As part of their “21 Cool iPhone Apps” feature, PC Magazine has posted 2-page reviews of both Stanza and eReader. It gives both apps high marks, though Stanza gets half a star more than eReader.
Both reviews contain some factual errors, but they are the sorts of things you need to go in-depth to discover—not things that can be easily discovered in a brief review period. In the eReader review, the reviewer complains:
As with Stanza, which can also read eReader’s PDB and PRC file format, buying current bestsellers for eReader is less than streamlined. That’s because the only source, whichever reader you use, is Fictionwise—a slow, quirky site with an outdated design. So, for example, you may already have a Fictionwise account for Stanza, but you can’t use it for eReader, though both apps use the same domain, store, and file format.
This is, of course, doubly untrue—in addition to Stanza’s Fictionwise store, books can also be bought from the ordinary Fictionwise site and from eReader.com in both cases, and both sites have simplified mobile pages which the reviewer apparently missed.
It’s hard to blame the reviewer for this one, though; Lexcycle’s whole Stanza Fictionwise store deal is way too complicated, and it’s easy to miss what sites you can use the eReader client with. Even now, the eReader client’s login process is confusing, and there’s nothing on the screen that says you can log into either your eReader or your Fictionwise account just by entering the different userIDs.
Another error is that when the reviewer counts Stanza’s ability to read more formats than eReader as a plus, he apparently does not notice the way that non-ePub file formats converted over from the desktop lose all formatting. Perhaps he was less focused on these issues than on readability at all.
In any event, it is nice to see an e-book client that is not Stanza getting some coverage in addition to the Lexcycle reader’s rosy glow of publicity. It would have been nice if they could have covered Bookshelf, as well, since it is a much better reader for non-ePub books than Stanza, but they could only cover 21 apps after all.
Mr. Meadows:
Every time an article or blog appears on the internet mentioning Stanza, you seem to always be there in short order to post with disparaging comments about Stanza and then promote some other reading software, often with misleading or inaccurate information. Searching on Google for (“Chris Meadows” OR “Robotech Master” AND Stanza) shows almost 100 sites demonstrating this pattern. On Teleread alone, it seems that every single posting that even mentions Stanza has at least one negative comment from you. Already today, you have written two blog postings on Teleread highlighting Stanza’s inferiority. You’ve spent so much energy trashing Stanza that one can only conclude that you have a chip on your shoulder about them, or your are otherwise incentivized to promote other software.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but it doesn’t seem like a responsible use of your privileged position as a Teleread blogger.
For example, in this blog posting, you say that “Lexcycle’s whole Stanza Fictionwise store deal is way too complicated”. That may be the case, but how does that make eReader any better? eReader’s interaction with Fictionwise has exactly the same structure as Stanza’s, and yet you seem to be suggesting that eReader is somehow superior in this regard. This pattern of identifying differences where none exist is consistent in your criticisms.
Another example is that you cite the article’s failure to mention that Stanza loses formatting for most conversions of books from other formats as an “error”. How is this a factual error in the article? The article never claimed otherwise. It appears more like you are just looking for an excuse to point out a limitation in Stanza, without mentioning that eReader doesn’t have any equivalent feature at all.
Stanza isn’t perfect. It lacks some of the great features of the eReader client, like dictionary lookup and text highlighting. And it doesn’t have the native support for some formats that Bookshelf has, relying instead on its clunky and buggy desktop application. However, in terms of easing the finding and downloading of content, it is unparalleled. It’s configurability is unmatched, and it has a plethora of features like coverflow, hyphenation, color settings, and custom collections that no other application offers. These are the reasons why it is indisputably the most popular reader for the iPhone, as can be verified by searching for “ebook” in iTunes and sorting by popularity.
And when you refer to Lexcycle’s “rosy glow of publicity”, it almost sounds like you are accusing them of somehow manipulating the global press in favor of Stanza. Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t, but given that they seem to be a very young company, I would be surprised if they had the kind of omnipotent power necessary to get PC Magazine, Forbes, Wired, the New York Times, and any of the other huge media outlets mentioned in Stanza’s App Store description to write favorably about them. And if Lexcycle’s claims of one million downloads of Stanza are to be believed, then they would somehow have managed to trick a whole lot of people into downloading an inferior piece of software with their nefarious propaganda.
