AppCraver » Books

IndieBound Promotes Business for Local Booksellers

Michael Alexander — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:00:18 +0000

IndieBound — Like everyone else, independent bookstores are struggling in today’s knuckle-dragging economy, but their problems started years ago with the arrival of big-box bookstores in malls.

IndieBound goes a long way to remind us that we should support local businesses, like independent booksellers, which keeps jobs and dollars in the community. According to the American Booksellers Association, $68 of $100 spent at a local business stays in the community whereas only $43 of $100 when locals shop at national chain stores.

I should point out that ABA is the copyright holder of this app, so you’ll have to consider the source if the numbers seem suspect.

IndieBound is similar to Stanza and other apps aimed at book buyers (eBook and hardcopy). You can use the app to scan lists of recommended title and bestsellers, search for titles and find nearby stores based on your iPhone’s location.

IndieBound features lists of monthly great reads, notable books, summer reading and other categories from the perspective of the local Mom & Pop bookstores, assuming they’re still alive. Great reads and notables are updated monthly.

Tap a category on the list, tap a book on the list and read all about it — from what Indie Booksellers have to say to the book’s cover.

You’ll also be able to pull up a list of stores that sell the book, sorted by nearest to farthest. Tap anyone of the sellers on the same list, and IndieBound will transport you to the seller’s Web site where you can buy the book online.

Tapping the Store Finder brings up a lists of bookstores in your immediate surroundings. Scroll the list, poke an item and you’ll get details about the shop such as location, telephone number hours and a description (on the top of my lists are always places that offer free Wi-Fi).

IndieBound is a no-frills, easy-to use app. It’s a bit plain, but that’s for the good because IndieBound a quick and pleasing read.

rating: 7/10
app_name: IndieBound

myBooks Tracks Your Reads, but Not as Well as Similar Apps

Michael Alexander — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:30:16 +0000

Netwalk’s myBooks is a database for your personal library.

You can enter the name of the book manually, by typing information into the provided fields (year, genre, purchased, whether you loaned it to a friend) or you can search for the title on the Internet and select the book you own from a list.

Info related to the book will be inserted into the corresponding fields. With myBooks you can also automatically go to Amazon to view more information about the books.

Many of the books you’ll find in myBooks will probably have a image of the book’s cover and that will automatically be inserted into the same fields as before. You also have the option of taking a snapshot of the book’s cover and importing it from your camera roll.

Once you’ve cataloged your books, you can sort them by genre and search by title.

Unfortunately, myBooks really doesn’t measure up to other book database apps that I’ve reviewed in recent months. None are identical, but I think they offer more advantages for book lovers.

I liked SnapTell Explorer, from the company of the same name, which I reviewed last November. If you snap shoot a book’s cover, it will automatically pull up information about the book, a list of places online where you can buy the title and search for more information about it. SnapTell works for DVDs, CDs and videogames as well.

If there is one thing that myBooks and SnapTell have in common is that both of them crashed on me, at least once. When I tapped Purchase, myBooks shut down. SnapTell inexplicably quit on me several times (it’s been updated since, so that problem may/may not have been fixed). SnapTell is free, unlike myBooks, which is $1.99.

I also liked Next Read from Square Wheel Software, which I reviewed in January. What Next Read aims to do is make it easy for you to keep track of books you might like to read, whether recommended to you by a friend or discovered while browsing a book store. The app also enables you to score the book using a point system that’s based on the credibility of the source that informed you of the book. Next read is $0.99.

The thing I like most about SnapTell and Next Read, is they did most of the work for you automatically, using well-done interfaces. They simply looked better (larger book covers) and provided the sort of information about a title that I might want to know. Although neither is designed especially as book databases, you can use them as such, admittedly without some of the database functionality of myBooks.

I think if I were to want to maintain a database of a large collection of books, I would do that on my desktop, as I already do with my last collection of CDs, rather than on the iPhone or iPod touch, which make entering large amounts of data a chore.

app_name: myBook
rating: 7/10

Wattpad Shines on Amateur Writers

Michael Alexander — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:00:48 +0000

Wattpad, from the company by the same name, is an example of socialism in action. Wattpad was founded on the idea it would be an electronic meeting place where any community member could share his or her own content and read content written or contributed by any other community member.

Anyone can upload gothic novels, romance stories, fan fiction, poetry, essays, jokes — you name it — including copyright-free, classic literature. The works are available on Wattpad’s Web site as well as on the iPhone and other mobile platforms.

Wattpad says in a news release that it’s now the world’s most popular destination to upload, read and share books on mobile phones with more than 100,000 ebooks created by the community. Its Wattpad application already accounts for 30 percent of its traffic, according to Eva Lau, COO of Wattpad.

