If you are considering jumping on the Kindle bandwagon I strongly urge you to reconsider, or at least take a quick look at the Stanza app for the iPhone or iTouch. You might be thinking, “reading on such a puny screen will strain my eyes”, but try it first, the text can be resized to accomodate even the near blind and the reading interface can be changed to a less eye-straining color. I am always amazed at peoples willingness to purchase a single use device even despite a hefty markup (the kindle costs over $300 bucks!) vs. using a device like the iTouch that is backed by the slogan “There’s an app for that” and even costs less. You are sacrificing a giant screen but reading from a huge screen you are actually worse off as studies have shown that text other than the line you are currently reading just distracts you and actually slows your reading pace (Ask any speed-reading instructor, they tell you to scan the text with your hand to block all the unnecessary text below). Since turning pages only involves the tap of a finger I just set the text to HUGE and speed tap my way through books. I have read for h
ours on this nifty little app and no tears to speak of. Stanza is jam packed with features, many of which surpass even those of the Kindle. Some noteworthy features include:
- Tap a word to look it up in a dictionary
- Browse the online book catalogue of over 100,000 books
- Save your place
- Support for all kinds of ebook formats including pdf.
- Desktop app that connects to the iTouch over wi-fi that makes syncing your pc ebook collection with the app a snap!
Case Study: While reading the new Dan Brown novel on my big comfy couch with iTunes playing in the background Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls began blaring and I deemed the song inappropriate for my reading mood. Too lazy to jump across the room to turn down the volume I just popped open my iTunes remote (the free itunes remote application that allows you to control your itunes library wirelessly) from the iTouch and turned it down the easy way, then open stanza again and I am immediately brought to the page I left off on. Let’s see the Kindle do that!
