Ways to read on the Ipad2 mini?

[spacepope]

Hey guys!

I pulled my iPad 2 mini out from a box I had in storage. It works fantastically, but unfortunately it can't update to version 10+ because it's so old this means I can't install the Kindle/Kobo/Libby apps.

Any other ideas on how to read on this thing? I know there is iBooks, but I own most of my books in epub format and I have no clue how to transfer them (even my Gmail won't login because of the out-of-date browser )

Even any help on how to transfer stuff over USB so I could read manga/comics on this thing would be really helpful

Thanks!

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by spacepope

Hey guys!

I pulled my iPad 2 mini out from a box I had in storage. It works fantastically, but unfortunately it can't update to version 10+ because it's so old this means I can't install the Kindle/Kobo/Libby apps.

Any other ideas on how to read on this thing? I know there is iBooks, but I own most of my books in epub format and I have no clue how to transfer them (even my Gmail won't login because of the out-of-date browser )

Even any help on how to transfer stuff over USB so I could read manga/comics on this thing would be really helpful

Thanks!

Interesting situation. Presumably you can sign in with AppleID and have iCloud access? That would be a good start, and iBooks hasn’t really changed that much, might as well start with it.

If you have a Mac, you can just connect to USB and you should be able to use Finder to drag epubs or PDFs over to ‘iBooks’ storage. (Probably AirDrop will not work, but it is worth a try)

For Windows, iTunes should give you this capability.

I’m not sure what App Store will let you get on such an old device, I think it is up to developer to maintain a presence for older iOS versions, or whether they are only available if you had purchased the older versions using the same AppleID.

I have an old iPod Touch, I should see how that works….

[drofgnal]

I have an old ipad mini 1. I think it still has the kindle app on it, but I'm not sure. I haven't cut it on in 3-4 years now. Not sure it even works anymore

[svenlind]

Have a look on the Marvin epub reader app. There is a Marvin classic that may work on an older IOS. Maybe Marvin3 would work too.

You could also have a look on MapleRead. In Marvin3 and Mapleread it is very easy to transfer books using the Calibre content server. I can't remember if this was possible in Marvin Classic.

[JSWolf]

Marvin 3 requires iOS 9.0 and above so it should work on the iPad Mini 2. But in order to get the full features, you're going to have to pay for an unsupported app.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Marvin 3 requires iOS 9.0 and above so it should work on the iPad Mini 2. But in order to get the full features, you're going to have to pay for an unsupported app.

I think it is also the case that the developer can de-list older versions of the app, even though these used to run on an old version of the OS.

I ran into this once with a legacy device, contacted the developer and they enabled it again.

[Martinoptic]

If you want to read epub using books (formerly ibooks) containing embeded fonts you will need to include the file com.apple.ibooks.display-options.xml in the META-INF folder within the epub.
This file contains:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<display_options>
<platform name="*">
<option name="specified-fonts">true</option>
</platform>
</display_options>

This will update the iTunesMetadata.plist file when transferring.

This file can do much more depending on what settings you decide to put in it. The above is just to allow embedded fonts to show. There is more info on search engines.

Hope it helps.