Stanza e-book reader

analysis
Dec 4, 20081 min

Tired of waiting for Kindle 2.0? Check out this free iPhone app.

While I’m still hoping to get a Kindle 2.0 next year, several readers have pointed out that you don’t need a dedicated device in order to read e-books. One popular application on the iPhone is the Stanza e-book reader from Lexcycle. It’s free of charge and easy to install, and ot provides relatively easy access to a wide range of e-books available online. There’s also a desktop application that makes it relatively easy to convert standard files and sync over a wireless network from your desktop. Not sure why they didn’t just use iTunes to do the syncing, so even though it works differently than I expected, it does work.

I tried out Stanza on my iPod Touch and it worked great. That said, the form factor on an iPhone is pretty small, so I don’t know how long you’d want to read in that format. It’s a bit like reading a novel on a pack of cards.