I'm not into books as much as long form articles so I particularly enjoy Medium with its estimated reading times, and Readable, which auto scrolls articles hands free.
I still use Stanza on my first gen iPad Mini, and it's still the best I've used. For my newer devices, I agree that Marvin, even the free version, is better than 90% of the other offerings I've seen. The feature set is comparable to Stanza, though the menu system could be a little more intuitive and simplified, IMO.
Really great article, which has started me thinking about this topic again. I'll have to keep GoodReader in mind (which I already own) and look into Marvin.
Most of these services are targeted at casual book readers than at serious book users. On the plus side, you can carry huge libraries with you easily, search, etc. But, the downside is that they can change the software on a whim, things aren't very universal, and I worry about the longevity of my library or being able to pass my library down or to other people like one could a real paper library. There's also the problem with sharing or lending.
I started my digital collection when I was in school. It was just way easier for me to have my books with me, digitally highlight or even cut/paste from a book. I did have to struggle a bit with profs on citation, but generally had pretty good luck. But, many of my books are fairly expensive, and as I build my library, I'm realizing I have hundreds, or more likely, thousands of dollars of books tied up in *Amazon's* hands.
I've found some utilities to strip the DRM and keep an alternative backup 'just in case' library, but I'd loose all my notes in that case.
It's really a less than ideal solution. Ideally, I'd buy books from Amazon or Apple, strip the DRM, put them in a universal format along with books and other textual long-form content I get from outside of these companies... and put them all in one place that would allow me to keep notes and annotations intact. I'm going to have to look into Marvin, as that sounds like a possibility?
My thoughts reading this: This area is a wide open hodge-podge of 'pretty good junk'. Sort of analogous to the portable music players prior to the iPod...
Yes, this and photos are my main areas of pain in terms of a 'digital library' currently. They are a good amount of work to manage, and no solution really fits or does everything needed... along with concerns for longevity of my 'library.'
williamlondon said: Audiobooks are such a great way to consume books, it's just so strange there aren't more people reading this way.
I think the problem is that they are two separate services. What I want, is the ability to use my books textually, as well as hear them read.
One of my mentors does a lot of bike-riding, and uses Kindle's text-to-audio to convert books to audio to use while he rides. It's a bit hard to get used to though, but I guess better than nothing (I've tried it a few times myself). But, the advantage is that between that feature and other utilities, pretty much everything you already own can be turned into an audio book.
I need to figure out a good solution some day, though, as I tend to get through WAY more audio material than I do books. It would be great to burn though my stack (or digital stack) of unread books one of these days.
Really great article, which has started me thinking about this topic again. I'll have to keep GoodReader in mind (which I already own) and look into Marvin.
Yup, based on recommendations here and my iPad use case, it's on my short list of apps to check out.
We've got a few more articles in this series coming, relating to other use cases.
williamlondon said: Audiobooks are such a great way to consume books, it's just so strange there aren't more people reading this way.
I think the problem is that they are two separate services. What I want, is the ability to use my books textually, as well as hear them read.
One of my mentors does a lot of bike-riding, and uses Kindle's text-to-audio to convert books to audio to use while he rides. It's a bit hard to get used to though, but I guess better than nothing (I've tried it a few times myself). But, the advantage is that between that feature and other utilities, pretty much everything you already own can be turned into an audio book.
I need to figure out a good solution some day, though, as I tend to get through WAY more audio material than I do books. It would be great to burn though my stack (or digital stack) of unread books one of these days.
I'd LOVE it if something like Amazon's Whispersync (though I've never tried it, I think that's the name of the service??) was something embedded by default into a single book file, where you could switch between listening and reading the text yourself whenever you choose. In an ideal world, there'd be one format, size of file wouldn't matter and you could listen or read the text, your choice, but I digress into fantasy (one of my favourite genres too<what a geek I am!>).
I've tried the text-to-audio and it's not quite there, perhaps some day? Though, watching the last WWDC and the changes coming to Siri it makes me wonder if perhaps these digital assistants might become good enough to narrate books (with their natural language skills improving constantly, it's certainly possible).
