Other Using your phone to read books

[HALE101]

iPhone PM user here , I find reading books on this phone awesome when true tone is on and at night having night mode enabled .

Their are many different apps you can use which are paid by a monthly subscription or buying books ouright. My personal favorite reading app( Scribd) which does charge a monthly fee but imo it's worth it because you not only get books but free audible books and work documents if you like.

I know it's not a Kobo or Kindle but I find it's a great alternative .

So do you guys read on your iphone ?

 

[Beelzbub]

I do. I did last night when I took my daughter to basketball practice. The screen is easy to read, very clear. If I am waiting in the car when my wife goes into the store, yup I will read, that or watch YouTube. iPhone 11 user here.

 

[HALE101]

I do. I did last night when I took my daughter to basketball practice. The screen is easy to read, very clear. If I am waiting in the car when my wife goes into the store, yup I will read, that or watch YouTube. iPhone 11 user here.

Awesome which app do you use ?

 

[Beelzbub]

Just the Books App, use it both on my iPhone and iPad, more so on my iPad. When I buy books, it is through that app. My wife on the other hand buys all her books on Amazon, and uses the Kindle app on her iPad all the time.

 

[CTHarrryH]

my wife uses the Barnes and Noble Kindle app for reading - but you can't buy new books with it only read what has been bought.

 

[HALE101]

my wife uses the Barnes and Noble Kindle app for reading - but you can't buy new books with it only read what has been bought.

Yeah I have a bunch of books on my broken Kobo that I can access on the app still .

 

[bobsamm]

Did you do a search on here?

 

[aKansasKid]

I use the Libby app to check out free ebooks from the local library and the Kindle app to read them. Using a regular 6s and while small, it’s not bothersome enough to begin toting a larger phone.

 

[Dualvansmommy]

I couldn’t do that on my previous 6s phone, but since upgrading to my XR last summer, I’m finding myself I can read it in a pinch. Like while waiting for my kids sport practice. Not something I do regularly as still prefer to read my kindle most nights.

 

[xxray]

I prefer reading on my phone to anything other reading method. It allows me to read in the dark at night before bed, to lay in any position while holding my phone one-handed, automatically saves where I left off, lets me look up words that I don't know inside the book, and lets me highlight passages. It's great.

 

[ericwn]

iPhone for occasional book reads but more for web articles and playing audiobooks.

I prefer my Kobo for extended reading sessions.

 

[rui no onna]

So do you guys read on your iphone ?

Lol, I used to read on the iPhone more back when it had a 3.5" screen. I even bought an iPod touch 4th gen as a backup device so I can read using Stanza while my iPhone 4 was charging. Circa 2007-2012, the iPhone was my primary reading device.

Not a fan of the current super skinny aspect ratio of phones for reading. Around 2:3 to 3:4 aspect ratio is my preference.

I also find the notch super distracting as it's blocking portions of text on my preferred reading app and settings (Marvin 3, dark text on sepia background, I hate Night Mode). Sadly, the app's long been abandoned and hasn't been updated since before the iPhone X was released.

I'll read on my phone when there's no other option but I usually have either a Kindle, Kobo or iPad at my disposal.

 

[Bandaman]

Yes, all the time, with night shift on so my eyes don’t bleed.

 

[dk001]

iPhone PM user here , I find reading books on this phone awesome when true tone is on and at night having night mode enabled .

Their are many different apps you can use which are paid by a monthly subscription or buying books ouright. My personal favorite reading app( Scribd) which does charge a monthly fee but imo it's worth it because you not only get books but free audible books and work documents if you like.

I know it's not a Kobo or Kindle but I find it's a great alternative .

So do you guys read on your iphone ?

Recommend adding a poll for a quick view.

Personally - yes.
Kindle mostly. My library is not small.
I do read more on my IPP 11.

 

[Wide opeN]

Why yes, yes I do.

 

[Porterhouse]

I do if I'm out and about and have a moment. Mostly, I read on my iPP 11; that's most of what I do on it. I use Kindle, iBooks, sometimes Overdrive (for library books) and so on.

