For nearly 10 years now, I’ve had an electronic device stuck in my hand. Which was an upgrade, really, as before that there was usually a book there.
But as soon as I picked up a Palm Pilot and found I could read books on it, dozens, hundreds of books I could carry around with me at all times, I’ve never looked back. I was very loyal to Palm’s eReader for as long as it lasted, holding off on upgrading to an Apple device until they had something at least as good. (They did: eReader ported over and I bought an iPod Touch soon after).
But after awhile eReader wasn’t as supported anymore, and more and more books were in ePub format, and I grudgingly, reluctantly began using Stanza by Lexcycle. And I also found Calibre, an amazing ebook management tool that Stanza could seamlessly connect to and download from, and the combination was everything I wanted.
I am not exaggerating when I say that Stanza was the app I used most often on my iPhone. More than the other apps (including the phone itself) combined, and probably multiplied. I read a lot, everywhere, and this made it so very easy. Stanza was designed for readers. Not to be a storefront, not to locked you into any particular format or layout or ebook management program; it was designed to load a book and get the hell out of the way. That’s all I wanted. It connected easily to online catalogs like Gutenberg and Baen, and even let me add my own catalogs from other URLs or my own Calibre library with a minimum of fuss and an absence of wires. I loved it.
I also am not exaggerating when I say that when I upgraded to iOS5 this morning, my displeasure at finding out that Stanza no longer works was epic, loud and very likely offensive in a family setting. Just error after error, no way to open a book, nothing. Imagine a heroin user being told that needles don’t work any more and he’d have to find another way to get the stuff into his veins, and you’d have the general idea.
A quick Google search revealed this was a known problem among beta-testers and that there is very likely no update coming since a) Amazon bought Lexcycle and doesn’t really have any motivation to improve their competing product and b) the developers no longer work for Amazon anyway. I hope I’m wrong and it updates anyway, but now I have to find another ebook reader, and this is going to be tough because I’ve tried them all as they come out and not a single one combines the features I want as elegantly as Stanza, an app that hasn’t had a significant update in two years.
Here’s what I want in my ereader (your mileage, obviously, will vary): Let me add books in a variety of ways, at least one without syncing. Let me connect to my Calibre library, or download from online catalogs. Let me adjust the layout — font, font size, line-height, margins — to my own comfort. Let me lock the orientation. Make it easy for me to find and sort my own books. Display ePubs, and whatever other formats you see fit. That’s pretty much it. But how tough could it be?
Here are my other options:
iBooks. Sorry, a non-starter. The default ebook app that ships with the Apple OS, it displays your books on shelves, connects nicely to the Apple ebook store and makes the books look very pretty. Sadly, none of that is what I want. What it doesn’t do is allow me to reduce that huge page margin I don’t need, turn off right justification if the ebook designer wants it, change line-height, or lock orientation so it’ll stop spinning on the screen as I move around. It won’t go full screen, forcing me to waste reading space on icons, the name of the book, page edges and page numbers. And adding books is either through their store, through iTunes (meaning I have to sync every time) or through email. No. But the books sure do look pretty.
Kindle. Probably the ebook reading app I use almost as much as Stanza, mostly because some books are cheaper or only available in the Kindle store. It’s not bad, although it’s severely limited just because it can’t read any format besides Amazon’s proprietary one and now PDFs. Most of my ebooks — and I have thousands — are not in those formats. I can convert them with Calibre, but it’s slow and not always attractive and many of them are DRMed (which isn’t necessarily a problem, but that adds another step or two). Also: can’t turn off justification, won’t connect to other catalogs, won’t connect to Calibre. The Kindle app will stay on my device, but it’ll never be #1.
Nook. Nah. Can’t add books except by buying them from B&N, adding them through the Nook app or by connecting the device and dropping them into a folder. Won’t connect to Calibre, won’t add through email. And not a lot of customization possible; 5 font sizes but no line-height or margin adjustment. Not bad, but not exciting or convenient enough.
Kobo. I’m a little confused about Kobo. Didn’t it have a lot more options before? Customization isn’t far off from the Nook’s, which isn’t surprising since I believe they use the same code. But I had thought it connected to free catalogs and other sources, and I’m not seeing that now unless I’m just missing it. I know they had to kill their store connection to comply with Apple’s new “we want all your money” rules, but what about the rest?
