Apple iPad – Update no comments
Some more thoughts on iPad Day 2.
First of all, reading in bed with the iPad is a mixed blessing. Its weight can make it a bit awkward, while the backlit screen helps when reading at night with low ambient light.
I am also finding that reading with the white font on black background really helps control the eyestrain in my case. I’ve been reading some other reviews whose writers say that they aren’t experiencing any eyestrain; maybe this affects me more than usual, or maybe I just spent more time reading.
The iPad has a lot of glare and is a fingerprint magnet – I will get an anti-glare screen protector as soon as I get a chance.
Welcome to App City
Netflix for the iPad rocks! Much more immersive with a good set of earphones, although the built-in speakers are louder than expected and are good enough for use in a quiet environment.
A few other cool apps I’ve installed:
- NPR – very good.
- Marvel – I’m not a big comic book fan, but that may change thanks to this app.
- IMDb is quite good.
Wonder where the Wired Reader app that was shown at TED is?
Kindle for iPad vs iBooks
Yesterday I only used the Kindle app, but today I’ve been trying out iBooks. iBooks has far less books but the iBooks app has more features than the Kindle app – but then Amazon only had an iPad simulator to build their app on so hopefully it will get better. Some of the differences:
- Font size: iBooks has a much broader range of font sizes. The largest font size on the Kindle app may be too small for some readers with visual impairments.
- Font type: iBooks has five font styles while the Kindle app has only one.
- Presentation: iBooks has the bookshelf and the double pages in landscape mode. You can select a list view instead of the bookshelves. The Kindle app lets you choose from displaying the covers only of books in your library or a list.
- Screen brightness can be adjusted from within both reading apps. iBooks seems to have only the black text on white background option though. Kindle has a choice of black text on a white or sepia background, or a white text on black background which helps to reduce eye fatigue (at least for me).
- Note taking: You can take notes and highlight with the Kindle app and it should be synced across devices via Whispernet. iBooks doesn’t seem to have any annotating abilities, though you can bookmark a word or phrase.
- Dictionary: The dictionary in iBooks seems quite good; dictionary coming soon for Kindle app.
- Search: In iBooks you can search for a word within the book, on Google or Wikipedia; search coming soon for Kindle app.
- Content: Kindle Store has 450,000 titles vs 60,000 for iBooks.
- Pagination: Amazon’s app has the location range and the percentage read which will be familiar to Kindlers, while iBooks has page numbers, total number of pages in the book and pages left in the current chapter.
I’ve just installed the Kobo reading app, so I’ll be looking at that next.
