it, just like they did it with Stanza on iOS. Those memories are a nightmare, and I just have zero trust in the platform, although I realize Windows 8 was written from scratch. Time will tell, but right now I'd say odds are heavily against Windows tablets being a platform significant enough to warrant the development of a Marvin version tailored for it, "metro" or not. I may be wrong.

[kguil]

Although I've been using a mac for just over a year, I'm quite fond of Windows (I've been on it for a very, very long time). I played around with a friend's Surface RT and quite liked it. Unfortunately it's the lack of apps that is a problem - the hardware is very nicely made.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by kguil

Although I've been using a mac for just over a year, I'm quite fond of Windows (I've been on it for a very, very long time).

Me too, since version 3.11. People in Europe, particularly those from multi-lingual environments, are more likely to be "Windows-bred" than "Mac-bred", because Macs used to struggle hugely back in the 1990s when handling multilingual tasks. Things are better nowadays, but on the MacBook where I'm running both Mountain Lion and Windows 7, I actually prefer working in the Win 7 environment most of the time; in certain respects, Win 7 strikes me as a smarter OS than Mountain Lion. I have zero interest in Windows 8, though, because artificially trying to wed two entirely different user interfaces in a single OS strikes me as outlandish, and upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 (having skipped Vista, obviously) was a nightmare, and I don't want to go through all that again so soon after the initial Windows 7 release.

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Time will tell, but right now I'd say odds are heavily against Windows tablets being a platform significant enough to warrant the development of a Marvin version tailored for it, "metro" or not. I may be wrong.

Possibly - but imagine - with the dirth of apps on Windows 8, Marvin would be the flagship of ereader apps! It would get noticed and spring-boarded into industry leadership! Really - iBooks is nothing to talk about from a technical standpoint, but a huge number of people use it because it came with the ipad/iphone. Once people start using something and get used to it they tend to not want to change. Likewise, if they start using Marvin as a windows ereader app, then it would be very difficult to kick it out of it's place of prominence. Any competing ereader would have to be orders of magnitude better for them to change - and I don't see that happening with the feature set Marvin currently provides - let alone the planned feature upgrades for future versions.

If Kris rethinks his decision to keep Marvin free - which I highly recommend; he deserves to be compensated for his outstanding efforts - he would have found the pot-o-gold at the end of the rainbow!

[kguil]

I'll get the iPhone version out of the way first and then play it by ear. To be honest, I've toying with the idea of working on a Windows version after iOS.

[Faterson]

Aaargh, I definitely wouldn't give preference to Windows over Android. Especially in the mobile-phone space, iOS is getting destroyed by Android, and Windows is a non-entity there. Why develop an app for a small number of users, if there's an opportunity to develop it for huge numbers of users first?

As to what Turtle91 says, I agree, but this presumes wide-spread adoption of Windows 8, which I don't currently see happening, and it's questionable if it's ever going to happen on tablets and mobile phones. Last time I checked, Windows had about 3% market share among mobile phones, while the leader Android had dozens of percent. As to desktop PCs and laptops, I predict Windows 8 will turn out to be as unpopular as Vista, but it's too early to tell today, and I may well be wrong.

[kguil]

Faterson, I understand. Hopefully, by the time I've got iOS completely covered with the release of the iPhone version, things will be a bit more clear. As it stands, Android is objectively the obvious choice.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by kguil

Yes, the next version supports OPDS catalogs with authentication and search support, as well as a built-in web browser designed to download ePubs straight into Marvin. You can also access you Calibre library from it.

Brilliant! Can't wait for an iPhone version

[kguil]

Just added one last feature before wrapping up 1.2. You can compute and see word counts on a per-book basis in the library.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kguil

Just added one last feature before wrapping up 1.2. You can compute and see word counts on a per-book basis in the library.

Do we have to have it filed with the author names as last, first? Can this be configured to be filed also as first last?

[kguil]

You can sort authors both ways.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kguil

You can sort authors both ways.

Thank you!