Bluefire. A lot of regular Stanza readers have moved to Bluefire and I’ll give it a try, but so far it’s been crashing on me. When it doesn’t, it’s slow. Not a good beginning.
MegaReader. A strong contender so far. Displays more or less the way I like, connects to Calibre, connects to free catalogs, and even features a cool heads-up display by turning on your iPhone’s front camera and making the page opaque (customizable) so you can see where you’re going as you read. Of course I read while I walk, don’t you? It’s not perfect — the page doesn’t quite go fullscreen (the iPhone’s status bar is still visible), sorting by author just rearranges the whole list by author rather than giving you a list of authors, which you can then click on to see the books (a big advantage when you tend to carry a few hundred books with you), there’s no way to jump straight to recent books added or read, and it can’t add more than one book at a time from Calibre or do it in the background. But better for me than the rest, so far, and I’ve heard the developer is working on those features.
There are plenty of other readers I dismissed long ago, or haven’t tried yet because I read about problems with them (I2Reader doesn’t look bad but people have reported memory issues with large collections). And all of these ereaders have features Stanza did not. Kobo has a whole social aspect, iBooks lets you move books around on your shelves, others have different ways of adding notes and such.
But Stanza was a book reader’s dream. From the superior way it managed large quantities of books — you could search by book, author, collection, subject, and recently read, with a quick-jump alphabet list on the side to speed things up — to the way you could adjust the brightness by running your finger up the page while you were reading, rather than having to go digging around in settings, to minor tweaks you wouldn’t think of. One example: I like the page-turn effect. It’s not a deal breaker — I didn’t mention it at all in my lists — but it contributes to a pleasant you’re-reading-a-book environment. Several of the ereaders above have it, and I turn it off in almost all of them because it’s awkward or too slow and or too disruptive to my reading. Stanza not only had a smooth page curl effect but you could adjust the time it took. Whatever Stanza lacked it made up for in personal customization and convenience, and that was the part I want.
I’d love to hear suggestions for replacements, or reasons why I’m wrong, or ways to emulate Stanza functionality. And I hope I’m wrong and Stanza gets an update. For one thing I wouldn’t have to reload 300 books on this thing.
R.I.P Stanza. We read a lot of good books together.
(Image from lexcycle.com)
I share your pain. I loved stanza and tonight I thought I would update to ios5
What a mistake that was.
Not only was the update unbelievably slow but of course I discovered stanza had died
Now I have to use crappy iBooks. I may give the other ones ago when I get some time to look at them
This is the last straw for me. My contracts up next march and I’ve decided I’m going to jump ship to android ASAP
I love reading books on my iPhone but now I can’t find a reason to stay with apple altho I can find plenty to leave
1. The iPhone 4s screen size was not made any bigger a 4.3 or better s teen size would have improved the reading experience
2. The woefully slow backup/restore/syncing of iTunes. Why is it so slow ? It’s infuriating.
3. The death of stanza
Even if stanza does comeback I’m still jumping I’m fed up with the transfer speeds of iTunes.
Goodbye stanza. Thanks to you I rediscovered the joys of reading all over again
I have managed to get books into iOS 5 Stanza and read them, but it’s not convenient. Basically, Stanza’s Library function is borked. To get a book, you have to get Stanza into Shared mode and use Calibre or download books from other Shared book sources, and that can take some patience–the program crashes over and over. I just kept punching Ignore when the error message showed up and finally got into Shared Mode. At that point, I could dowload a single book from those sources and read it. Rinse and repeat. Do not touch the Library button, or you will have to start all over again. Gaaaaah.
What I did was delete Stanza to clean out the library, and reinstalled Stanza. It comes up with a cheery face and good old Alice in Wonderland. I carefully touched the back arrow on top, let it gyrate and crash a few times until I could get to the Shared button. The program instantly recognized the Calibre content server and I could choose a book for download. Touch the Read Now button and you’re off. I could also download from shared Bookstores, such as SmashWords, and read the books I downloaded from there.
All other Stanza features, including the dictionary, work just fine for me.
I tried every single reader in the iTunes store today priced below $2, and hated every one of them. MegaReader was passible, as was BeyondPrint (based on BlueFire). But each had some annoyance that drove me to figure out how to get a book back into poor Stanza.