 

[jeyf]

i do beta reads for my book club and yes exclusively use my iPhone. I dont have control what format they send me but pdf is the most reliable.

the best stand alone reader for ios i found is Marvin but it has a lot of bad:
-the dark scree mode is great
-it dosnt use page#'s but rather says "22 pages left in chapter 2" would rather it say your on "66 of 199"
-i have never gotten the book marks to work in Marvin so coupled with not knowing what page your reading I often get lost.
-Marvin and also the ios verson of Calibre want to create a local libary. I just want to read the book assignment, make notes and delete.
-the file system in the iPhone is odd so i usally put the assigned book in dropBox but would like to keep the book on my home file server and access it via my private VPM. A more ios strutured file system would be great.
-Marvin seems to read quite a few book formats but sometimes it just will not open some assignments. Nees to be reliable
-I have gotten used to just scrolling down as I read a book. I read fast and dont want to wait for a new wave horzontal page turn.
-some readers or book formats dont allow font size adj, often too big or too small. i have to rotate the screen.

there are book readers embedded intoios apps from dropBox, fileExplorer and files. The ios app Books works too.
you can reformat book types using the macOS version of Calibre.

by the way:
I am not associated with them but smashwords.com has a good selection of low cost and free books.

 

[rui no onna]

i do beta reads for my book club and yes exclusively use my iPhone. I dont have control what format they send me but pdf is the most reliable.

the best stand alone reader for ios i found is Marvin but it has a lot of bad:
-Marvin seems to read quite a few book formats but sometimes it just will not open some assignments. Nees to be reliable

Pretty sure Marvin 3 doesn't support PDF. In fact, as far as I recall it only supports EPUB and comic file types (e.g. CBZ).

-it dosnt use page#'s but rather says "22 pages left in chapter 2" would rather it say your on "66 of 199"

This is customizable in Advanced EPUB settings under Headers and footers. One of the preset options is Pages read and total in book.

On the iPad, I have it set to:

{pgLeftInChap} of {pgTotalInChap} pages left in {chapName} ({pgReadInBook} / {pgTotalInBook}, {%InBook} overall)

-i have never gotten the book marks to work in Marvin so coupled with not knowing what page your reading I often get lost.
-Marvin and also the ios verson of Calibre want to create a local libary. I just want to read the book assignment, make notes and delete.

Last Marvin update was back in 2017 (Dropbox fix and support for iPad Pro 10.5). It's pretty much abandonware at this point. However, while it often does lose its place by a couple of pages when it's been put in the background, I've never had issues with it when it comes to manual bookmarks.

 

[jeyf]

Last Marvin update was back in 2017 ... It's pretty much abandonware at this point...

what book reader application are people using. That is not Kindle, Amazon, iBook? I found Calibre for ios is not as expected.

 

[rui no onna]

what book reader application are people using. That is not Kindle, Amazon, iBook? I found Calibre for ios is not as expected.

There's no Calibre for iOS. There's only Calibre Companion which is just a library management/helper tool that connects with Calibre.

Personally, I use Marvin. I've tried iBooks/Books, MapleRead, Hyphen, KyBook 3, Kobo, Nook and probably some others I'm forgetting but Marvin is still my favorite of the bunch. I'll continue using Marvin until it stops working on future iOS updates or Dropbox support breaks.

 

[jeyf]

recently this week been seeing rumors apple will allow more 3rd pary book, music and video applicaitons.

ios is an odd thingy. Almost NOY an operating system. macOS you can associate an application with a file type not so on an iPhone. I use the 3rd pary fileExplorer to navigte between my home network and my iPhone but it just seems there is no rhym or reason how things work. There is also the native ios app; Files but it seems weak.

i got Marvin because i wanted a a dark mode screen and some peeps inisist on sending me none pdf formats.
Marvin's user interface is difficult
page numbering is odd
vertical page scrolling not supported