Re: GoodReader, check out PDF Expert, I've recently switched over merely because there is an iOS version as well as a macOS version, and they sync/share files between themselves and that makes annotating a bit more powerful (for my use cases anyway).
williamlondon said: I'd LOVE it if something like Amazon's Whispersync (though I've never tried it, I think that's the name of the service??) was something embedded by default into a single book file, where you could switch between listening and reading the text yourself whenever you choose. In an ideal world, there'd be one format, size of file wouldn't matter and you could listen or read the text, your choice, but I digress into fantasy (one of my favourite genres too<what a geek I am!>).
I've tried the text-to-audio and it's not quite there, perhaps some day? Though, watching the last WWDC and the changes coming to Siri it makes me wonder if perhaps these digital assistants might become good enough to narrate books (with their natural language skills improving constantly, it's certainly possible).
Re: GoodReader, check out PDF Expert, I've recently switched over merely because there is an iOS version as well as a macOS version, and they sync/share files between themselves and that makes annotating a bit more powerful (for my use cases anyway).
Oh, that's interesting, I didn't even know about the Whispersync feature, though you have to own both the text and audio versions. It just syncs up where you've left off between the two.
But, what I was talking about is a feature the real Kindle readers have had for a long time, in that they can convert the text of any Kindle book (I think) into audio. We used to have one (a Kindle) and I did it a few times, until it broke and we switched to Kindle App on iOS devices (which I prefer anyway). But, I do regularly use Kindle Apps ability to sync highlighting and notes across devices.
The problem was not so much that the computer-generated-audio couldn't be understood, but that it didn't do a great job at any kind of breaks. Paragraph, Chapter, etc. just became like a big run-on sentence. Also, if you deal with more technical books, it might have some issues with terms and names, etc. creating a problem understanding. Or, if it embeds other languages (ex: a scholarly book on the New Testament that throws ancient Greek words in mid-sentence) it sounds like it has been possessed (or the aliens are attacking... take your pick).
I'd hope it's much better now, though, as that was 4-5 years ago or so. I don't think they've brought features like that to iOS, so you'd have to go through a process to extract the text and then use a iOS or macOS utility to do the text-to-speech. It would probably come out a lot better, but is a good amount of work. What my friend did was to start books reading overnight with the audio-out plugged into a recorder, and then he'd just transfer that audio file to his iPod. But, if you can get the text out, some of the utilities can do the conversion many times faster than real time right into a MP3 file.
re: PDF Expert - Is PDF annotation universal enough that the resulting file can be used by most any PDF app? Or, would anything you did in PDF Expert be within PDF expert? But, yes, having both iOS and macOS version of whatever we're talking about here would be fairly important to me (and syncing any meta-info between them).
I haven't pushed on any of this much as I've not been doing a ton of work in my field since grad-school, but I'm hoping to get back into it... and really need to do something about our book collection. We're also considering another down-sizing pass through our physical collection. After my wife and I graduated, we had 8 of the big floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full (and some in boxes), which we've narrowed down to about 2. The remaining books would be quite an investment to get digitally, but we hate moving them! But, I'm not willing to buy books or sets that often cost hundreds of dollars unless I have a good bit of control over how and where I'm able to use them.
Goodreader used to be a good program (for all the UI is rather clumsy), but it was last updated in Feb. 2016, and it appears to have been abandoned. I've switched to PDF Expert (https://pdfexpert.com/), which has virtually all the same features in more easily used form (annotation, markup, etc), together with better and easier syncing across devices. It has been very well received and popular.
Another very useful tool (much less clumsy than iTunes) is iMazing (https://imazing.com/) which does a good job of transferring files of most kinds among iOS and MacOS devices.
Comments
Most of these services are targeted at casual book readers than at serious book users. On the plus side, you can carry huge libraries with you easily, search, etc. But, the downside is that they can change the software on a whim, things aren't very universal, and I worry about the longevity of my library or being able to pass my library down or to other people like one could a real paper library. There's also the problem with sharing or lending.
