The first common devices for reading electronic books were not modern gadgets with E-Ink display, like the Sony Reader line or PocketBook, and most common, well, not quite normal for most consumers commercials years five to seven years ago smartphones and, of course, PDAs. Yours truly had a chance to "break the eyes" on the small screen Nokia 6670, to work with the Nokia E61 / 61i, to communicate with the PDA, and not even one (FS Pocket Loox C550 and HP iPaq 200), with a clipboard Nokia N810, Sony PSP and, of course, with all iPhone generations. Although now I still I prefer to use PocketBook 360 °, but it is a home machine, which also mastered and my family - have to comply with all :). That is, iPhone all also continues to be one of my main devices for reading electronic books.
All of the above device with the exception of Nokia 6670 combines a large enough display for quite comfortable reading. The software is all different, although there is always a benchmark in this regard were considered devices based on Windows Mobile operating system for which there is AlReader Haali Reader and excellent programs. However, right now a serious competitor WM-gadget is the iPhone, and as the range of the software, but this is not at all equal to it.
For iPhone OS, there are both paid program for reading electronic books, and free, but the first is still functional, comfortable or prettier. It paid about decisions, I would like to tell. In this case, this is a real veteran, wandering from the firmware to the firmware, starting with version iPhone OS 1.2, first settled in the Installer, and then got into Cydia and the App Store. Personally, I became the proud owner of this miracle in the days of his wild youth, when the program was functionally still very skimpy. All that could offer this product initially - this is more or less a decent support FB2 and quite a nice interface, beautifully designed library. Now the program has got the widest functionality, and stopped by the belt even benchmarks on Windows Mobile. The interface and as I generally keep quiet - all very, very well. But first things first.
Now the program has grown to version 3.2.1 and presented it in Cydia, and the App Store. In the latter case, there is no number of functions that are prohibited Apple. For example, the work of the program in the background, and flipping through the volume buttons. I myself use a version of Cydia in view of the fact that acquired this product when the App Store was not even in the project. That it is very attractive, because it is a beautiful, high-quality animated interface, very comfortable library, a great way to set up styles and excellent support of national FB2 format. It also supports EPUB, PDF, DOC, HTML, RTF and TXT.
The interface is built fairly traditional - based on tabs at the bottom of the screen. The first among them - a "selection." It displays the most recently opened books, quickly jump to the bookmarks menu and new works, got to the library, but has not been opened by the user.
Then comes the "Library" on it is worth looking in more detail. This section displays all loaded into the program book, and they may be hundreds. It is possible to display a simple list of the book on the cover of small icons, in expanded form, as shown in the image below, there is a search function, and, most importantly, the ability to set the sorting tags by author, cycle number in series and so on. d.
you can not just start reading, but also view information about the book and a file from the library. This is also an important element, as it allows you to know which series is a particular product under which what number it is, the book genre, and so on. D. All this applies to FB2 and only if the file is compiled correctly and filled in the required fields.
In the tab "Network" has the tools for downloading books to the program. Several options, including FTP- and the HTTP-server, and even a mini-browser for accessing the books directly from the Internet. I'll take a bunch of Cyberduck on Mac plus FTP-server i2Reader, although in earlier versions of downloaded files via OpenSSH protocol.
Tab "Dictionaries" speaks for itself. Supports any dictionaries starDict format, and they are loaded as well as books via FTP or HTTP server. You can search for it directly from the text, just press and hold your finger on the little word, the value of which you want to learn or translate it into another language.
The last tab - this setting that a lot. One of the most important advantages is the ability to i2Reader flexible program options and display styles. But the most important thing to understand the proposed options is very easy to configure and styles even have two modes - interactive (Simplified) and normal. However, for the latter you need to read the manual, but most users will be enough online. In addition, the program has plenty of standard styles for every taste and color. Actually, the standard and now I use it, but before creating your own. Setting styles lends itself to everything from the geometry of the text, and ending with the color of the background characters.
It's time to go to the most important, ie reading. Here, too, everything is good. There hyphenation, auto, choice of style, automatic locking turn the text, search, jump to footnotes and to the content, adjust the brightness and size of the adjustment font.
In this vast ointment is not without a few drops of tar, where the same without them. The most annoying moment - is to check the license every time the program is started. It takes time and, most importantly, in the audit is accessed on the Internet. Given the fact that mobile operators like to round figures, the number of bytes send information turn into tens of kilobytes. And at extortionate rates for the mobile Internet - it is becoming critical and negative impact on the balance sheet. We have to edit the APN, to the phone did not have access to the Internet. Fortunately, the program in this case, too, run, but sometimes the authorization check may be delayed for a minute. In general, due to the "powerful and evil" consumer protection program suffers, which is sad, but there's nothing to be done. The developer has every right to protect their product, but it would be more transparent operation of the protection system. The second drop of tar is the unexpected closing of the program during its loading, but this rarely happens, and restart the application in this case helps.
Summarize. i2Reader can be called the most functional program for reading on the iPhone. It is comfortable, beautiful and worth in the AppStore relatively inexpensive. There are some nuances, but me personally, they did not bother. However, there are other alternatives, and we'll talk about them in the next article.