I no longer enjoy launching the Kobo app on my iPhone or iPad. I stopped looking forward to interacting with it a few updates ago, and now I actually avoid it. This has been building for a while. A year ago, I praised Kobo for being ahead of the curve when it came to adding [...]
software
Why social reading apps are doomed to fail
I’ve been testing out some social reading apps on the iPad in recent weeks, and while I hope to post something more in-depth in the near future, I read some items today that corroborate a general disappointment I’ve been feeling. Too many restrictions About a week ago, a study about ebook buying and reading habits [...]
The Atavist: publish to any format you like
It’s not released to the public yet, but longform epublisher The Atavist is putting the final touches on a free version of its conversion tool, which will enable authors to publish to a variety of platforms at once without being tied to any one company’s overly restrictive fine print. (Yes, that’s a jab at iBooks [...]
Apple gives book creators beautiful, golden handcuffs
Today Apple raised the bar on interactive textbook publishing, with the introduction of a revamped iBooks app for the iPad and a free textbook publishing app for the Mac. If you’ve got an iPad, a fairly new Mac, and a big pile o’ knowledge to share with the world, you can now create a really [...]
Set public domain content free from locked PDF files
Lately I’ve been digging around online to find old genre short stories written in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In many cases it’s clear that the works have passed into the public domain, at least here in the U.S., but in other cases there’s a questionable copyright claim, as when a modern publisher slaps [...]
Alternatives to Stanza on iOS
Update: Forget all of this! Stanza delivered a surprise update to the Apple app store on November 10th, 2011, that restored functionality on iOS 5. But only update if you need to: this latest version breaks the app if you’re running an older iOS like 4.3 (thanks to Paula for pointing that out in the [...]
Apple’s OS X Lion can create EPUB files!
If you’re using or plan to upgrade to the latest Apple operating system, Lion, you’ll discover a nifty ebook trick baked into the Automator program: it can create EPUB files! The website Mac OS X Automation reported it first, so far as I know. From that site: Mac OS X Lion includes an Automator action, [...]
Change the font on your Kindle without hacking it
I finally updated my installation of Calibre the other day and started playing around with the plugin manager under Preferences, and I found out that the Kindle Collections Manager plugin has a secret power: it can let you add a new font to your Kindle without requiring any sort of hack or jailbreak. If you [...]
Build your own multi-article EPUB with GrabMyBooks Firefox add-on
Do you forage the web for articles that you’d rather read on your ereader device? Here’s a cool tool that lets you collect them into a single downloadable EPUB file.
It’s the Day Against DRM; does anybody care?
Why isn’t the Day Against DRM a bigger deal among ebook consumers?
Calendar Pro turns Kindle into a basic appointment book
Although I don’t write about Kindle Apps Active Content much anymore, I’ve read enough requests from people for a calendar app that I thought this new title was worth sharing. Calendar Pro is a pretty basic scheduling tool. You won’t find any syncing capabilities or reminders to set, and the first (and otherwise positive) reviewer [...]