No other source–Dropbox, iTunes, iEplore–worked. One at a time is the only way, sigh.
I have touching faith in the eBook community that someone will figure out how to fix the Library problem. Please (sob).
I am in the same boat I used stanza religiously multiple times everyday
I have tried about 20 different reader apps and they are all awful.
Plus one main feature stanza had that other readers don’t is freaking book progress only other app I have seen with that feature is kobo reader app but load my 400 books in and it gets brought to it’s knees.
I pray that they update stanza or some other developer picks up their features and incorporates them into their app.
For the mean time still trial and error to find something that is half ass close
You might try looking into Ouiivo. It works about the same as far as connecting to Calibre as Stanza. Just the only complaint is the scrolling window for each chapter instead of pages. But overall it looks to be the best free alternative so for.
Amazon murdered the wonderful Stanza. Premeditated murder for $$$$s.
But they haven’t got my iPad 🙂 … I’ll stay with IOS 4 for now – and BOYCOTT AMAZON!
Use the wonderful CALIBRE!!!!! 🙂
It’s as if you know me. 😉 The first 4 paragraphs would completely describe me (well, you have to swap out eReader for iSilo…). I updated yesterday, but only after trying a few readers and currently settling for MegaReader, which is an aesthetic disaster area, but at least I can continue to read.
I’ll be trying every other reader I come across, searching for the holy grail of Stanza-likeness…
Well, I’m in the same situation as the rest of you, except that I don’t use Calibre. But I keep tons of books in Stanza, and read in it (and iSilo) for several hours a day.
I’ve been trying out various apps, and the two I’ve narrowed my choices down to are ShuBook and Tomes, neither of which I’ve seen mentioned in the varied websites bemoaning the death of Stanza. ::grin::
ShuBook’s iTunes description is mostly in Chinese, but the app itself works fine. It lets you change font and font size, justification, and paragraph/line/letter spacing (and para indentation). It has an orientation lock and a night mode, and it has a swipe for brightness! It doesn’t hide the status bar, nor does it have author folders, but it does let you sort by author.
Tomes has most of the above, also, but I can’t get the margins and justification to change the way I want on a book I converted myself. :;sigh::
BoyondPrint has most of the features, too.
However, after looking at the above, along with BlueFire, Blio, and Ouiivo, I think I’ll be using ShuBook the most.
Hope these suggestions help you guys make a decision, too.
Good article.
One thing however, you can turn off the justification of text in iBooks. (Settings -> iBooks -> Full Justification -> OFF). And you can hide the buttons by tapping at the bottom of the screen.
Just a quick note…Calibre will work with my hubby’s iPAD and iBooks but it syncs thru iTunes.
Gaaaah! I have not yet loaded iOS5 and will probably wait for a while. I am really frustrated by the whole ebook scene at the moment. It’s great if I’m sitting at my computer, but having a usable ereader sounded so convenient. I was thrilled when I discovered Stanza for my iPhone. Then my age-related eye issues started cropping up. So I decided I needed an ereader. I did lots of research. And more research. Then, mostly due to the economics of having a brother working for Borders, I got a Kobo. Which was stolen about 3 months later. That’s ok. I keep my books on Calibre on my desktop. So, more research, then I bought the Nook basic b&w. I didn’t want a lot of bells and whistles, just something in a readable size. I only bought a few books from B&N because I have an objection to not being able to store my own books (they use some sort of “cloud” app). Not ideal, but I can live with it. Then, a week ago, it just stopped working. Won’t turn on, won’t reboot. Nothing. I’m afraid to mess with it too much, because I don’t want to lose the handful of books I bought (although, this may be a moot point). Back to the iPhone. I can use Stanza, I just hold it really close to my face. My long term plan was to save up for an iPad, but not if I won’t be able to read 200+ ebooks I already own.
I don’t think as a reader and a consumer that it is asking too much for an ereader that is simple and easy to use and does not require you to purchase all of your books from one source. I don’t think it is too much to ask for an ebook that I can move from one machine (which I own) to another machine (which I own). I don’t think it is too much to ask for an ebook that I get to actually own, myself, in my own storage. The current state of ebooks (and bookstores, for that matter) makes me want to cry.
