Maud Newton put together a nice summary of e-reading options for the iPhone.
Items of note:
- Randomhouse just started offering free book downloads for Stanza.
- Interesting to see that the an iPhone displays about as many characters as a Kindle. Of course the iPhone doesn’t have the nice E-Ink® flatness of the Kindle or the 800×600 resolution. But still, surprising.
I have yet to try reading an eBook of any sort, but I have to admit they’re starting to make it fairly appealing. How about you guys? Given the context of this blog I have to admit I feel bad even considering the option. It won’t be long before book cover designers are going to have start worrying about how their designs work with a z-axis and basic tweening .
(via Casual Optimist)
I saw a couple of Sony units on display at Borders last weekend. The screen was so non-digital looking that I thought I was looking at a fake unit with text screen-printed on it.
The grey background is sort of unappealing, they really need to figure out how to make it crisp-paper-white. The design of the units is still sort of frumpy, especially in the age of the iPhone. Haven’t seen a Kindle in person (still), but between the photos and Sony I think they’re about 75% there.
I downloaded one of Charlie Huston’s books from Stanza because I had just finished the second one and couldn’t wait until I got home to start the third. When I got home and picked up the paper copy, I realized I had read a hundred pages on my iPhone and hadn’t cared a bit about the size or format.
Of course, Stanza and RH made it easy. I’ve since then tried to purchase and read something via the Fictionwise interface and about gave up after fifteen minutes of mucking with it. As soon as it becomes as easy as dropping mp3s onto the iPhone, I am there.