8 myths about reading books on a mobile phone
According to Wikipedia there are 4.6 billion mobile phones in the world. It’s a huge number. But people don’t try to read books on them. In this post I’d like to address some of the most popular reasons, which prevent us from doing it.
The screen is too small
This is true – if you still own a 5-year old phone with black&white screen large enough to show in full length only a phone number (if you’re lucky). But things change, and one of the quickest developing ones are mobile phones. More and more people buy smartphones. They have screens large enough to make their producers cry: “hey you can even watch movies on this phone!”.
I’ve heard many times that reading on a mobile phone is a disaster. Now try to watch a movie. It stops every 5 seconds, as it takes a lot of time to download it. THIS is a disaster.
Let’s compare sizes. For a book, you have an A5 format (average paper book) vs a phone screen. For a video, you as a reference we can use a 21″ TV screen. If we can shrink our video world that much, why we can’t do the same with books?
Another comparison. On average the screen of a smartphone has the width of a text column in a newspaper. If the size of a text field in a paper edition of The New York Times is not enough for you, then you can also complain about a mobile phone. »»»
Introducing One Picture Stories
One sentence description of #1picstory is this (originally tweeted here):
A story written within one picture, created on an iPhone from a very first idea to a very first tweet.
I started this new litexperimental project at the beginning of a year. At that time people make resolutions. New Year Resolutions are good, because you can refresh your mind. I needed a refreshment, what’s more I desperately needed an upgrade. But I’m not good in resolutions of any kind. I just knew I had to try something new. This was not enough for a tasty blog post. So I’ve been scrolling through apps at iTunes to get inspired. Yes, if I want to get inspired I just take an iPhone and play with it. After 15 light scrolls and 4 fast ones I’ve found Type Drawing. This awesome app lets you paint with words. This is what I needed.
What? Yes, you’re right. I want to say, that the inspiration didn’t come from a noble philosopher who is dead for 400 years. My imagination was reloaded by a decent 1,59 EUR application which is still available at iTunes AppStore (good) and haven’t been updated for three weeks (bad). »»»
4 ways to turn your mobile phone into an e-reader
According to The Economist there are about 5m e-readers in circulation worldwide and double that amount will be sold in 2010. Let’s compare it to touchscreen phones: 184m sold last year, 97% growth is predicted for 2010 (Gartner).
Mobile phone is a music and video player, gaming console or a mobile office, so why not an e-book reader? I’m not talking about one-time chase for a lost symbol. I’m talking about 15-minute read in a found time.
If just a tiny 1% of all new touchscreen users will think of reading a book, it’s 1,84m people who might need some hints. And it’s not only touchscreens which can be used as e-readers.
For all of you interested – check the possibilities, choose your favourite way and enjoy a true mobile reading! »»»
An anthology of #vss Twitter fiction has been published!
It’s a great news for Twitter fiction lovers. #VSS Anthology Volume 1 has just been published, thanks to the big effort of Made in DNA, who initiated the anthology, called for entries and edited the stories into this great book.
Twitter fiction is a fantastic literary phenomenon. It shows how well writers can cope with such a limit as 140 characters. And it brings great results. Many people write fiction on Twitter and the most popular way to follow it is #vss tag. It was originated by the Twitter fiction guru, Very Short Story and quickly adopted by his fans and fellow writers.
This anthology has one outstanding benefit I was not aware until I read it – opposite to Twitter stream, where you read great stories accidentally, you have all the best of it presented the way it should be: organized. Every author in this book has his exceptional voice and brings his unique world to the reader. Just read a couple of his stories in a row and you’re there completely.
Having in mind that Twitter just makes you blink and you’re away in the archives, anthologies like this one have an incredible value.
The book is available for free from Smashwords. You can read it on-line or download to your device. There are many formats available, including ePub, mobi, rtf, pdf and plain text, so I’m sure there is one to fit you e-reading device.
#VSS Anthology is out, but the authors are on. Check what they’re writing about right now on Twitter.