I’m sorry if this sounds like a rant, or if you have good cause for consistently disparaging Stanza and its authors that I am just not understanding. But as someone who follows the state of the art in ebooks closely, its gotten to the point where whenever I see any mention of Stanza in any posting or article, I’ve become conditioned to expect the obligatory nasty comment from you very soon afterwards. And this prediction invariably turns out to be right.
Not to worry, Serena. I use Stanza for books in ePub, eReader, whatever, from a variety of places. Just yesterday I talked it up on my Solomon Scandals site. While Stanza isn’t nirvana, especially on navigation-related matters, I love it for the same big reason you do. Lexcycle, working with allies such as Feedbooks, has masterfully integrated the software with content. This morning I heard Uncle Tom’s Cabin mentioned on Book TV. Within a minute I had a copy downloaded to my iPod Touch from Feedbooks without having to thread my way through a Web site. I also love Stanza’s wide font selection.
My huge and genuine enthusiasm for Stanza makes up for Chris’s skepticism and his belief that it’s gotten more than its share of publicity. Of course he might be thinking the reverse and thanking the gods that he is around to balance me out. At any rate I like the idea of the TeleBlog reflecting a variety of viewpoints from people passionate about e-books, just so relevant ties are divulged. I rather doubt that anyone is paying Chris.
You write well, just as Chris does; and if you’re interested, perhaps you, too, can contribute. You can reach me at dr AT teleread.com. No need to use a real name, by the way—just so you strive for accuracy and fairness (civility toward fellow contributors would also be good). One of our best writers has been the pseudonymous Garson O’Toole.
Thanks,
David
Addendum: However much I love Stanza, I’m especially glad that Chris is mentioning alternatives. Here’s to consumer choice!
And still PC mag went digital without support for any of those apps, Go figure.
When I saw how long this was getting, I was tempted to make this another blog post—but I decided that wouldn’t be fair. Let just those who’ve read Serena’s post see my response to it. Far be it from me to use my bully pulpit unfairly. 🙂
Serena: Clearly, you’ve missed the posts where I’ve talked about how buggy Bookshelf still is. And even though I might have some negative comments about Stanza in this post, eReader still comes in for its share for its confusing login screen (which I have also mentioned elsewhere).
In fact, I have never been shy about calling out any reader for annoying bugs or missing features, as I did in the first version of my e-book app review a few months ago.
Do you know what a gadfly is?
I use Stanza. On the whole, I like Stanza. Perhaps not as much as David does, but I’ve read several books on it (The Great Gatsby, and that trilogy that starts with Caught Stealing that was given away free recently), and I’ve also played with some of its news feeds.
It’s because I like what’s good about it that I feel I have to be harsh about what’s bad about it. If I want them to improve, I can’t just hum a happy tune and hope they read my mind.
First off, I’m not the only TeleRead blogger to hold this view.
Second, Stanza’s interaction with the library is not exactly the same as eReader’s. To get to your eReader or Fictionwise bookshelf in Stanza, a reader must go through the following menu choices:
+ -> Online Catalog -> Fictionwise Book Store -> My Bookshelf
He then receives a login prompt.
There is nothing in the on-line catalog screen to indicate that “Fictionwise Book Store” is where one goes to get eReader.com titles, too.
The login prompt says “Enter your Stanza.Fictionwise.com login.” There is nothing there to indicate you could enter your eReader or plain Fictionwise.com login there to access those shelves.
eReader isn’t perfect in this regard, either, but is a lot better than Stanza has managed. In eReader, you go:
+ -> eReader/Fictionwise shelf
That’s it. Two steps. No clutter, no confusing long menus, just a simple interface. And it even explicitly mentions that you can use your eReader.com or Fictionwise.com login information. It isn’t exactly clear on how you can do both (it turns out that eReader uses your email address as a login and Fictionwise uses a handle) but at least the names of both sites are there.
