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 comments below.)

Lexcycle’s Stanza, the once mighty ebook reader app for iOS devices, doesn’t work on Apple’s latest mobile operating system iOS 5, and as development and maintenance on the app appears to have stopped, it likely never will.

Eulogy

Stanza was my first and most favorite ebook app for the iPhone, and later the iPad. When it was first launched, it had better features than any competing third party app, and over time it consistently beat the big players like Amazon, Kobo and Barnes & Noble on things like openness and customization. I loved Stanza for subway rides—I used a giant font size in landscape view and was able to flick through screens like index cards, which made it easy to keep my place while being jostled and interrupted constantly.

For a while, Stanza was my catch-all app for ebook files, and it let me standardize my library around the EPUB format despite Amazon’s anti-user push for azw/mobi and tpz. Whether it was a title I’d downloaded from an author’s website, or a classic I’d grabbed off of Project Gutenberg, Stanza could handle it. I stopped caring that Amazon and Barnes & Noble were taking baby steps with their branded apps, because the scrappy alternative was far better. Worst case scenario, I could always remove the DRM on books from those retailers and shift them over to Stanza.

But best of all was how Stanza worked with my Calibre ebook library. I exported my entire Calibre library using OPDS and uploaded it to a private server, then connected to it from Stanza over the Internet. I was able to browse my library—and instantly download titles to my app—from anywhere I could get a wireless connection.

I always knew that Stanza would eventually go away after Amazon acquired it back in 2009. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised the retailer kept Stanza available for as long as it did, although I suspect Amazon’s motive was purely strategic: it prevented Apple, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo from acquiring what was for a while the iOS platform’s most famous and popular ebook app, while at the same time it gave Amazon a way to indirectly offer an EPUB reader without having to sully the Kindle brand.

I suppose, if you want to live in denial, you can imagine there’s a slim chance Stanza will wake up from its comatose state one day and start working again. But it’s time to move on. From the day Amazon purchased Stanza, we knew in our hearts that it wouldn’t last forever.

We, the survivors

If you’re a Stanza user on an iOS device, what’s next for you? Here are some quick tips:

Getting your files back from a broken Stanza

The simplest strategy is to not upgrade to iOS 5 if you can help it, although by doing so you’ll miss out on some really nice features that Apple has introduced, like system-wide text expander shortcuts, an elegant (but extremely limited) to-do app, and the ability to update and sync your device over Wi-Fi.

If you updated your device already, and you have ebook files in your Stanza app that you really want to salvage before moving on, you can try using the Stanza Book Restore tool that Lexcycle created. It’s a Java app that will scan your most recent iTunes backup, find the Stanza files that were saved there, and extract them as files with human-readable names.

Finding a decent alternative

Based on the suggestions in this Get Satisfaction thread on Stanza’s iOS 5 issues and this Mobileread wiki page on ebook software, I tried a few other apps to see if I could find one that would work with my private OPDS library and provide some decent functionality. Here are my observations.

Best premium bet: MegaReader ($1.99 at time of post)

Pros:
• handles OPDS catalogs nicely
• good basic customization options
• some great built in catalogs, so if you just want to find a good book to read fast (from a public domain collection, naturally), you can do that within seconds of launching this app

Cons:
• doesn’t handle some basic font styles like bold or italic
• no way to take notes or look up words
• limited layout options (what is has are nice, but there aren’t many)

Based on the suggestions users are making on the app’s user forums, there are some other missing features that could limit its usefulness to some users: there’s no way to drag and drop files into it using iTunes, and it can’t handle really large (1000+ titles) libraries.

I’ve been using it for a few days, and I’ve found that for basic reading and public domain book discovery, I’m pretty happy with it. However, if I’m doing a closer reading of a book—which often includes taking notes, highlighting passages, making lots of bookmarks, and looking up unfamiliar words—I much prefer to use iBooks or the Kindle app.

Best free bet: iBooks

Pros:
• free
• simple but elegant UI
• handles PDF files as well

Cons:
• not many customization features
• no access to catalogs–only the terrible iBooks Store, which you should avoid at all cost unless you like having your ebooks locked to iOS devices and nothing else (not Mac desktops)
• I’ve had trouble with the app running sluggishly if I add a lot of notes and highlights to a text.

To get EPUB files from other online catalogs into iBooks, you’ll have to access them from Mobile Safari, then choose iBooks when you download the file. Alternately, you can drag-and-drop non-DRMed files into the Books section of iTunes and sync that way. Fine, it’s not a great solution, but it’s free.

Not recommended (except perhaps for public library checkouts):

Bluefire is more or less useless to me. Its choice of catalogs is paltry and locked down, meaning you can’t add your own, and its key functionality—the ability to read titles locked to your Adobe Digital Editions account—is duplicated in other apps. You can annotate your books, but you can’t export any notes, which makes the feature rather pointless.

