iPhone alternative to Kindle

Jump to Comments

SI am not ready to give up my Kindle yet.  I absolutely love it.  However my boyfriend asked me what he could use to read ebooks on his iPhone.  Being The Tech Diva I set out on a quest to get him a-reading.

Meet Stanza from Lexcycle: a self dubbed revolution in reading.  With good reason of course.  This is one of the new iPhone web apps that launched with the 2.0 update.  It’s an ebook reader for the phone that basically works two ways.  The first is by setting up a library on your own webserver, or website domain where you can later access you files.  The second is through Wifi on your computer.

So, I set the thing up tonight and I am pretty impressed with it.  First of all, going back to Kindle for a second, I can use this as yet another converter for my own files.  It reads EVERY FORMAT.  I watched as a PDF appeared in the little window on my desktop before my very eyes.  Impressive.  Want more? It also reads those loathesome Microsoft Reader *.lit files we talked about the other day.  It reads them and doesn’t need to convert them.  WOW, I say.

So, here is the lowdown:

• Apple Bonjour for windows is needed and is pretty crappy to install as you have to install it, then reboot then uninstall and re-install again, finally rebooting once more for it to take effect, (After you add it to your firewall exceptions).  Yes, I am not kidding that came from the instruction forums.
• Stanza is FREE for now.  After Beta it will be $15.  Still not too bad, considering you just spent $500 on an iPhone with data plan.  (Kindle is still cheaper folks)
• Websites are pretty much free or close to it.
• Downloading from home via iPhone only works from wireless to wireless via SSID, at least that’s what I read and I did not go into how to set up on a regular PC.
• One downside is that only one book at a time works on the wireless version, so I am building an e-pub site for my boyfriends books.  He has quite a few. Though I’m not sharing as that is illegal…
• The formats that Stanza reads just literally blow my mind.

Below are some screen shots from my iPhone.  (screen shots in 2.0 are done as follows: select screen, tap once, then click the home and lock button simultaneously.  The screen will flash and save the image to your photos).  Notice the clear text and how it keeps the .lit artwork.  Never mind that it’s a romance novel, that one’s mine.

So, if you have an iphone and want to read some books, then try out stanza.  What are all of you reading on these days?

2 Comments

Filed under Informational, iphone, talk-tech

Tags: e-book, hacks, iphone, Kindle, stanza