stanza

Read through many book formats on your iDevice with Stanza

Stanza is a reader for books, available in apps for most devices. We downloaded Stanza from iTunes, and it installed quickly. The app is free.

Stanza lets you read books on your iDevice using a simple, elegant interface. Notably, compared with other reader apps, Stanza supports a wide range of file formats from PDF to EPUB, including those with DRM and without. In fact, we tested Stanza with almost a hundred different books over the space of a couple of months of commuting, and it opened every file we threw at it from different sources. When launched, Stanza shows a … Read more

Comics, PDFs, and more: Stanza for iPad is a universal (and free) killer e-reader

The iPad is rapidly becoming a Swiss army knife for e-reading apps of all types. Just in case you find Apple's iBooks disappointing (and most of us do), there are the Kindle, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble apps. While each has its advantages, they're generally not compatible with each other. They also make sharing and file-format recognition beyond their e-books pretty difficult.

Well, here's the good news: Stanza just hit the iPad last night.

Stanza has been a longtime favorite of iPhone and iPod Touch users--it accesses a variety of e-book stores directly, can read several formats, and has an amazing amount of font, spacing and color customization. It was a bit of a surprise to see this latest update, simply because Amazon acquired Stanza last year to create the backbone for their Kindle app.

The universal iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad app update that has just arrived, version 3.0, looks superficially just like Stanza did before, albeit on a larger iPad screen. Unlike the Kindle and Barnes & Noble apps, Stanza can still browse Feedbooks, Project Gutenberg, and several other book collections directly within the app. The app doesn't connect with Amazon, nor does it offer any indications of an Amazon link.

The additions to this version, however, are eye-opening: Stanza now supports PDFs and comic book files in CBR format (yes, full-color ones). That comic book reader we were excited about that costs about 7 dollars? Irrelevant.

And here's the final kicker: Stanza also happens to be free. … Read more

Amazon snaps up iPhone e-book reader app Stanza

Maybe Steve Jobs doesn't think there's a market for e-books on the iPhone, but Amazon seems to. On Monday, it acquired Lexcycle, the company that developed the popular Stanza iPhone and iPod Touch e-book reader application, for an undisclosed sum.

At first glance, it's unclear exactly why Amazon would buy Lexcycle when it has its own successful Kindle iPhone e-book reader application. But it appears to be hedging its bets by picking up what it thinks is "an innovative company" that works across multiple mobile platforms.

Clearly, Amazon is looking beyond the Kindle 2 and … Read more

Kindle is not the best iPhone e-reader

By now, you know you don't need a Kindle 2 to read books electronically. You can use the new Kindle for iPhone app.

But Kindle's not the only way to read books on a iPhone or iPod Touch. There are two other readers well worth checking out:

The apps

eReader

eReader is one of the most popular iPhone apps in the Apple App Store and it's the second-most downloaded program in the store's "Books" section. It's well liked for good reason.

eReader is designed extremely well, and it makes flipping through pages of … Read more

High school was wrong. It's good to be a Bookworm

In our continuing milking of Kindle 2 hype, here's another e-reader story for your reading pleasure.

Bookworm is an open-source ePub reader that allows you to upload, organize, and read your e-books from the Web on your computer, as well as from Web-capable mobile devices including the iPhone.

Once you've downloaded an ePub book, simply upload it via Bookworm's site, and you'll have access to it from your computer or mobile device. If you have an iPhone, there is an option to view in the book in the e-book reader Stanza, if you have that application … Read more

Stanza now over 40,000 eBooks strong

Stanza (Download.com link | iTunes Link) from Lexcycle is one of the most downloaded iPhone apps, but it previously could not handle any content that was purchased from the eReader store. In order for you to view these formats you had to use eReader for the iPhone (iTunes Link), but that is not true any more.

Lexcycle has signed a license agreement with Fictionwise, the company behind the eReader format, to bring that eReader-compatible books to Stanza. Lexcycle will be launching a Stanza eReader store, giving Stanza users total access to 40,000 or more eReader titles. Stanza was recently … Read more

Featured Freeware: Stanza

Stanza is a free application that lets you read electronic books on your iPhone. It's an excellent value, albeit with a no-frills approach that stops short of handling DRM-protected content and docs with heavy formatting or images.

Stanza provides a comfortable, customizable reading experience. You can quickly change text size via a slider in the settings, or using pinch and reverse pinch, adjust line and margin spacing, and choose from many different fonts. You can even pick your own text and background colors, in case you want old-school, CRT-style green on black. You can flip through chapters, rotate portrait … Read more

iPhone apps of the week

Before I unveil this week's iPhone apps, I wanted to see if anyone else had the same iPhone problem I have. I keep having this issue with iPhone app updates that won't finish downloading and demand that I connect to iTunes to finish the update. But even when connected to iTunes, not all of the apps update and I'm left with that number on my home screen saying I need to update when I've done everything I can to complete the process. I also get some update notices dated before I downloaded the app, which clearly … Read more