So, after reading this I am def. NOT updating..I’m fine with the 4 model!! Plus I have too many books in it to stop using it sooo, while I’m sad for you…thank you for the heads up!!
Good luck with finding a replacement and I too hope they will update for you and others!!
Oh no! Like you and the other commenters, I’m an avid, no RABID, reader on the iPhone and Stanza has been my go-to app. I guess there’s one good thing then that my 3G isn’t included in the iOS 5 updates 🙂 Of course, I’m intending to buy the new 4S as soon as it hits the shelves here in Ireland on the 28th, so I’ll be up doodoo creek then! 🙁
I will definitely be looking into MegaReader, as well as SuBethJimBob’s suggestions of ShuBook and tomes. Thanks!
I am so glad I read this blog! I didn’t know about this and fortunately I haven’t upgraded my phone yet. I LOVE Stanza. It was the first app I downloaded when I got my first iPod touch. I don’t know what I will do without it. I basically use that more than any other app, followed by Kindle. I will definitely have to check out some of the other apps you have recommended because I’m not going to be using Kindle anymore. Thanks!
Re Scott Meyers: “One thing however, you can turn off the justification of text in iBooks. (Settings -> iBooks -> Full Justification -> OFF). And you can hide the buttons by tapping at the bottom of the screen.”
But that only works if the publisher has not specified justification. If it has, your book will justify whatever that setting it set to. Stanza could ignore publisher settings.
And yes, you can hide buttons, but not page numbers or the name of the book, neither of which I need or want while I’m reading.
Oh, geez! Now I’m glad I have an iPhone 3G, as it’s not compatible with the latest iOS. I was thinking about upgrading my phone, but the loss of Stanza might actually make me look at Android options… O.o
Lately I’ve used Overdrive and Bluefire, as my budget is that of a student, so I’ve been getting out a lot of library ebooks. I really hate Overdrive, but the bonus is that I can download the library books right on my phone – otherwise, I need to download them onto my computer, email them to myself, then open them in Bluefire.
Thanks Guys … its MegaReader for our iPhone 4s where iOS 5 has bricked Stanza … at least until Amazon try to buy and kill that.
Just 1,500 more books to download individually … on each device!!!
I have switched to i2Reader. Surprised that nobody has mentioned this one.
I have used Stanza for years and it has always been my favorite. i2Reader
is as good and in some cases better than Stanza.
Included:
You can customize almost everything, not just text color, but color of main
text separately from headline text and italics, footnotes etc.
You can choose from a lot of fonts, I did not count but would estimate
maybe 60 or so.
You can choose font size by slider or specify by point size.
You can choose background color, overlay a picture with slider controlled
opacity.
You can save unlimited styles you make or use the pre-configured ones.
Switch in Book while reading by double tapping the page.
There is a custom status line setup which shows any combo of time,
progress bar, page number or percentage of book read and all this can be
separately color and size controlled. Or removed completely.
Full Screen Reading option.
Animate-able page turns or the ability to turn them off, also the ability for
tap zones if you don’t like sliding the page and the ability to Define where
the tap zones are on the page.
Sleep mode or Not.
Orientation Lock for both directions, you choose or let it rotate.
The library can have indexes (the letters to quickly get down large library
pages like Stanza).
Large cover icons or small.
Auto grooping of books, by metadata.
Option to open book at startup or not.
Choice of TXT encoding… the list is Sooooooo Long!
You can Sort the library by Author, Title, Sequence, Sequence #, Publisher,
Publishing Series, Generas. One at a time or all at once. Although you have
to go into Prefrence tab to change. I just sort. “Author, Title,Sequence,
Sequence #” so everything is in order.
In the library there is no author folders like Stanza, but with the sorting
turned on everything in the list shows up together if your metadata is correct.
ALSO ON THE LIBRARY PAGE YOU CAN SEARCH!!! FIND STUFF FAST!
NETWORK STUFF
A built in web browser.
OPDS Libraries. (they put in Feedbooks, you add whatever you want.)
Shared Libraries to use with Calibre and i2Librian.
A built in FTP server to upload books to your device.
HTTP Server to upload books to your device.
Dictionaries!!! You can add as many as you want (StarDict format), and use
one at a time or all at once, you choose.
