Seeking IOS app for epub, pdf, mobi, cbr/cbz

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by skillachie

It will be very difficult for a standalone app to support all eBook formats or a majority of the popular ones with all the bells and whistles that you are looking for.

Stanza supported all but CBZ/CBR, until Amazon bought it and killed it.

I want:

• Works offline, because where I most often want to read doesn't have internet. (Train/bus on the way to work.)
• Opens several types of non-DRM'd ebook
• Remembers where you are in each book when you close it, just like every dedicated ebook device does
• Allows some form of sideloading onto an iPad - don't care if that's direct drag and drop, or via cloud like Dropbox or Google Drive. But I need access to the files when the device is offline.

These are all features that dedicated ebook devices have. I'm not sure if any of them supported comic formats, but I consider that the bonus filetype; if I can't find it, I'll convert them to PDFs.

I'd also like font size change ability, I suppose, but I can probably cope without it.

I don't care about

• Ability to change from light to dark background
• Screen brightness changes
• Font changes
• Cloud syncing
• Media support (audio, video)
• Ability to make notes
• Dictionary
• Bookstore connections

If you do decide to try the platform even with a throw away account and send us some feedback let me know

I'll wait until it's not asking for my birthdate, and grab the free version. I know you say that info's only being gathered for compliance with various laws, but I have no reason to trust that the company won't try to sell that info at some point in the future. (If I like the free version, I'll consider subscribing.)

Also, you haven't said whether it works offline. I have no need at all for an ereader app that only works when connected to the internet.

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Stanza supported all but CBZ/CBR, until Amazon bought it and killed it.

I want:

• Works offline, because where I most often want to read doesn't have internet. (Train/bus on the way to work.)
• Opens several types of non-DRM'd ebook
• Remembers where you are in each book when you close it, just like every dedicated ebook device does
• Allows some form of sideloading onto an iPad - don't care if that's direct drag and drop, or via cloud like Dropbox or Google Drive. But I need access to the files when the device is offline.

I'll wait until it's not asking for my birthdate, and grab the free version. I know you say that info's only being gathered for compliance with various laws, but I have no reason to trust that the company won't try to sell that info at some point in the future. (If I like the free version, I'll consider subscribing.)

Also, you haven't said whether it works offline. I have no need at all for an ereader app that only works when connected to the internet.

Those that you just listed we fully support. The only thing is you need to side load them via the web interface via Drag/Drop from your Desktop or Google Drive/Dropbox folder or using our Calibre plugin.

And yes it works offline I did answer in all my previous post, double check by searching for offline.

With regards to the prompt for your age, I understand and I can reach out to you once we deploy the option to ask questions instead of your date of birth. This will require changes across iOS , Android and Web.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I don't mean bookmarks - I don't want to have to make a bookmark every time I stop reading.

The apps I've been using - Dropbox's native viewer and Acrobat Reader - will both open to the same page I left off, most of the time, but sometimes I'll open them and it'll be back at the beginning of the book. There is no internal memory of where I left off like ereader devices have.

...Ideally, I want an app that did what the Pocket EZReader did. Even without all of that, I want an app or apps where I can switch between books, close the app (...or have the device shut off from lack of battery), and open it later and find where I was in each book.

Re Goodreader and PDFs: It's my practice to keep whatever I've started open in a tab rather than closing out of them, so I'm not speaking from long experience closing books completely then opening them again. But I just closed one, reopened, and it opened where I left off.

[vikarti]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

...Looked into BookFusion details.



No thanks. I am looking for a reader, not access to a bookstore. One of the reasons I'm using my iPad is that my Sony PRS-300 chokes when I get over about 300 books in the library; it takes a full ten minutes to restart.

It's perfectly possible to use Bookfusion without buying anything from their bookstore component. Calibre plugin is for reason

[MicroDrie]

I'm looking for an app that will read non-DRM'd epub, mobi, PDF, and comic (cbr/cbz) formats.

Sadly there is no such thing like one-fit-all solution.

Reading HTML, txt, or rtf/doc would be a nice bonus, but not necessary.

Sigil and perhaps other programs also, has the possibility to add a HTML file and text file can be past into a Sigi EPUB file.

I'm hoping to find the ereader device features I care about:

• Remembers where I left off in each book
• Has a library that works offline
• Sort by title or author, and ideally by recently read/recently added
• Ideally, looks at metadata and not filename
• Add bookmarks easily

Look to a program which requirement are fulfilled by each program

Although at this point, I may settle for "opens the filetypes and doesn't mangle the epub or mobi formatting."

The advantage of each standard is that it is not quite the same as another standard. The result is that something always goes wrong with a conversion between different standards. You must either accept that or correct it manually.

(I am very aware that pdf is a terrible ebook format. But I get a lot of free PDF ebooks, and archive.org has magazine/pulp issues as PDFs.

A PDF can be the output result of many different programs. With search and replace you can remove a lot of superfluous junk, but in practice, converting a column layout for example can produce a dramatic amount of work.

So it simply means that you have to settle for a lot of different programs or do a lot of manual conversion work to convert everything to your favorite program.