Overdrive is only good for accessing library ebooks and audiobooks, and it doesn’t offer basics like layout options, the ability to annotate, or a dictionary. If you use the Kindle app, and your library has the title in the Kindle format, you’ll find it’s a much better option—Amazon will back up your notes so you can access them later, and you can take advantage of the Kindle platform’s bookmark syncing.

(Image credits: casket, wickenden; frame, John Loo)

I’m sure it’s more complicated than I understand, but right now it sounds a lot like the type of page and asset caching that Opera uses (used?) for its mobile browser, or that some cable companies use to reduce download times for customers.

Since Amazon Silk essentially routes all of your web browsing on the Fire through Amazon’s servers, it also raises a significant privacy question, but so far today I haven’t seen many mainstream media types address that. After all the dorky excitement over consumer technology dies down, I imagine we’ll start seeing headlines like “Do you trust Amazon with your web browsing?” and “Amazon Silk lets Bezos watch your every move”.

Update: The Amazon Silk Terms and Conditions agreement mentions that you might have the option to turn off the Amazon server caching and browse the web as you normally would, but since the word “generally” pops up several times in that section, I don’t think Amazon is making any legally enforceable guarantee to absolute privacy. (And that’s if you can turn off the Silk functionality on the Kindle Fire at all—there’s some confusing wording in the Terms that suggests the Silk browser may be on a “computer” instead of the Fire tablet when this feature is offered.)

Before the end of this year, someone shopping for an ereader device will be able to choose from five price points for a Kindle, from $80 to $200, with the top end offering a decent low-cost alternative to a Nook Color or an iPad. Actually, the $80 option is available starting today.

You should know, however, that all of the E Ink Kindles come with the “special offers” screensaver ads; expect to pay at least $40 extra if you don’t want to see advertising. The Kindle Fire tablet doesn’t include the screensaver ads and is only offered at one price.

$79 – Kindle – Wi-Fi only, dpad navigation, no physical keyboard. (It’s the middle device in the trio above.) Available today.

$99 – Kindle Touch – Wi-Fi only, touchscreen navigation, no physical keyboard. (Device on left in trio above.) Ships in November; U.S. only.

$149 – Kindle Touch 3G – Physically the same as the $99 model, but includes free 3G wireless access. Ships in November; U.S. only.

$199 – Kindle Fire – Color 7″ touchscreen, runs Android apps, designed to display all types of entertainment content, including games, music and video. Ships in November; U.S. only.

Here’s an in-context shot of the Kindle Fire so you can get a better idea of how small it is.

Does it upset you that all the new Kindles lack physical keyboards? Don’t worry—for now at least, what we know as the Kindle 3 will still be available in Wi-Fi and 3G flavors for $99 and $139.

I’m not sure anyone thought we’d break the $100 barrier so quickly and by so much, but I think this demonstrates just how closely Amazon is following Apple’s successful iPod strategy—with iPods, Nanos and Shuffles at multiple price points—from last decade.

The full story along with device specs is over on Teleread, but here’s my interview:

What was the inspiration for this?

Susan Edwards: Although our books are or will shortly be available through all the major ebook vendors, we do still have a lot of loyal customers who buy almost solely from our website. We wanted to provide them with a non-proprietary reader that they could use for all their ebooks, but that would also make it easy to continue to buy directly from us, where they still get the best price and can take advantage of all of our sales and purchase incentives.

Plus, we do a lot of conventions, trade shows, contests, p.r. and giveaways. We had been purchasing proprietary e-readers for those purposes and thought, why not have our own e-reader? It’s great advertising and it, again, makes it easy for people to come to our site and buy directly from us.

This model, which we’re calling the eCave C71, is a very limited edition test run that we are rolling out at our RomantiCon convention. We will give many of them away as prizes, and so will be able to work closely with a limited population of users to make sure the device does everything they want it to before deciding on future models and functions.

Can you provide some details on the device? It looks like the Prology Latitute T-701.

SE: It’s very similar to that one. It wasn’t manufactured by them, but has very similar specs and does use the same operating system.

This first model does not come with a cover, though it fits the sleeves available for the Nook and the Kindle 3. Right now, we’re testing the water with the device to gauge interest. If we decide to go larger scale, we will probably have a selection of our own covers to choose from.

You mentioned a “vibrating key” functionality. What!?

SE: It’s a tactile feedback function, like the clicking sound you get when you tap keys. We chose the vibration rather than the usual click mostly just for fun. We are, after all, primarily an erotic romance publisher, and we like to have fun with that, so we often inject a note of fun around the sexuality of our content.

Have you set a price?

SE: We are still working on determining an exact price point. We would definitely like to sell it for less than other e-readers, with some built-in purchasing incentives: something like a combination of free e-books preloaded on the device and a discount on the purchase of additional e-books. We are looking at different models in a range of prices for the future.

How does EC plan on handling warranty and service issues?

