Posted on Thursday, Dec 11, 2008 by Casey Chan
File Under:App vs App, Featured, Reviews; Tags: app vs app, book, classics, e-book, e-reader, kindle, reader, stanza
It seems that e-book readers are going to be technology’s next big thing. With the Kindle being named Oprah’s favorite gadget and other e-book reading devices battling for pole position, the e-book reader is populating daily culture. But who wants to pay that much money for a dedicated reading device that is admittedly limited and still has no true standard format?
Insert iPhone. We all know that the iPhone does a great job in converging multiple devices, why not add being an e-book reader to its capabilities? Obviously we won’t have any e-ink technology in the iPhone but the e-book readers in the iPhone, Classics and Stanza, offer ease of use and a great free selection—plus you don’t have to plop down an extra 400 dollars to read a book.
See what we think of Classics and Stanza in our App vs App!
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People that use RSS often use web-based readers such as Google Reader, Bloglines or NewsGator to view their news feeds. The first two choices are great, but NewsGator has something special on the iPhone; a native app. That’s right, no more web apps for RSS, the “news” has gone native baby!
What is NewsGator Online?
NewsGator is a service for personal and professional social networking. They have different applications on many platforms that bring information together. Google has probably coined it best, “RSS is the inbox for the Web”. Our focus in this review is with NewsGator’s free, personal services for RSS on the iPhone.
NewsGator’s web app for the iPhone is called… NewsGator, I know, original. This web app allows for users of the free NewsGator service to view their RSS feeds in an optimized format on the iPhone. Let’s take a look at how it works.
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Are you an avid magazine reader? Do you look at your iPhone and think that it’d be the perfect device to read digital magazines? Well, Zinio Mobile Newsstand for the iPhone offers such digital magazines in high-resolution glory. With loads of popular magazines in tow, Zinio Mobile Newstand gives iPhone users a free look at issues that typically cost anywhere from $5 to $10.
How does it perform? Can you actually read anything?
Read on for the rest of the review!
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Looking for an alternative search for your iPhone? Though not “built in”, AOL’s mobile search optimized for iPhone is surprisingly good. Let’s take a look at what makes it so good!
It’s Pretty
When you search in Google, specifically Google Mobile for iPhone, you have a neat feature: it gives you suggestions as you type. After that, I don’t think that Google mobile does anything specifically well, other than meaningful searches. This is what sets AOL search apart from its competition, it displays the results well. Its closest competitor, Yahoo One Search renders poorly on the iPhone in my opinion, the fonts are too large among other issues. The AOL search experience feels right.
Information is broken into sections. Let’s see how a simple search for “movies” is rendered after I have set my default location.
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Not to be confused with a news or RSS reader, Reader is meant for reading text documents, either an ebook or document. Sound interesting? Look no further than dBelement’s Reader web app for iPhone. This is a great idea for a web app and I really see innovation here that could lead to the way that we handle document creation tools on the iPhone. Let’s take a closer look…
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