With all that ballyhoo, I downloaded Wattpad for a look-see. I have to admit that even before looking at Wattpad, I figured that I would be reading a lot of “It was a dark and stormy night” kind of stuff. I was wrong, thank goodness. There’s a vast variety of material, not only from amateurs but also literature written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other famed authors.

Launch Wattpad, and you’ll immediately go to My Library, a list of titles. You can tap one to read or edit the list. The second thing you’ll see are banner ads along the bottom of the screen, which is becoming increasingly common for free apps like Wattpad.

I tapped Printcrime, the first item on the list, which apparently was submitted by an amateur (it was positively woeful, so I’m assuming it was intended as a joke). I tapped the Edit button in the upper right corner of Wattpad, which enabled me to delete some of the less-interesting titles on the list.

After poking around and skimming some of the other titles, I tapped the search button on the bottom menu. On the Search page is a search bar (of course) as well as filters for What’s New, What’s Hot and Recommended Books. I decided to look at What’s Hot. On the list is something titled “71 thing [sic] to know!” It was listed three times, so I figured I’d check it out. It was an amateur-written contribution and I recommend the writer keep his day job. Why the work was listed three times, I have no clue.

I decide to try “Recommended Books” and up popped a list of articles from Wikipedia.

Like many e-book readers these days, you can adjust scroll speed, typeface, typeface color, font and background color.

Wattpad works like most ereaders I’ve seen, although it’s not as slick as Stanza, my favorite ereader. What differientitates Wattpad is its content more than the app. I didn’t find any classic lit that I can’t get on Stanza either.

app_name: Wattpad
rating: 8/10

Kindle for iPhone a Reader’s Delight

Derek Walter — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:30:39 +0000

Amazon’s Kindle has revolutionized how many people approach reading. The iPhone has done the same for mobile phones. Combine the two and you have your favorite mobile apps and books all in one device.

The strength of the Kindle for iPhone is the access it provides to Amazon’s vast online store of ebooks. The best part is that you can be on your computer surfing the Amazon site, buy a book, and it is automatically synced to your iPhone. If you have a Kindle, the relationship is even better. Books purchased can be accessed and synced between both devices.

Reading on the iPhone is a pleasant experience. From the home screen is a list of the books you have downloaded. There are five font choices for the text, with the default probably being large enough for most readers. But you can go two larger or two smaller depending on your preference. Turning the page is just a swipe of the finger. You can also “bookmark” your page by tapping on a plus sign on the lower menu bar. A virtual page corner is turned on the screen. When re-starting Kindle for iPhone you will be taken to this page.

Probably the only downside is that browsing for new books to buy can not be done from inside the app. There is a link that takes you to the Amazon Kindle store, but it is a bit of a pain to browse on the iPhone. However, buying books from the Amazon Kindle store is a great experience. By using your Amazon account and linking it to your iPhone, with just a couple of clicks the book appears inside the Kindle app. Some users on the Kindle iTunes page reported problems in syncing the bookmarked page and other issues between their Kindles and iPhones. As this is version 1.0 hopefully the developers can get to the bottom of some of the bugs. The vision of the Kindle for iPhone app is outstanding and should continue to develop.

There are several other good ebook readers on the iPhone, but none offer the selection of books available through Amazon. Combine this also with a Kindle and you are in mobile reading heaven.

iSurvive Loses Itself in a Wilderness of Words

Michael Alexander — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:00:23 +0000

I wanted to like iSurvive Wilderness but in the end, it lost me. North New Orleans Blade Works’ app aims to be a pocket survival guide for anyone who might lose their way in the wilds and need to find food, start a fire, navigate, perform first aid and do all the other things they teach you to do in Boy Scouts.

The idea is a good one but it’s badly executed.

iSurvive Wilderness is essentially an e-Book with pages and pages of text that describes survival situations that you might encounter. For example, you might need shelter, build a fire, tie knots and so on.

What iSurvive Wilderness fails to do at nearly every key juncture is to describe what actions you should take in a given situation in a way that is meaningful.

For example: Tap Shelter from iSurvive’s main menu, and from there go to Elements. On the Elements page, here’s what you’ll get: “A shelter must protect you from the elements like rain, sleet, snow, wind, and even the sun. If your shelter does not meet this requirement there is a problem that you must correct.”

Then the author goes on to explain that you should place large leaves on your shelter to keep the rain out and if it’s snowing the roof of your shelter needs to be strong. The writer sums up with: “The ground is hard and for the most part uncomfortable.”

iSurvive Wilderness is chock full of “don’t stand in the rain” advice that surely must be common sense to everyone.

