iPhone E-reader Apps

Using your smartphone or computer as an e-book reader

If you have an Apple iPhone or iPod touch, you can get a free application to turn it into an e-book reader. Reviews say this has its pros and cons. It's free and convenient, especially if you already own an iPhone and always carry it with you. However, while some testers have no problem reading on the iPhone's smaller, backlit screen, others prefer the larger, paper-like screen of a dedicated e-reader like the Amazon Kindle. In a head-to-head test between the iPhone and Kindle at CNET, reviewer Nicole Lee concludes that the iPhone is fine for reading snippets here and there, "but for longer reading while relaxing on the couch, the Kindle wins." Another iPhone vs. Kindle test at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) finds no clear winner. Both comparisons used older-generation Kindles in the tests.

Among reader apps themselves, almost all of which will also work on the iPad 2, clear winners do emerge: the Eucalyptus app (*Est. $10) and the free Stanza app. Both get the highest marks from users at iTunes as well as expert testers. Eucalyptus works only with the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, while Stanza is also available for Windows and Mac computers.

Both apps allow you to download more than 20,000 free e-books (mostly books in the public domain) from Project Gutenberg and read them in a book-like way, with pretty typefaces and virtual pages you can turn with the swipe or flick of a finger. With Stanza, you can also get free e-books from Feedbooks and other sources, buy from massive e-book stores including Fictionwise.com and BooksOnBoard.com, or import documents from your PC or Mac through Stanza's free desktop client. Stanza also displays illustrations and offers a built-in dictionary and the ability to take notes, all lacking on Eucalyptus.

So, why buy Eucalyptus? Because it looks and acts more like a book than any other app, reviewers say, with beautiful type you can resize simply by pinching, and pages that flow smoothly under your fingers -- you can even stop in mid-turn, just like a real page.

"Is it worth it? Are you kidding?" Macworld's Ben Boychuk writes in his review of Eucalyptus. "Stanza remains the most versatile and arguably the best of the eReaders for the iPhone, but Eucalyptus represents a glimpse of the next great leap forward for iPhone e-reader apps." Macworld's Jason Snell calls Eucalyptus "the best iPhone OS book-reading app I've ever seen." TUAW's David Winograd gives Eucalyptus top marks in his e-reader app roundup: "If I planned to spend hundreds of hours reading a large number of books on my iPhone I'd go for Eucalyptus, but that's just me."

Amazon.com bought Stanza in 2009, and some sources wondered whether Stanza would be left to wither away in favor of Amazon's own free Kindle app. Those fears gained traction recently when, following the recent iOS 5 update, users encountered numerous stability and usability issues with the app. Amazon did address those with an update, but Macworld reports that the company is telling users -- unofficially for now -- that it would be the last update that Stanza receives.

Amazon.com offers its Kindle app for iPhone/iPod touch, iPad 2, BlackBerry, Android phone, Windows phone or Windows or Mac computer. It syncs your devices, so you can start an e-book on your Kindle and automatically pick up where you left off on your phone or computer. It's also the only app with access to Amazon's e-book store, which reviews say usually has the best prices and, occasionally, exclusive access to certain new books.

The drawback is that, unlike Stanza, the Kindle app can only buy books from Amazon -- no other bookstores, and no newspapers, magazines or blogs. TUAW's David Winograd calls the Kindle app "quite a disappointment" for this reason, while he praises Stanza as "the most amazing ebook app I've come across." Stanza beats the Kindle app to win the top awards at PCMag.com and About.com, as well.

Barnes & Noble also has its own app, the free Nook app. Like the Kindle app, it works with iPhone/iPod touch, iPad 2, BlackBerry, Android phone, Windows or Mac. The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg tests the newly refreshed Nook app on the original iPad and notes that it has one big advantage over other apps: It lets you lend and borrow Nook books with other Nook users. It also offers a few periodicals, unlike the Kindle app. However, Mossberg says it doesn't always work smoothly or correctly -- "one book I downloaded on the Nook app had the first few pages missing and another turned out to be a different book from its title."

Apple's own free e-reader app, iBooks, works with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad 2. IBooks gets mostly high marks from both iTunes users and expert testers. Visually, it out-slicks the Kindle and Nook apps, Mossberg says: "Its library screen looks like a wooden bookcase, and when you turn a page, it curves like a paper page and even shows the text on the other side bleeding through. When you hold the iPad horizontally, iBooks switches to a two-page view with a rounded rise in the middle, like a paper book's binding." The iBookstore is tiny compared with Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's -- about 130,000 titles, Mossberg says. That's a deal-breaker for David Winograd at TUAW, who couldn't find either of the popular books he wanted to read recently (including the blockbuster "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") in the iBookstore, because Apple doesn't have access to any books from Random House or any of its many imprints. Still, unlike the Kindle app, iBooks reads the widely used ePub format, so you can read public library books and ePub books from other e-book stores. The new iOS 5 Newsstand app uses a same visual interface as iBooks, but features magazines and newspapers instead of books. Selecting a magazine's cover opens its separate app. See more about iBooks and Newsstand in our section on the iPad as e-book reader.