App of The Week: Stanza

Today during my lunch break I ended up going to Barnes & Noble with my wife.  And I finally got to see a demo of Barnes & Noble's 'Nook' e-book reader.  It's a pretty attractive device.  It's not large and bulky, pretty smooth and sleek.  The screen looks pretty nice, and it has wi-fi and 3G data connections for downloading books.  All for $259 USD.  Still a little steep for my tastes.

But after looking at it, really the e-book reader has nothing that my Ipod Touch already has.  I've been using the Kindle for Iphone now for a while.  Which is a free download from the Apple App Store.  It's nice because I get a lot of the features of the Kindle, but on a somewhat smaller screen.  But it suits me just fine.

Now let's look at an underdog which I have really come to like.  It's called Stanza.  When I first got my Ipod Touch I checked out the Stanza app.  It pretty much functions like Kindle for Iphone or any of the other ebook reading apps in the App Store.  I didn't really see anything special about it.

However, a few weeks ago I did the unthinkable (I jailbroke my Ipod Touch); mostly as an experiment and to be able to theme my Ipod's Home screen.  While playing with this, I stumbled back into the Stanza app when I found I could set up sources for books.  So I wasn't forced to using only the E-Book Store that Stanza offers by default.  You can't do this with the Kindle App (or any of the others I have tried).  Now I can upload my ebook collection to my local webserver and download my ebooks using my wifi connection instead of purchasing the same book again through their store (which wasn't going to happen).  Another feature I like is the ability (but not obligation) to use the Stanza Desktop client to share books between your Desktop and Ipod Touch.

Now I can read my ebook collection without being limited.  Power to the reader.  :)

The only things I can tell that I am missing out on is the battery life of a dedictaed ebook reader (which lasts significantly longer when compared with an Ipod Touch) and the screen size.  So at least for the near future, I have no plans to buy a dedicated ebook reader just for me.  My wife would like one, but they'll have to drop in price before I get one just for that.  However, for someone without an Ipod Touch and who is looking at an ereader.  Knock your socks off.

*Please note: At time of writing I noticed the most recent version of Stanza has disabled USB sharing of ebooks with the app.  Ebooks can still be shared via wifi, and it wasn't the developers reasons for removing this feature.  It was by Apple's decision. *

Stanza: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stanza/id284956128?mt=8
Kindle: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kindle-for-iphone/id302584613?mt=8