Got a tip for us? Share it...
• • RSS

iPhone Now the Biggest eBook Reader?

Friday October 3, 2008 4:46 am PDT by Arnold Kim
Forbes reveals that Stanza [App Store], a free eBook reading application for the iPhone, has distributed over 395,000 copies via the App Store.

Forbes notes that this exceeds the estimated number of Kindles sold for 2008 and likely makes the iPhone the biggest eBook reader on the market. To be fair Stanza is a free download, but the intent is still there.

Stanza, like Kindle, lets users download new content directly to their device. It has a snappy interface that allows readers to flip through a book simply by tapping the edges of the page and responds far faster than Kindle's poky E-ink screen, which takes about a second to turn pages. On the downside, the iPhone's LCD screen can strain eyes after hours of reading and chews through battery power far faster than Kindle or the Sony Reader, both of which can go without recharging for days.

At the moment, however, all of the titles available to Stanza are public domain titles while the Kindle commands premium pay titles. Stanza's developer is working on deals with major publishers to try to sell newer eBooks to its users.

"Once we've got that kind of deal done," says Prud'hommeaux, "you'll be able to do everything on the iPhone that you can now do on the Kindle: browse, purchase, download and read a book without interacting with your computer in any way."

Stanza users are said to have downloaded over 2 million of the public domain eBooks at this time.
[ 50 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
sonex
Posted: 44 months ago
yup got the communist manifesto :D
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Shasterball
Posted: 44 months ago
Just because people download a free program, doesn't mean they use it...
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Mykbibby
Posted: 44 months ago
Hilarious... Apple managed to take over a market they didn't even want to take over. :p
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
macdim
Posted: 44 months ago

Just because people download a free program, doesn't mean they use it...


Exactly. I downloaded this app, but I rarely use it for no particular reason. I would think that if someone invests money into hardware for a particular purpose most if not all are actually using them for that purpose. I'm sure many people have downloaded this app and it is just sitting on their phone or even in iTunes doing nothing...
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
SoSII
Posted: 44 months ago
dont forget there is also ereader which is free (and some others I think)..
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
CADer
Posted: 44 months ago
Exactly - I and my wife downloaded it but since it sucks and does work with most of my ebooks I deleted it - Bookshelf is way better and has many more options - and as soon as Apple gets the act together the 1.2 Update to Bookshelf will be out with tons of additional features!
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
johnnyjibbs
Posted: 44 months ago

Hilarious... Apple managed to take over a market they didn't even want to take over. :p

Good isn't it?! Sounds like people do still read then, but we all knew the Kindle wasn't going to sell with a look like that... :D
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
buddhahacker
Posted: 44 months ago
As it has previously been mentioned, the product is FREE! The fact that a few hundred thousand folks downloaded the product means little. Until you have monitized the product where it requires folks to hand over their hard earned cash you have no idea how successful a product is. If you gave out Sony Readers for free I have no doubt that millions would be "sold".

I have downloaded the product and used it twice. I found that it wasn't nearly as good as the other products which cost money and haven't used the product since. You need to get a certain number of lines of text on the screen to make an ereader feasible otherwise you are constantly moving your fingers to change the page. Older PDA's had a similar problem but at least the HP units had a simple thumb wheel on the side which made screen scrolling effortless. Screen scrolling with the iPhone is not effortless. The iPhone simply does not provide enough lines to screeen.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
nagromme
Posted: 44 months ago
I don't see much selection, and it's hard to browse. One section has authors sorted by a mix of first names and first initials! Maybe I'm missing something.

There's an older work (Sartre's Nausea) that I want to read, but I can't find it.)

Still, it's a start, and free. I like that the list views rotate to landscape, though.

What iPhone ebook readers do others recommend?

As for scrolling, I think I'd want:

* Landscape mode for big, wide lines of text

* Tap anywhere (other than a page-back-button in the corner) to auto-scroll down one screen (and then to the next page) so dragging is optional

* Ideally 3 screen-sized "segments" per page--no more than that

* Full-page-at-once view when in portrait mode

For the convenience of not always carrying a physical book or a second device, I think I'd find that useful.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Spanky Deluxe
Posted: 44 months ago
Honestly, I can't understand why Apple doesn't add eBooks to the iTunes store. They already have the distribution method in place and many people spend hours reading stuff on their iPhones and iPod Touches already!
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives

[ Read All Comments ]