[skillachie]

I'm looking for an app that will read non-DRM'd epub, mobi, PDF, and comic (cbr/cbz) formats.

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

Sadly there is no such thing like one-fit-all solution.


So it simply means that you have to settle for a lot of different programs or do a lot of manual conversion work to convert everything to your favorite program.

Fortunately you can use a single app that handles all the conversions automatically while allowing you to read and sync between iOS, Android and Desktop(via Web). This is what BookFusion does.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Stanza supported all but CBZ/CBR, until Amazon bought it and killed it.

Stanza killed themselves by not fixing the bugs in rendering. Plus, Stanza was one of those apps that didn't respect the CSS and did too much by overriding. When you have a reading app like that, it's garbage. There has to be a way to 100% res[ect the CSs or forget it.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

but I have no reason to trust that the company won't try to sell that info at some point in the future.

When the company files bankruptcy, that information WILL be sold, regardless of what their privacy policy currently says.

Once upon a time, I had an app on my iPhone that did everything you want. Then the developer sold it, and the new owners transformed it into cloud-based spyware, dropping supported ebook formats along the way. Unfortunately, that seems to be the way things are going.

[vikarti]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

When the company files bankruptcy, that information WILL be sold, regardless of what their privacy policy currently says.

Once upon a time, I had an app on my iPhone that did everything you want. Then the developer sold it, and the new owners transformed it into cloud-based spyware, dropping supported ebook formats along the way. Unfortunately, that seems to be the way things are going.

This is one of reasons to actually buy programs you like even if free version is enough. If app is subscription-based - it's even better in this regard (=author have more reasons to keep working on it).

p.s.
Yes, I do have Bookfusion subscription and I like it.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Stanza supported all but CBZ/CBR, until Amazon bought it and killed it.

Pretty sure Stanza on iOS never supported MOBI. I can even double-check when I get home. I still have a 4th gen iPod touch with Stanza. I think the PC/Mac app just converted from MOBI to EPUB for transfer to iOS.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I want:

• Works offline, because where I most often want to read doesn't have internet. (Train/bus on the way to work.)
• Allows some form of sideloading onto an iPad - don't care if that's direct drag and drop, or via cloud like Dropbox or Google Drive. But I need access to the files when the device is offline.

Have you tried KyBook3? There's a Calibre plugin for it for loading books into the app.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Stanza killed themselves by not fixing the bugs in rendering. Plus, Stanza was one of those apps that didn't respect the CSS and did too much by overriding. When you have a reading app like that, it's garbage. There has to be a way to 100% res[ect the CSs or forget it.

Never cared for publisher formatting and reading on a 3.5" iPhone screen, overriding was quite necessary.

My guess, there's probably a lot more people like me who don't care about publisher formatting and are fine so long as the ebook's readable.

That said, the books I read on EPUB/MOBI/AZW3 are just fiction. Technical documents, references, manuals, etc, I stick to PDF.

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Pretty sure Stanza on iOS never supported MOBI. I can even double-check when I get home. I still have a 4th gen iPod touch with Stanza. I think the PC/Mac app just converted from MOBI to EPUB for transfer to iOS.


Have you tried KyBook3? There's a Calibre plugin for it for loading books into the app.

To be honest if you are suggesting KyBook3, he might as well take BookFusion for a spin. BookFusion also has a Calibre plugin. More at https://www.bookfusion.com/reading/calibre

[peaceridge]

Lets talk about the app as a reader app. I want to enlarge/shrink font sizes easily - at night I want fonts larger, during the day smaller - having to go to the settings and scroll down each time is a pita. And easily change brightness. Also, want to be able to touch the left side of the screen to go forward. Easily categorize books and show only the category I want. Until I can do this, all the cloud storage in the world won't help me.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Lets talk about the app as a reader app. I want to enlarge/shrink font sizes easily - at night I want fonts larger, during the day smaller - having to go to the settings and scroll down each time is a pita. And easily change brightness. Also, want to be able to touch the left side of the screen to go forward. Easily categorize books and show only the category I want. Until I can do this, all the cloud storage in the world won't help me.

Stanza, iirc, was one of the very first ebook reading apps on iOS and it got a lot of the basics right. I still miss the level of integration Stanza had with catalogs (e.g. launch an ebook directly from the catalog entry). Bar the ability to update read status, the catalog function was like having Calibre Companion built-in.

Too bad Amazon didn't think to incorporate Stanza's features into their Kindle app and seems to only be interested in killing off the competition.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Stanza, iirc, was one of the very first ebook reading apps on iOS and it got a lot of the basics right. I still miss the level of integration Stanza had with catalogs (e.g. launch an ebook directly from the catalog entry). Bar the ability to update read status, the catalog function was like having Calibre Companion built-in.

Too bad Amazon didn't think to incorporate Stanza's features into their Kindle app and seems to only be interested in killing off the competition.

Stanza got a lot wrong and a lot of that never was put right. Stanza was garbage as it didn't support the CSS properly Garbage is software for reading eBooks that does not properly support the CSS.