Supports bookmarks with names, has a page with history of last 5 books
opened and new books added and a button called “Bookmarks in Library” so
you can get into whichever book you want to read where you left off.
The one bug I have found is that when visiting hyperlinked footnotes I have
trouble using the link back, but I always bookmark before following and
then use the bookmark to get back, I just call the bookmark “q” every time
and overwrite it.
Also no Sharing function from in the app.
All in all I will say this beats the hell out of Bluefire and all the rest
of the readers out there, but I will miss Stanza.
One more thing it’s $4.99 U.S.D from the app store.
I have posted how to install libraries here:
http://danger3d.blogspot.com
dangerd
ShuBooks. Author of app already stated his commitment to incorporate missing settings from Stanza into app. I can get behind that, and have happily paid the 2$ in the hope that will happen soon.
Is there a good site to keep up on the various reader apps available? I’m using MegaReader now as well, but it is definitely missing some features I used frequently in Stanza – slide brightness being #1, and day/night style switch being #2. Also, it seems like MR gets a little confused when I leave the app and come back – sometimes I have to go back several pages then forward again or it skips sections of text.
I just want a good site that talks about these things, there’s gotta be a forum out there.
I am so glad I read this! I was just thinking I should do an update, but there is NO WAY I will now unless they fix Stanza to work as is on iSO5.
I like so many of you would be lost if I could not use stanza.
As others have mentioned the slide brightness adjustment, the page turning, the flexiblity of sorting are just some of the features I love about Stanza…including the fact I can still see the time at the top of my page so I dont lose track while I am reading (important if you need to pick up kids or just reading to fill in time before having to be somewhere).
Stanza is my most used app on my iPhone, including use of the actual phone.
I REALLY hope they get it fixed to use with the new iPhone, I was hoping to update mine, but wont until I have something as good as Stanza or Stanza itself…in all its glory.
I updated last night, middle of the night. Damn you apple! Suddenly I was missing every app except Books on Board. Not bluefire, which I would be able to use – just the shopping app. I have been adding apps back and when I added stanza it looked like I might recover my library.
But stanza will not open without an error message. As soon as you try to ignore one, the next pops up.
Amazon bought mobipocket and stopped all updates for that reader (which was my favorite). Mobipocket let you sort your books by the last time they were opened/transferred in – so if you added 11 books you didn’t forget to read the 11th. It was just great until Amazon ate it. So now they have Stanza and there are no longer programmers working in that division. I want to say Boycott, but I think I have been defeated. I am probably going to break down and get a kindle because they have blocked me so well.
But Wait – try Beyond Print – its free, its working nicely so far, and it lets me sort by recent, author or title. They have night mode, different settings for page turning, and orientation lock, four fonts that I can see and a good range of sizes. Page numbers, justified text (or publisher’s formatting)and lots of color options.
Just need to see if it works on large libraries and whether Amazon has tried to buy it yet.
Anyone checked which of those Stanza replacements have the support for cbz and cbr? I used stanza for reading comics just as much as books…
Jesus effing Christ! How come Amazon did that out of the blue when there are arguably MILLIONS using this app? Okay it’s free, so they can do whatever whenever they want. But still!! It’s money, right Amazon? I’m willing to pay for an update, C’MON!!
I’m hooked on stanza…have been reading on my crouch for several years. Recently went to using an Android phone. Reading Aldiko. Works great with caliber too. But can’t sync wirelessly.
darn auto-correct. Although I do read on the couch….I meant itouch
Why does everyone assume that getting a Kindle is the only alternative to reading on an IOS device? There are other nice devices around — e.g. Kobo, Sony — which don’t tie you to Amazon. And the news here and elsewhere of good IOS alternatives to Stanza have been very encouraging. Why reward quasi-monopolistic behaviour?
Calibre works with my Nook Color. Depending on the format it goes on the shelf or in “my files”. Calibre did not convert the last several books from pdf to epub. That’s a pain. But other than that work great.
I have always used Stanza, until I updated my iPod to IOS 5.
I have tried all the above mentioned alternatives,
but – indecesive as I am – (I’m Danish so my English is la-la)
I can’t decide wich alternative that fits my needs the best.
I sway around between iBooks and MegaReader and Bluefire and Kobo.
Aaaaarrrrrggghhhh…….!!!!!!!
