Talk:Comparison of iOS e-reader software

This article was nominated for deletion on 16 May 2013. The result of the discussion was keep.

Why are two the most downloaded and used e-book reader software apps for iOS excluded?

The Barnes & Noble Nook and Google's Google Books reader apps for iOS have been available for years, are very feature rich and are as ubiquitous if not more so than any of the other software/apps for iOS listed, excepting the iOS reader which is bundled to the OS and cannot be removed w/o replacing the authorized firmware. I cannot help but suspect some agenda at work here as such an oversight would be impossible to make by anyone even mildly familiar with the topic they have chosen to edit on WP. Thistledowne (talk) 16:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's no "hidden agenda" or anything. Feel free to add them. This is Wikipedia, you can edit the article and I appreciate any help. :-) Philantrop (talk) 21:42, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for new columns / criteria

What about Ibis Reader and readMe -- do you think we should be including these? —HPG (talk), 13:07, 2011-01-01 (UTC)

Most certainly, yes! The more, the merrier - if they're notable. I simply didn't add them because I didn't know about them till yesterday. —Philantrop (talk) 20:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for new columns / criteria — DONE

Maybe we should have a column for "Import Method" (Dropbox, email, etc.) and a column for "In-app Book Deletion". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Broberds (talk • contribs) 19:03, 24 October 2011‎

Good idea. As part of "import method", we should definitely list Calibre, which seems to be the most commonly-mentioned grievance for apps that don't do it.

Under "Display features", what about adding "Customize paragraph space"?— Preceding unsigned comment added by HPG (talk • contribs) 01:27, 25 October 2011‎

Basically, "Import method" should be specified in Book source management features, I think. If there's a very common method, we could add a column for it. If it's less common, a "Miscellaneous" column and listing the methods in one of its cells would be nice, wouldn't it?

"In-app Book Deletion" certainly sounds like a good idea but is there any reader out there not allowing that? Even the Kindle app allows for "archiving" ebooks which, due to its nature, is, IMHO, similar to deletion.

The import method "Calibre" would be OPDS or its Bonjour/Zeroconf feature or both?

"Customize paragraph space" sounds good to me! Adding a column is really simple - add a line both in the header and footer listing of table columns and the corresponding line for the values. Here's the corresponding Help page. —Philantrop (talk) 04:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, believe it or not, Kobo doesn't let you delete books except through iTunes. It was my favorite until I found that out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Broberds (talk • contribs) 12:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that's really weird. I've added that as a note among the Special features for Kobo. (Btw, you can sign your comments by writing four tilde characters.) —Philantrop (talk) 16:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know its not nearly as important as other features but the price CAN be an important criteria for some. 58.6.192.218 (talk) 09:26, 31 October 2011 (UTC)barns_from_oz[reply]

I agree. The problem with adding it here, though, is that the price can change at any time. Thus, I don't think it would be a good idea to add it. —Philantrop(talk) 13:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is still an argument to record price. I am impressed by the scope and breadth of these tables, and think they an important contributor, without value judgements, to those who seek to compare eReaders. On the other hand, wikis like that are exactly the way to store data that CAN change; and in truth iPhone apps prices tend to change slowly. Further they almost never go up, only down. For those who use price as a criterion - and doubtless many people do - this is as good a place to record it as any?58.6.192.218 (talk) 13:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)bdc_from_oz[reply]

Ok, I checked and there's precedent for adding AppStore prices so I added a table for that. —Philantrop (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTCATALOG, point 5 recommends against adding prices and the criteria mentioned there make a lot of sense. Thus, I've removed the corresponding section from the artice. Philantrop (talk) 12:55, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion from MobileRead Forums: "Please add a column on whether the app can display two pages in landscape. I know iBooks and Kindle can, and Bluefire and Kobo cannot. Nook on the iPad gives you the option." Philantrop (talk) 16:55, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done.—Philantrop (talk) 19:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which readers spy on you?