SE: We have a great customer service department, so most of the support issues will be handled via that existing department. Any problems we can’t solve through that avenue, we will work directly with the manufacturer on and we will replace any faulty devices. That’s part of the reason we are starting out small, to make sure we are getting dependable devices from reliable manufacturers who stand behind their products.

The similar Prology and Digma models seems to offer a lot of extra functionality, like a radio, photo viewer, voice recorder app, calculator, and so on. Will those things be in the EC model, or is it going to be customized to work solely as an ebook reader?

SE: The ECave C71 features photo, music and video functionality. It truly is a multi-media device at a fraction of the cost of most tablet PCs. It does not feature wireless connectivity but can be accessed via the usb cable provided or by loading various media onto a separate MicroSD card.

Do you see this as a way to exert some control over your market segment when it comes to ebooks, which is currently dominated by huge companies like Amazon, Apple and B&N?

SE: Many of our customers have been buying, downloading and reading our books on their computers and other digital devices for years. We have always worked to keep up with their preferences by providing our books in whatever format they prefer so that we can retain them as customers. This is really just an extension of that practice, and it very definitely does help us to retain direct access to our market segment.

If you use a Kindle, you can either authorize ReadBeam to send content directly to your device’s email address, or you can leave it blank and you’ll receive the Kindle-friendly .mobi files directly, which you can then copy over. They don’t always work (the International Herald Tribune was unreadable for me, for example), but hey, it’s not like it has to cost you anything to try it out.

The service is free for now, but on the ReadBeam blog there’s a post from last April that suggests the developer has considered offering some sort of freemium service to let you subscribe to feeds outside the default set. Or you can do it yourself on Calibre, of course.

Today, however, they’re offering free access to their website for 24 hours. You have to register, but there’s no credit card info required, just name, address, and email. There’s also no verification process, so theoretically you can make up anything you want if you’d prefer to remain private.

You’ve probably already heard that Consumer Reports recently named the new Nook Simple Touch ereader the best of the 6″ models, beating out the Kindle 3 by one point (the scores were 78 and 77 respectively). But now you can see the full list, and see how everyone stacks up on a range of features and performance criteria.

Consumer Reports free access offer [via Consumerist]

Disclosure: I used to blog for Consumerist, which is owned by the parent organization that owns Consumer Reports. None of that past professional relationship has any bearing on this post, however.

Now there’s Delivereads, a free service that goes one step further by picking out the articles for you, then emailing them directly to your free.kindle.com email address.

Delivereads is a lot like (yes, more links are coming up) the websites longreads.com and longform.org, which both curate worthwhile articles and essays for you. But you still browse for articles at those sites and then choose which ones to email, whereas Delivereads automates everything after the initial sign up.

Whether you like what Delivereads sends will depend on whether you like founder Dave Pell’s taste in articles. He’s listed some of his recent picks on the Delivereads sign up page.

The new ad-supported version — which now gives Amazon an even wider gap between its cheapest ereader and the nearest competition — will swap out the default screensavers with new ones that are downloaded periodically from Amazon. These new screensavers won’t feature images of authors or printing presses, but instead promotions for various products or sales.

Ads will also appear on the home screen of the device, although I wasn’t able to find any illustrations of what these home page ads will look like.

Amazon says in the coming weeks it will also introduce a sort of “Hot or Not” website/app/something called “AdMash,” where users can vote on which ads they think are more appealing, as seen in the illustration below. In other words, it will crowdsource some of the ad selection process and turn it into a game for Kindle readers who are bored enough to participate.

An example of the forthcoming AdMash voting app.

Amazon says there will also be a settings pane where you can adjust your personal preferences for the screensaver ads:

From the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com, customers can use Kindle Screensaver Preferences to indicate whether they like to see more or less screensavers that include elements such as landscapes and scenery, architecture, travel images, photography, and illustrations. Together, AdMash voting and Kindle Screensaver Preferences help Amazon present sponsored screensavers that customers find attractive and engaging.

One thing I’m not clear on yet is whether or not these $114 models will be hackable. If so, then it might be possible to disable the screensaver ads and use your own images, although clearly this would violate both the spirit and probably the fine print of any agreement you made with Amazon in order to score the cheaper device. Still, I’m sure someone will try it in the coming days.

For more information, check out www.amazon.com/aboutkindlespecialoffers.

The refurbished model comes with a 1-year limited warranty and a 14-day return policy (you pay return shipping).

On page speed and usability, this older Nook model will never compete against the Kindle 3, but on the other hand: $80! That’s a great price.

Barnes & Noble eBay Store [via eBookNewser]

(Photo: allaboutgeorge)

There’s lots o’ fine print as always, but the main rules are you have to be a legal resident of the U.S. or Puerto Rico, and be 18 years or older. You can enter twice.

“Mobile Million Sweepstakes” [via Android Community] ]]> http://booksprung.com/american-airlines-giving-away-30-nook-colors-this-month/feed 0