PS. I’m really glad I’m part of this anthology and was helpful in designing the book’s cover. »»»
Aplikacje książkowe na iOS: Kindle, iBooks, Stanza – porównanie funkcji
W ostatnich tygodniach zwiększyło się zainteresowanie Polaków e-książkami. Wiele osób zamiast decydować się na kupno czytnika, stara się wyposażyć swoje obecne urządzenia, głównie telefony komórkowe, w aplikacje do czytania, co jest bardzo rozsądnym podejściem. Można zacząć czytać i gromadzić e-książki w każdej chwili.
Warto pamiętać o tym, że następuje ewolucja sposobu gromadzenia e-książek, dlatego chciałbym podkreślić rolę wirtualnej półki w opisanych poniżej aplikacjach. Ktoś, kto raz wypróbował, jak wygodny dostęp do swoich e-książek z kilku urządzeń (komputer, telefon, czytnik) już nigdy nie będzie chciał z tej funkcji zrezygnować.
Ten wpis przygotowałem dla użytkowników urządzeń z systemem iOS. Aplikacji książkowych w AppStore jest ponad sto tysięcy. Przeważająca liczba to pojedyncze książki-aplikacje. Spośród programów zapewniających dostęp do półki książkowej najważniejszymi są Stanza, Kindle oraz iBooks.
Na początek krótkie opisy, potem tabela porównawcza, a na koniec rekomendacja. »»»
Perfect e-reading application for iOS
Stanza’s functionality
+ iBooks’ interface
+ Kindle’s offer
iBooks: how to add books without connecting to iTunes
Adding third-party books to iBooks is painful. You need to cable your device (iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad) with a computer to sync books between iTunes “Books” folder and the application. I personally feel stressed every time I connect a device to iTunes. Syncing is slow and when it’s finished app icons are messed up almost every time.
Comparing to Kindle’s 60 seconds, a cable connection is just outdated. The other thing is that with the iBookstore offering such a little selection of books, many people try to download their own book libraries collected before.
Two tips listed below apply only to pdf documents, so probably only iPad owners will want to try it. You can’t use them to send ePub files to iBooks. I hope it will change soon. So far only Stanza is capable of opening external ePubs (as well as pdf docs as you’ll see in the screenshots). »»»
Use Dropbox as a cloud bookshelf for Stanza
By now Stanza is the most robust e-reading application for iOS. It’s packed with features other apps, like Kindle or iBooks are missing. However it has one big disadvantage: no cloud-based bookshelf.
The application is associated to a device not an account. There is no way to sync books and bookmarks like in Kindle. It’s fine when you have one device. Things get complicated to those iPhone or iPod Touch users who are buying iPads. They realize that to read books they collected in Stanza, they need to download them again.
There are a few ways to transfer books to Stanza. I’d like to add to the list a simple solution, which gives at least part of cloud bookshelf functionality. It’s Dropbox (AppStore link), an application available for both iPhone and iPad. Sure, no sync is possible, but at least you can manage you book library from a single place. »»»
Darmowe książki Project Gutenberg na każdą komórkę z przeglądarką internetową
Kultowy serwis z książkami z domeny publicznej, Project Gutenberg, uruchomił kilka dni temu mobilną wersję. Dzięki temu jest on dostępny dla każdego użytkownika telefonu z przeglądarką internetową. Wystarczy w pasku przeglądarki wpisać adres:
m.gutenberg.org
Warto zaznaczyć, że PG to jeden z nielicznych serwisów e-książkowych, w których można wyszukiwać publikacje według języka. Opcja ta jest również dostępna w wersji mobilnej. Dostępnych jest 25 książek, ale zdarzają się błędy – publikacje sklasyfikowane jako polskojęzyczne, napisane są po angielsku; inne z kolei nie znajdują się na liście, choć są w języku polskim.
Lista polskojęzycznych książek znajduje się pod tym adresem. Każdą z książek można ściągnąć w jednym z kilku formatów: html. ePub, mobi lub html. Jeśli wybierzesz html, jej zawartość będzie dostępna bez wychodzenia z programu. Niestety treść nie została jeszcze zoptymalizowana do czytania na przeglądarkach mobilnych. Miejmy nadzieję, że wkrótce się to zmieni.