And anyway, I was largely speaking of the “Stanza.Fictionwise” vs. “plain vanilla Fictionwise” arrangement when I referred to complication. The arrangement they have is seriously confusing to the uninitiated! It certainly confused the reviewer in the articles I linked above, who had no idea that it was possible at all to load books from the eReader and Fictionwise libraries.
I mean, look. Stanza is compatible with the eReader and Fictionwise libraries. But it doesn’t say so—even at the very login prompt that would let the user into them. The only way to find out that it is possible to log into them is to find the information on some external site, like this one.
I am guessing that Lexcycle probably gets a percentage of sales made through the Stanza store, which it doesn’t for Fictionwise or eReader purchases. And if they are (I don’t know it for sure but it would seem to make sense) there’s nothing at all wrong with that! They’re making the reader free, and it’s a great reader (except for those areas where it’s not), and they have every right to make money from it in other ways.
But it is annoying if that gets in the way of using the reader with other eReader-format stores—such as Fictionwise where existing Fictionwise users might have considerable Micropay balances (that they can’t use in the Stanza store) or eReader.com where they will be guaranteed to have some store rebate credit if they’ve bought anything at all under the new rebate system (ditto). It misses the whole point of being compatible with the eReader format in the first place.
So, yes. I believe the Stanza.Fictionwise library system is too complicated and will confuse readers. And I will continue to say so until Lexcycle makes it more clear or less complicated.
Well, in order for a book to count as properly “converted” from another format, it has to preserve the text as it was in the original format as closely as possible. Stanza does not do that. When the Stanza desktop “converts” a book from HTML or Mobipocket into ePub, it discards all formatting, including bold and italic emphasis.
This emphasis—italics in particular—is important to books, especially modern ones that use it a lot for emphasis. “I walked through the door” has a completely different meaning (“I didn’t run through the door”) than “I walked through the door” (I didn’t walk into the door) or “I walked through the door” (I didn’t walk through the window) or even “I walked through the door” (I walked through the door).
It has been ten years since the time when most e-books were ASCII text files, most PDA reading applications just used that raw text and called it a day, and Project Gutenberg didn’t take notice of italics either. There is no excuse for an e-book reader in this day and age claiming to “convert” formats and not doing the whole job. And Stanza has been around for how many months now and they haven’t fixed this yet?
And it’s not like they’re having to convert from some obscure word processor format. ePub is an HTML-based format. Mobipocket is also an HTML-based format. HTML is an HTML-based format. Is there some reason the desktop app can’t say, “Oh, there’s an <i> here. I’d better put one in the converted file, too.”?
Furthermore, Lexcycle does not mention this deficiency anywhere in their FAQ or their Supported Formats pages. It just says it can convert from Mobipocket, HTML, and all those other formats. That’s all.
I really want to be able to read all my Baen Webscription books in Stanza. On the whole, I like Stanza. I find I actually prefer the page-turning metaphor of Stanza (and eReader) to the scrolling metaphor of Bookshelf. I’d like to be able to recommend a free Mobipocket-reading application that isn’t ad-supported. But until Lexcycle fixes this problem, I can’t.
And until Lexcycle fixes it, or at least acknowledges where prospective users can see that they have it (as Marc did do in this TeleRead post, but still not the FAQ or Supported Formats table yet), I’ll keep mentioning it in public places so other book-lovers don’t have the same disappointing surprise I did of converting a book and starting to read it only to discover that not all of the book’s original formatting was there.
As for the “rosy glow of publicity” thing, well, it was meant sarcastically—but the target of the sarcasm was not Stanza, but all the media who are treating them as if they are the only e-book reading application for the iPhone. Stanza is doing some great deals with publishers, I won’t deny that, but there are other great e-book applications out there—particularly, ones that can display non-ePub e-books with their italics still intact.
I call them like I see them. If I see something I don’t like, I will say so. If I see something I really don’t like, I will say so really loudly. Maybe this means that if I see something I do like, I don’t say that nearly as often as I should—but that’s human nature. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. People complain a whole lot more than they praise. That’s just how they are.
I like Stanza, on the whole. But because it’s not all that I feel it ought to be, all that it could be, I complain vociferously about the parts that need fixing.
And I’ll be the first to sing Stanza’s praises for it when they get fixed.