It would be nice if this article indicated whether e-book readers spy on your reading (for example, reporting what you're reading and what page you're on to a central server). The Kindle reader does this; which other readers do so? Gdr 09:59, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, "spying" is rather subjective and, thus, not a good term for wikipedia. I've added a new column in the "Navigation features" table, though, called "Cloud Synchronisation" to specify whether reading positions, bookmarks, etc. are being synchronised remotely which is, I presume, what you mean. (Personally, I find this feature highly useful, YMMV.)—Philantrop (talk) 19:30, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Consider re-adding

I added Snapplify after independent research and see it has been removed citing no independent sources, the Snapplify wikipedia page that I compiled has an extensive list of independent sources and mentions of its use and users. No self-promotion is evident, and it helps to show the comparisons of currently available iOS eReader software (which it seems is the purpose of this page). Contact me on my talk page if you would like to discuss this. LAJ007 (talk) 09:38, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed changes

I would like to add the Ebook Reader app to the article, under the eBookMobi row. It would have the following information.

Table 'Navigation features': Product: Ebook Reader, Pagination: Yes, Rotation Lock: Yes, Auto-scroll: No, Progress indicator: In library and in-book, Backward/forward: Yes, Table of Contents: Yes, Bookmarks: Unlimited, Resume: Yes, Cloud Synchronisation: Yes, Go To: Yes, Full text search: Yes

Table 'Display features': Product: Ebook Reader, Multi-column mode: No, Styles (bold/italic/etc.): Yes, Page Turn Effects: Yes, Themes: No, Day/Night Mode: Yes, Enable/Disable sleep mode: No (Disabled by default), Brightness control: Yes, Indent Paragraph: No, Enable/Disable CSS: No, Enable/disable Hyphenation: No, Customize margins: No, Customize text alignment: No, Customize font: Yes, Customize spacing: line/paragraph: No

Table 'Edit/tool features': Product: Ebook Reader, Highlight: Yes, Annotate: Yes, Edit Meta-data: No, Online dictionary: No, Offline dictionary: No, Lookup Wikipedia: No, Translate: No, Share: Facebook, Twitter, eMail, Google+, TTS support: No, DRM support: Adobe DRM, Export to iTunes: Yes

Table 'Book source management features': Product: Ebook Reader, Book store(s): No, Book Search: No, In-app Epub import: Yes, Import via in-app browser: No, OPDS catalog: No, Other import via: Built-in web server, Tag books: Yes, Sort books: Yes

Table 'Supported File Formats': Product: Ebook Reader, total # of formats: 2, then No in all columns, except Yes for .epub and .pdf

Table 'License': Product: Ebook Reader, Free: Yes

Table 'Special features': Product: Ebook Reader, Special Features: Full Epub3 support for in-book audio and video. Online sync of all bookmarks, highlights, notes and reading position. Import DRM free PDF and Epub files. User created collections for organizing books.

AlexAtEbooks (talk) 15:31, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Alex,

any help is appreciated. Nevertheless, there are a few things to consider:

The questions you need to pose to yourself are

Is "Ebook Reader" notable as per WP:NOTE? (Is there *significant* coverage *outside* the AppStore, etc.? One criterion are tens of thousands of Google search results but they need to be of good quality, too.)

Do you have *complete* information about it? Please make sure to fill out all the cells if you can.

Can you keep the tables sorted alphabetically? ;-)

Are you involved with the app? Can you be objective about it? (If you are, please be *very* careful to stick to a neutral point of view.)

If you can *objectively* answer "yes" to all these questions, please go ahead and add it.

Best regards, Philantrop (talk) 18:24, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alex, could you please drum up some media coverage of Ebook Reader, and post links here? For inclusion in this article the reader doesn't have to meet Wikipedia's stringent notability guideline, but we'll need something to establish its existence and place in the market.

