IPhone Reader Overview

One of the reasons for buying an iPhone for me was the ability to read e-books comfortably. The native iBooks reader appeared only in OS 4.0, so for now I have to use third-party programs, the most interesting of which I will discuss in this article.

Each of the readers was subjected to a kind of “test drive”, the results of which were evaluated according to four criteria:

• Interface: the appearance of the program, the convenience of working with it.
• Library: storage organization, ease of downloading new books.
• Settings: the number of settings, their flexibility.
• Performance: the speed of the program.

1. ShortBook

Author: Jury Shortki
Distribution: AppStore, paid, $ 4.99
Latest version: 5.7.3
Supported formats: FB2

Screenshots:



Pros:

• Quote book
• Dictionaries
• Frequent Updates

Minuses:

• Missing text search
• Only one supported format

Rating:

• Interface: 8/10
• Library: 8/10
• Settings: 8/10
• Performance: 10/10
• Total: 9/10

Verdict: The best reader for the iPhone to date. Convenient library, excellently organized loading of books, speed - what do you need for happiness?

2. Stanza

Author: Lexcycle
Distribution: AppStore, free
Latest version: 2.1.1
Supported formats: EPUB, PDF, FB2

Screenshots:



Pros:

• Nice interface
• Easily download books over Wi-Fi
• Many themes

Minuses:

• Incomplete PDF support
• Inconvenient flipping animation
• Slurred downloading of books from third-party resources

Rating:

• Interface: 8/10
• Library: 7/10
• Settings: 8/10
• Performance: 7/10
• Total: 7/10

Verdict: The best among free readers.

3. ruBooks

Author: Sergey Makarov aka (Colel)
Distribution: Cydia, free
Latest version: 0.921
Supported formats: TXT, RTF, FB2, HTML, DOC, PDF, XLS

Screenshots:



Pros:

• Flexible adjustment of background and text colors for different reading modes

Minuses:

• There is no direct download of books, you need to use the Safari Download plugin
• Poor tech support

Rating:

• Interface: 3/10
• Library: 4/10
• Settings: 4/10
• Performance: 5/10
• Total: 4/10

Verdict: Very mediocre software, has only the most necessary properties. However, she also has her lovers.

4. readMe

Author: Unreal Mojo
Distribution: AppStore, paid, 1.99 $
Latest version: 1.6.1
Supported formats: FB2, EPUB, PDF

Screenshots:



Pros:

• Simple interface
• Built-in http server for downloading books from a computer

Minuses:

• Poorly organized library
• 3D paging brakes
• Inconvenient Status Bar
• Fast battery drain

Rating:

• Interface: 8/10
• Library: 6/10
• Settings: 7/10
• Performance: 6/10
• Total: 7/10

Verdict: Unlike ruBooks, minimalism is pleasant in this reader. Although it still has many shortcomings, frequent updates should solve this problem. And the price does not bite.

5. i2reader

Author: Unsanity
Distribution: AppStore, paid, $ 4.99
Latest version: 3.2.1
Supported formats: FB2, TXT, EPUB, DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, PDF (text only)

Screenshots:



Pros:

• Beautiful styles
• Dictionaries

Minuses:

• Frequent bugs and crashes
• Not well-developed text formatting
• FTP and WEB servers are not stable

Rating:

• Interface: 9/10
• Library: 7/10
• Settings: 7/10
• Performance: 2/10
• Total: 5/10

Verdict: A direct competitor to ShortBook, heavily overloaded with various functions, as a result, half of them do not work at all, and the second - not as stated. So far, the program is clearly not worth the price requested for it.

6. uBooks

Author: NIX Solutions
Distribution: AppStore, free
Latest version: 1.1.0
Supported formats: TXT, FB2

Screenshots:



Pros:

• Auto scroll speed change

Minuses:

• Inconvenient library
• Brakes, frequent departures

Rating:

• Interface: 6/10
• Library: 2/10
• Settings: 3/10
• Performance: 6/10
• Total: 4/10

Verdict: Potentially good program, but raw to the point. From the complete fiasco, it only saves that it is free.

7. iChitalka

Author: egerev lab
Distribution: AppStore, free
Latest version: 1.5.3
Supported formats: FB2

Screenshots:



Pros:

• Convenient built-in Aymobilka store
• The ability to both buy books and upload your own

Minuses:

• Few settings

Rating:

• Interface: 7/10
• Library: 9/10
• Settings: 4/10
• Performance: 6/10
• Total: 7/10

Verdict: The reader, which will be interesting mainly to those who are used to paying for books, the rest is better to use the previously listed programs.

PS The list of reader programs for iPhone / iPod Touch is, of course, incomplete by me, so I will be happy to supplement it.