Stanza for iPhone . . .

Here’s a wee iPhone app I am sure you will love!

I always considered myself a “reader”, but over the years other things got in the way of wading through thick books. Suddenly I realised that the only books that were being bought and read were the text-books for college, or the three or four that were gathered up for holiday reading. Then I was introduced to Stanza for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Stanza is a free application for your iPhone and iPod Touch. Use it to download from a vast selection of over 100,000 books and periodicals, and read them right on your phone. It’s a wireless electronic library that stays open 24/7.

This reader has allowed me to download ebooks (either older, free, copyright-free books, or newer ones you pay for), and read them in a fantastically intuitive wee app. The library allows you to look at a list of the books, or, if you turn the iPhone on its side, you view your books’ covers with the now familiar “Cover Flow” feature. If the cover isn’t there yet it is easy to use the Cover Lookup to find it from online sources.

As you can see, in the months since I started using Stanza, I have read 11 books! You can add categories, I tend to add books to my Reading List and work my way through them. A recent update allows the use of new symbols, which I have had fun with!

The biggest selling point for me is the fact that you can read in bed, with the light off. No more having to remember to turn the light off before falling asleep! The iPhone will simply turn itself off and will even remember which page you were at!

It is really easy to bookmark the best bits, change the colour and size of font, even dim the brightness at night time!

I love this app, love the idea that it has brought me back to reading, and love that there are so many books out there that you can read free of charge due to them being public domain (just about any classic book from before 1923).

The only thing I complain about is the lack of a visual clue of how thick the book is. Quite often I have lamented the fact that I am stiiiilllll reading the same book, not realising that it was a weighty tome! Every ebook looks the same!

EDIT: I am going to edit this “slightly”. In my world “slightly” means “EEEK I totally forgot to put one point in, and I totally misrepresented another point!”

I have received a comment from Neelan Choksi from Lexcycle to say:

Just wanted to let you know that in the latest versions (1.8 or 1.8.1) of Stanza, we do provide a visual clue about how far you are in the book as well as how much further you have to go.

When you are in the middle of a book, you can get an exact indicator by tapping the middle third of the screen or alternatively, you can look at the very bottom of the screen and you will see a grey (usually) graphical line which is some percentage of the way across the width of the screen. Depending on how far the gray line is across the screen is a graphical clue as to how far along you are in the book. You can also see the same graphical line in the library in portrait mode under each title.

I hope that helps.

Neelan Choksi
Lexcycle

Neelan is perfectly correct! I have the latest version of Stanza, and am aware of the visual signs that are now built in to the app now. However, I choose to ignore these wonderful features because I still like to moan about things, even though they are pretty near damn perfect in every way! Be happy in the knowledge that there are ways for you to know where you are in the book and how far you have to go.

The thing I forgot to mention is the built in dictionary in the new version. This was something that I wanted. When I am in the middle of reading I don’t really want to have to get up and go look a word up in a dictionary, then return to the book. Normally I just flow over it and pretend I know what it means. This new feature means that I can stay with the story much easier, and is much appreciated.

Should you get it? YES! It is free of charge and very easy to use. You should try out one book on it and see if you become addicted. Bet you do!