Philantrop, I'm the brother of Ebooks.com's CEO, and he's asked me to help Alex navigate our editing norms and conflict of interest guideline, with which I'm very familiar. I can guide him but neither of us should make permanent edits to the article, especially involving Ebooks.com or its reader. Would you mind if we ping you from time to time to approve/make an edit? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 21:04, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Anthonyhcole, thanks for your openness. I appreciate it. I'm a bit cautious about this article because - as you'll have noticed - due to a single self-promotional entry there was a deletion request last year. Thus, I look into any app being added to verify it got significant and reliable coverage even though other criteria of notability can, indeed, be handled more leniently. As long as those two criteria are met, I'll gladly help.

Best regards, Philantrop (talk) 22:05, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Philantrop, Anthonyhcole, Sorry for the delay. I have this coverage of the Ebook Reader app (under the sub-heading EBooks.com) http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2014/04/03/learning-to-read-navigating-the-ebook-reader-market/

I also have articles specifically for both iOS and Android versions of the app, but they are slightly older. (I guess it shows it's been around for a while). Is this sufficient to add the app to both this page and the Comparison of Android e-book reader software? AlexAtEbooks (talk) 09:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello AlexAtEbooks, I'm afraid a single source (in which the reader is mentioned in a single paragraph only) doesn't quite suffice. You should probably take a look at the notability guideline to get a better understanding. The age of the article(s) doesn't really matter - it's about significant and reliable coverage. Philantrop (talk) 17:09, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Philantrop, I have trouble digging up significant and reliable coverage for the apps. We have not been marketing them and have not been commissioning reviews. In spite of this we still have over a million downloads in Google Play (I have not checked the figures for Apple's App Store). I do have these:

iOS:

Android:

http://www.droidreport.com/top-e-reader-apps-android-6800

Windows Phone:

http://www.wptreasures.com/5-best-ebook-reader-apps-for-windows-phone/?PageSpeed=noscript

The app is also notable by association in that is is developed by eBooks.com which has been running for 14 years and is the oldest ebook retailer. And although we have not gone hunting for reviews we often get mentioned/listed when people talk about the major ebook vendors (despite being much smaller than the big name companies).

I hope this is sufficient? AlexAtEbooks (talk) 11:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Philantrop, for inclusion in an article, a fact doesn't need to meet the criteria in our notability guideline. That guideline would apply if they were considering creating an article about their reader, but doesn't apply when just mentioning it in an article. From the guideline's nutshell summary: "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article." To be mentioned in an article, a fact needs to be verifiable and relevant. I think Alex has established that their app is a thing, and belongs on this list. If you have any more problems with its inclusion, could you please let us know what they are? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello AlexAtEbooks, Anthonyhcole, I'm not entirely comfortable with your argumentation and the extent of the coverage on "Ebook Reader". Nevertheless, what you presented is good enough, I'd say. Philantrop (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Philantrop. I've made the edit, and then reverted myself here. If you're OK with that edit, would you mind reverting my revert (and reinstating the Ebook Reader details), please? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:16, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that, Philantrop. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:38, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Remove Stanza?

Should Stanza be removed now that it is no longer available in the App store?

It could be added to the Further reading section which lists ReadMill as a Discontinued e-book reader software. (Stanza was removed 26 August 2013, before ReadMill) AlexAtEbooks (talk) 14:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, Stanza still has its own article here so it should stay. Philantrop (talk) 12:59, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Then should we add a column to distinguish which apps in the spreadsheet are still available to download? AlexAtEbooks (talk) 15:16, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Stanza no longer has its own article. The Stanza link now redirects to the Lexcycle article. So maybe it is time to remove it and add it to the Further Reading section as AlexAtEbooks suggested? Stargood (talk) 13:09, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Updated link for uBooks XL

Just to notify the author of this article - uBooks XL has now a new website

http://nixsolutions-ubooks.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iditsulkin (talk • contribs) 10:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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