Like other happy owners of the iPad, I think that the critics should try the machine—ideally with more than a quick hands-on at an Apple Store or Best Buy.
No, the LCD isn’t optimal for outdoor reading. But I myself read mostly inside and dislike the text-to-background contrast of the current E Ink. And as for the iPad’s weight of a pound and a half, I’ll survive—given the machine’s many capabilities. If nothing else, I can absorb books better if I don’t have trouble seeing them; and the new Brio eReader app could make the large-screen iPad even more viewable. For me, then, e-books are in fact the iPad’s “killer app,” as Slate’s Farhad Majoo recently described it and as O’Reilly’s Joe Wikert seems to agree.
Meanwhile, following up on my iPad review for TeleRead, here are some e-book-related apps of special interest—programs that make me appreciate my iPad even more despite all the rants against it.
—The GoodReader for iPad (first two screenshots) lets you download nonDRMed PDFs and other formats directly from the Web, and via the BoxNet service or email, you can transfer files from your PC without being forced to use iTunes. GoodReader worked great when tested with Sophie’s Choice, Slaughterhouse Five and other old Wowio books, as well as the PDF offerings of Feedbooks. Furthermore, via Google Books I can see page images from classics as they were published many decades ago. Highly recommended even if GoodReader lacks annotations capability and can bog down on long image-based files. Cost is just 99 cents. Thanks to Teddypig for the pointer.
—readMe (left screenshot) is a promising iPad-optimized reader for ePub, FB2 and PDF despite the lack of a search feature—at least I couldn’t find any—and some other amenities.
Like GoodReader, it allows downloading directly from Web sites, and you have a number of fonts to choose from, even Arial Rounded Bold, the font so beloved to Stanza fans who appreciate the B word. The aesthetics of readMe were especially pleasing.
The big downside, beyond the seemingly AWOL search, is that readMe crashed too often on my iPad. Also, in the short time I time I spent testing ReadMe, I couldn’t get it to live up to the advertising and pick up files from my PC. But I may not have had everything set up properly. Price is $1.99.
—-The i2Reader supports ePub, PDF, RTF, HTML, FB2, DOC and plain text and is said to include dictionary support and auto scroll.
Alas, i2Reader is not yet optimized to display clearly at full size on the iPad, the reason I didn’t try the app myself, but I suspect that the developers will take care of that in time, and I might review it then.
—BookGlutton says its community-based reader on the Web will work great on an iPad even without an app, just the Safari Web browser. Anyone wanna test this one? And anyone have more details for us on the IBIS reader? Hello, Robert?
Non-e-book related: Also try the amazing Dragon Dictation program on the iPad—it’s free and for some people might help address the challenge of the lack of a physical keyboard (not just one onscreen). Accuracy is better than you’d expect. It’s still not there all the way, however, and skeptics might worry about the privacy issue—the program lets you capture the names of contacts, to improve word recognition. I myself haven’t a problem as long as this is optional, which it is.
I am going to use GoodReader with Google Docs which locks your PDFs in your Google Account.
Now the iPad version of GoodReader should have that included.
So basically organize your PDF eBooks up on Google Docs and then use GoodReader to read them on your iPad.
Yep, that’s the great thing about GoodReader–different servers to choose from. Thanks for the discovery of GR, Teddypig—and for your latest tips. Keep ’em coming. And I hope you’ll do some full-length items for Paul, especially with novices in mind. The iPad is for them as well as old-timers who have trouble with E Ink’s contrast or lack of it.
Thanks,
David
This webdav/cloud storage is finally beginning to seem practical for ipad and ebooks. By the way, this Goodreads tutorial about setting up file transfer via wifi/network share was very well-done.
Here’s a really short post on using Googledocs and non-DRM PDFs which is the cloud computing way to handle your whole collection if you Um you know get rid of certain things we will not talk about….
http://www.teddypig.com/2009/08/iphone-loves-googledocs-pdf-ebooks/
I’d add iAnnotatePDF, allows highlighting and notes on PDF, awaiting upgrade to export all annotations but a very useful app for those reading PDFs and technical articles
i’ve been using goodreader on my ipod touch, but hadn’t in awhile. i didn’t realize that one can now download directly from the web; but one can on iphone/pod touch, too. thank you for the post!
Apples Mobileme offers idisk which works as streamable storage that I use to load movies, music,files and books various types of consumable media and you can download the idisk app directly on your ipad. Its as easy as drag and drop .
I think you can enjoy eBooks on your iPad without iTunes by the third party software like this: http://ipad.to-itunes.com/transfer-epub-ebooks-to-ipad.html