I started my digital collection when I was in school. It was just way easier for me to have my books with me, digitally highlight or even cut/paste from a book. I did have to struggle a bit with profs on citation, but generally had pretty good luck. But, many of my books are fairly expensive, and as I build my library, I'm realizing I have hundreds, or more likely, thousands of dollars of books tied up in *Amazon's* hands.
I've found some utilities to strip the DRM and keep an alternative backup 'just in case' library, but I'd loose all my notes in that case.
It's really a less than ideal solution. Ideally, I'd buy books from Amazon or Apple, strip the DRM, put them in a universal format along with books and other textual long-form content I get from outside of these companies... and put them all in one place that would allow me to keep notes and annotations intact. I'm going to have to look into Marvin, as that sounds like a possibility?
Yes, this and photos are my main areas of pain in terms of a 'digital library' currently. They are a good amount of work to manage, and no solution really fits or does everything needed... along with concerns for longevity of my 'library.'
I think the problem is that they are two separate services. What I want, is the ability to use my books textually, as well as hear them read.
One of my mentors does a lot of bike-riding, and uses Kindle's text-to-audio to convert books to audio to use while he rides. It's a bit hard to get used to though, but I guess better than nothing (I've tried it a few times myself). But, the advantage is that between that feature and other utilities, pretty much everything you already own can be turned into an audio book.
I need to figure out a good solution some day, though, as I tend to get through WAY more audio material than I do books. It would be great to burn though my stack (or digital stack) of unread books one of these days.
I've tried the text-to-audio and it's not quite there, perhaps some day? Though, watching the last WWDC and the changes coming to Siri it makes me wonder if perhaps these digital assistants might become good enough to narrate books (with their natural language skills improving constantly, it's certainly possible).
Re: GoodReader, check out PDF Expert, I've recently switched over merely because there is an iOS version as well as a macOS version, and they sync/share files between themselves and that makes annotating a bit more powerful (for my use cases anyway).
But, what I was talking about is a feature the real Kindle readers have had for a long time, in that they can convert the text of any Kindle book (I think) into audio. We used to have one (a Kindle) and I did it a few times, until it broke and we switched to Kindle App on iOS devices (which I prefer anyway). But, I do regularly use Kindle Apps ability to sync highlighting and notes across devices.
The problem was not so much that the computer-generated-audio couldn't be understood, but that it didn't do a great job at any kind of breaks. Paragraph, Chapter, etc. just became like a big run-on sentence. Also, if you deal with more technical books, it might have some issues with terms and names, etc. creating a problem understanding. Or, if it embeds other languages (ex: a scholarly book on the New Testament that throws ancient Greek words in mid-sentence) it sounds like it has been possessed (or the aliens are attacking... take your pick).
I'd hope it's much better now, though, as that was 4-5 years ago or so. I don't think they've brought features like that to iOS, so you'd have to go through a process to extract the text and then use a iOS or macOS utility to do the text-to-speech. It would probably come out a lot better, but is a good amount of work. What my friend did was to start books reading overnight with the audio-out plugged into a recorder, and then he'd just transfer that audio file to his iPod. But, if you can get the text out, some of the utilities can do the conversion many times faster than real time right into a MP3 file.
re: PDF Expert - Is PDF annotation universal enough that the resulting file can be used by most any PDF app? Or, would anything you did in PDF Expert be within PDF expert? But, yes, having both iOS and macOS version of whatever we're talking about here would be fairly important to me (and syncing any meta-info between them).
I haven't pushed on any of this much as I've not been doing a ton of work in my field since grad-school, but I'm hoping to get back into it... and really need to do something about our book collection. We're also considering another down-sizing pass through our physical collection. After my wife and I graduated, we had 8 of the big floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full (and some in boxes), which we've narrowed down to about 2. The remaining books would be quite an investment to get digitally, but we hate moving them! But, I'm not willing to buy books or sets that often cost hundreds of dollars unless I have a good bit of control over how and where I'm able to use them.