E-reading applications: my feature wish list
Currently to read e-books I’m using two devices (iPhone and iPad) and three apps (Kindle, Stanza and iBooks).
I don’t have any problem with using either iPad or iPhone. The devices are perfectly complementary. I read on iPad mostly at home and when on the move an iPhone is a perfect reading companion.
It’s not that easy with applications. They all have their pros and cons, some of them have features the others are missing. This is easily leading to disappointment, as a personal e-book library is split in three places and sometimes I get lost where is a book I feel like reading right now.
So here is a wish list of features a confused reader would love to have in one application to stick to it. The list only contains features which are not available in all three apps. Is there anything missing? Please leave your tips in the comments. »»»
iBooks 1.1.1 – słownik i treści multimedialne
Kilka dni temu pojawiła się nowa aktualizacja programu iBooks, oznaczona numerem 1.1.1. Podstawowe mankamenty pozostały (książki jedynie z Project Gutenberg oraz utrudnione dodawanie publikacji spoza iBookstore), ale pojawiły się dwie nowe funkcje, które umacniają pozycję iBooks na tle innych aplikacji do czytania, dostępnych w AppStore.
Słownik
Spośród aplikacji na iOS, których do tej pory używałem, w słownik wyposażona była jedynie Stanza. Przy ciągle niewielkiej dostępności polskojęzycznych tytułów jest to bardzo duża zachęta do sięgnięcia po książki po angielsku.
W porównaniu ze Stanzą, która wyświetla zawartość słownika bez żadnego formatowania, co utrudnia odczytanie znaczenia, w iBooks wszystko podane jest w przejrzysty sposób. Trzy zrzuty ekranowe poniżej. Pierwszy z iPada, dwa kolejne z iPhone’a.
Debata [opowiadanie]
Napisane w 2006 roku, ale do dzisiejszej debaty pasuje idealnie.
Pani Jadwiga i jej sąsiadka pani Szymona, która przyszła po półtora ziarenka pieprzu, oglądały 13 789. odcinek serialu B jak Boleść.
– Jadziuchna, przełącz na chwilkę, bo reklamy zaczęły się, a ja zaraz się zategowywacam na to.
Pani Jadzia wzięła pilot i nawet nie skakała po kanałach, bo były tylko dwa.
– Ależ oczywiście, że nie, szanowny panie – rozległ się z telewizora głos kandydata Lewego na prezydenta. – Wejście do Unii dało nam więcej niż mniej, a mnie całkowicie uspokoiło, co do warunków rozwoju infrastruktury pedagogiczno-wodnej w rejonach przygranicznie czystych.
Kandydat Prawy ripostował: »»»
Prices of e-readers down by 40% since June 2009
No major report will be quoted, cause I haven’t found any. The numbers gathered here are a result of a private research I started exactly a year ago.
The idea was simple – to create an Amazon widget with 12 e-readers. Then I was collecting screenshots from certain days and placed them in this post. If the e-reader was no longer sold, I used a price shown in a former screenshot. As simple as that. It was designed to give a clue on how fast the prices of e-readers were going down – and to have it presented in a comparable form. Just an idea from an average e-book enthusiast.
The big news is that prices have fallen by around 40%. The major reason is a recent price war between B&N and Amazon, in my opinion taking place in view of a launch of Google Editions, which will totally change a perception of an “e-reading device”. Picking up one figure: Kindle 2 is almost three times cheaper than a year ago – $359 vs $130!
It was not so fantastic at the end of last year – prices were lower only by 15%. And this is what most of us were expecting. In a quick poll only 18% votes were given to a price drop higher than 20%.
You can check current prices at the bottom of a post. What do you think: will prices of leading devices cross a magic level of $100? »»»
Recently updated tech-absurdist and mobile fiction writer 3.0 beta. Addicted to ebooks and technology. Guest writer at 
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