samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
samvara ([personal profile] samvara) wrote2011-10-24 09:29 am
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RIP Stanza

I picked up an iPad2 and upgraded to OS5, no Stanza is a serious problem and right now I think I'll simply be doing my Uni stuff, traveling locally and web browsing in the iPad2 and doing all my reading on the (never to be upgraded) iPad1. ETA: Or I could just downgrade the iPad2 and not use OS5...

If people have any other application suggestions I'd love to hear them, I've got Stanza, Kindle, Kobo, Bluefire, Kobo and ShuBook installed right now and Stanza was the outright winner before OS5 came along. My survey of current alternatives points to ShuBook as the closest to a successor but only because it has better readability options. There doesn't appear to be anything with library management / browse functionality.
  • ShuBook has good font choices and page layout options (although font size selection does not carry through to each new book opened).
  • It also identifies and doesn't import duplicates if importing via iTunes > Apps > ShuBook Documents > "Add" which I quite like (don't try to import all 1044 books at once btw, iTunes can't cope and starts throwing memory errors).
  • To my sorrow ShuBook doesn't import multiple books via browsing Calibre but I console myself at least it has a bulk importing tool .
It feels like iBooks, Kindle, Bluefire and Kobo have all been designed on the assumption that I read one book at a time, delete it and load a new book after. Since I am actually a relentless reader of short and long works and a re-reader, what I need is the ability to find all the cyberpunk works, all the space opera etc. What I want is metadata. I want to be able to tag works and then browse those tags.
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prk: (Default)

[personal profile] prk 2011-10-24 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
I've gone to MegaReader.

Not as good as Stanza, but the developer is enthusiastic, and I have high hopes for it.

Most importantly, it supports online OPDS catalogues.

Doesn't have local tag browsing yet though.

prk
st_aurafina: Rainbow DNA (Default)

[personal profile] st_aurafina 2011-10-24 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
Here from network - I'm switching between Megareader and Shubooks. Megareader crashes on some fic downloaded from the Archive, but Shubook has that clunky thing where you have to manually reset the font. There is no perfect solution, which is frustrating because Stanza pretty much was perfect for me.

I'm really just dropping in to mourn Stanza with someone else. *sighs*
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