The main problem with iSurvive Wilderness is that the author attempts to describe in words what photos and diagrams would do better.

Even in the few instances where iSurvive’s developer includes photos, the information isn’t has helpful as someone might like. For example, under knot tying, you’ll learn: “The bowline knot, also known as the rescue knot, is an unmovable loop when tied correctly.” That’s good to know, I guess. I couldn’t make out from the four pictures just how to tie the knot and I have no idea what I would do with it if I could.

app_name: iSurvive Wilderness
rating: 4/10

The Bird & The Snail — Knock Knock: A Storybook App with Added Value

Jennifer Beam — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:00:40 +0000

The Bird & The Snail — Knock Knock is a new interactive storybook app released by Haunted House Publishing. The story of a bird and a snail who thoughtlessly gobble up an apple, which turns out to be a little worm’s home, is depicted through charming hand-drawn charcoal images that become animated throughout the story. As most children’s tales do, The Bird & The Snail reveals a tidy little moral, in this case one of consideration and friendship.

There are several things about The Bird & The Snail — Knock Knock that make it more than just a storybook app. The three viewing modes, which include a tap and scroll mode, watch mode, and paint mode, provide added depth to the overall story concept and definitely help broaden the age range for which the app is appropriate. The story itself is written in a rhyming scheme and can be read by the viewer in tap mode or simply listened to in the narrated watch mode. The paint mode reveals typical “paint” style coloring pages featuring images of the story’s characters.

By combining three different modes, the value of The Bird & The Snail is definitely increased, but maybe not enough to warrant the full asking price of five bucks. The watch mode alone could prove fairly valuable to parents with young children when presented with a situation where quiet entertainment is necessary in a pinch. As the story is read, the characters display a few quaint animated actions and sounds and the story progresses with no need to do anything but watch and listen. Conversely, in tap mode, viewers must read the story page by page on their own and can tap on the characters to animate them before swiping to the next page.

As an added value, the paint mode does provide a fairly realistic rendering of paper and watercolor paints. There are a total of 40 different charcoal images and the included options within paint mode, such as different brush strokes and line placement show that some thought went into its design. I especially like the ability to remove the provided image all together and freely paint on a blank canvas. While paint mode is surely a nice feature, the navigation is a bit too complex. Older children and adults can easily ascertain how to apply the various options by reading the “help” tutorial, but younger children may have a bit of difficulty as the provided icons are obscure. However, if parents apply the settings first, children can easily shake the phone to switch to new pages to color. I also found a small draw back in the amount of pressure needed to get a response, which would not encumber an adult, but might frustrate smaller fingers.

Overall, I found The Bird & The Snail to be a charming enough story with features that can be appreciated by iPhone/iPod touch users with younger children.

Here is a video preview of The Bird & The Snail – Knock Knock from YouTube:

app_name: The Bird & The Snail – Knock Knock
rating: 7/10

AppEngines Releases Credit Secrets Investigated Using iPhone Reader

Barbara Holbrook — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:00:31 +0000

We were recently offered the chance to review Credit Secrets Investigated, an ebook by Tony D’Andrea published for the iPhone by AppEngines. You may have noticed, we don’t do too many book reviews around here. However, there’s been a lot of talk recently about reading on the iPhone — especially after the “there’s an app for that” commercials started highlighting apps like Classics, closely followed by the release of Stanza. So, AppCraver is going to look at a few ebooks. To be clear, we’re not going to do too much in the way of judging of the content. There are shelves and shelves of books, but there are fewer book publishing companies for the iPhone. Each company has their own unique reading program. So, we will focus more on the software behind the app.

Credit Secrets Investigated is one of 150 books released by AppEngines for reading on the iPhone or iPod touch. AppEngines has a pretty good system for mobile reading. It’s not as easy on the eyes as the Classics app, but I found it much more pleasurable than reading in Stanza which tends to have the text to squished together.

Like other e-reading apps, users can tap or swipe to move to the next page or pinch to zoom in and out.

AppEngines also includes a search feature. This is especially handy in a book like Credit Secrets Investigated because you can search for terms like bankruptcy, or credit report and then scroll through the pages to find the highlighted terms. I wish that results could be returned more like an index with hotlinks to the search term because browsing for a word like “credit” in a several hundred page book can take a while. Still, it’s a nice feature to have available.

AppEngines’ ereader offers quick access to navigation and options by tapping at the top of the screen. A quick tap gives readers access to chapter listings and the search function, as well as a light/dark toggle which inverses the screen color from black text on a white page to white text on a black page. Experts will tell you that light text on a dark background is harder on your eyes, but there are some situations where it is easier, it’s nice that AppEngines let me choose. Overall, I still prefer reading on the soft cream background of Classics, and would love to see this added to the options menu.

When it comes to mobile reading AppEngines has done a more than decent job of creating software that will make the process enjoyable for the majority of folks that choose to do their reading on a tiny screen. I still think many ebook publishers have some growing to do before I’m ready to stop buying paper books, though.

Credit Secrets Investigated is a good candidate for this type of reading. The search feature and ability to skip around at the tap of a chapter is ideally suited for ebooks that attempt to educate the reader. Whether readers will find the information useful is less clear. Thankfully, the author has provided a sample chapter for download. (Warning: email sign-up required.) You can read first and buy later. If the information suits you, the iPhone reader from AppEngine is a good way to browse the content.

If you decide to buy the book, be sure to check out the helpful how-to for the AppEngines electronic book reader.

app_name: Credit Secrets Investigated
rating: 7/10

Stanza eReader Opens New Chapter for Reading on iPhone

Michael Alexander — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:30:04 +0000

Put a sign that says “Free” on anything from a broken Beta VCR to a basket of kittens, and I’ll probably take it home. When I came across Lexcycle’s e-Reader Stanza in the App Store, I grabbed it, even though I seldom read lengthy docs on my iPhone. I’m glad I did.

Stanza is an e-reader à la, Amazon Kindle. It supports a wide variety of e-book formats: DRM-free Amazon Kindle, Mobipocket, Microsoft LIT, PalmDoc, Word, RTF, HTML, PDF and yet others. Stanza iPhone/iPod touch supports e-Reader with or without DRM and ePub without DRM.

You can download e-books from a variety of sources from online books sellers such as Fictionwise, book publishers, best-sellers lists, newspapers & magazine publishers and other sources. One category I particularly like is “Now a Major Motion Picture,” which consists of books that have been made into movies. I like to read “movie books” so I can compare the author’s vision with that of the director or scriptwriter’s.

I paid $0.99 a couple of weeks ago for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age, a collection of short stories that includes “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I could have gotten it free using Stanza had I only known. At least I know enough now not to drop $7 for the movie and $5 for a bucket of overly salted popcorn.

With Stanza books are stored in a “Library,” and you can sort them by title, authors, subjects and your latest reads. You can create categories for your books in the library too. If you are a fan of Jane Austin, for example, you might create a category just for her books.

You can flip through titles in landscape mode as though they were CD album covers. You can choose to read titles in portrait or landscape mode. Your settings for each book are: change type face, font, background colors, line spacing and more, just like other e-books I’ve looked. Stanza so bookmarks pages.

For me, Stanza’s most outstanding feature is that I can access some 50,000 copyright-free books and many thousands of other publications at Project Gutenberg. I don’t have to pay a dime for all the reference materials I could possibly want and access them on my iPhone.

Lexcycle also offers Stanza in Mac and PC versions that enable you to transfer your e-books from desktop to palmtop. Neither will run reliably on 64-bit machines, according to the Stanza Web site.

Stanza’s Setting features include auto-load last book, dim screen when idle, notification, cover, display thumbnails and a few others.

My only beef is that Stanza can be slow to download titles, and switch between them in your library and, on occasion, when going from one page to the next.

The price for Stanza is right, though. Besides, my wife says I can keep it.

Classics Browse Cherished Literature With a Digital Touch

Issen Alibris — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:00:10 +0000

It isn’t exactly the holidays yet but we can already think of a couple of applications that might be gift worthy. Classics by Andrew Kaz and Phillip Ryu is just that kind of application.

Classics is an eReader application that includes full versions of literary favorites from the public domain. Download Classics and you’ll be instantly treated to novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Call of the Wild, Paradise Lost, Flatland, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Jungle Book, Hound of the BaskerVilles, Alice in Wonderland and The Metamorphosis. Students and bookworms will forever be armed with a digital copy of these cherished literary works.

Priced at $2.99, Classics is certainly a bargain for such a large quantity of work. The application has amazing colors and a warm feel and even has a page turn feature. The page turn feature is one of its most memorable functions. It’s as if you’re turning the page of an actual book. At the moment, Classics only has a limited number of titles but the developers have indicated that they will offer additional titles with future app updates.

While Classics is visually impressive with its library-like feel and rich colors, there are still a few features that are left to be desired. The ability to change the font size and colors would be nice. It might also be nice to offer users the option to choose some of their personal favorites and have additional titles recommended. Additionally, since it seems very likely that students will use Classics, a function to highlight or make notes in passages would be particularly useful.

Classics is a nice addition to the App Store. We suggest you give it a read and see for yourself.

app_name: Classics
rating: 8/10