This is totally unacceptable. I will be really lost without Stanza so I am not updating to iOS5 either. My contract is also up for renewal early next year and I will seriously be thinking about switching. I just wish these big companies would stop thinking of their profit margin and think of their customers for a change, after all it’s our money that’s put them where they are!
I too discovered my Stanza wouldn’t work since I upgraded the other day to iOS5. Major Bummer! Google brought me here. I am very disappointed to learn what’s happened (shame on you Amazon) but relieved (only somewhat) to know I’m not alone in this.
Thanks for all the suggestions for potential replacements. I’ve played with a few now but am up way past my bedtime too so I haven’t played with all of them (I did try then delete Ouiivo Readerm and Shubooks though. I may be liking BeyondPrint, but it’s late and I may be easily swayed…
You can also turn off auto rotation on your iphone (for all apps)
Push home button twice, swipe bottom
Row of apps to the right and you’ll see some audio controls plus a lock rotation icon.
As previously mentioned, Calibre does connect to iTunes so will sync with iBook. If iTunes is installed you can connect to it as a device (like with your ereader if that’s plugged in).
iBooks is damn slow though in iOs5, surely it should be able to cope with 4000 books?
Facebook ‘petition’ group to revive Stanza for iOS5 just started.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/230548790339245/
I seriously encourage everyone to write a letter of complaint to Amazaon. Say you are willing to pay a substantial sum for the Stanza app, because I know I would!! Say that you are HIGHLY disappointed in them for buying Stanza and letting it rot, probably on purpose. Say that while you appreciate everything amazon has done to digitize books, that your displeasure of their attempt to constrain the way we read books we legally purchased from them is discouraging you from continuing to buy their books. Just let your extreme displeasure be known!!!
I am SOOO mad because I just got an iphone and was thrilled with how beautifully Stanza worked, page progress, bookmarking, annotating, highlighting, dictionary, great organization system, and of course it’s support for practically EVERY single file format. And then after only a month of reading with Stanza, I find out that I will no longer be able to do so on iOS 5. I might have to downgrade to iOS 4…there’s really nothing special about iOS 5 anyways~~
I’ll just add my voice to this here outcry of dismay at the death of Stanza at iOS 5. I wasn’t aware until I’d upgraded and went to use Stanza for the first time. I have been using Stanza since I got my first 3Gs, and now on the iPhone 4 my company issued me. It was my favorite app and, like many of you, the one I used the most.
I have been auditioning a few alternatives and, again like most of you, have found all of them to be missing something that Stanza had. It seems like most of you used Calibre for book management, but my primary usage of Stanza was in reading public domain books from Project Gutenberg. I’d download them, read them, and move on. It seems like many of the Stanza alternatives don’t support adding your own library/source and don’t support Project Gutenberg as a source. The single biggest aesthetic thing that I’ll miss is the center swipe for brightness. That was a really nice feature.
So far, I’ve tried out Megareader and Bluefire reader. I was shocked that at $1.99 Megareader had no ability to book mark or add annotations. Bluefire on the otherhand is free and has a great bookmark/annotation system. I hate that Bluefire doesn’t connect directly to Project Gutenber but as a compromise I can access public domain books via Feedbooks, and I can “side load” any project gutenberg or other ePub books I have stored on my computer via iTunes since Bluefire supports iTunes file transfer via the apps tab. Not ideal, but a work around.
You can check out my initial comments on both Bluefire and Megareader in my blog post:
http://mikeygibran.blogspot.com/2011/10/rest-in-peace-stanza.html
As for a site to compare iOS ebook readers, I’ve recently created this article in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iOS_e-book_reader_software
Please, by all means, if you have something to contribute to it (and I’m sure you have!) do it. Preferrably right now! 😉
Unfortunately the Iphone 3GS will upgrade to the IOS5. I also lost Stanza, and now can’t get any of the ereader apps to work. Not even Kindle
Id say downgrade back to ios4.
I’m certainly not upgrading until there is a suitable stanza alternative.
Id encourage everyone to send an email to amazon, proclaiming they will boycott them until stanza is fixed and spread this fire as far and wide as possible
Why are people blaming Apple? This totally sucks, but blame Amazon, not Apple. This whole ‘jumping ship’ thing is dumb. Apple, and any other company is not going to stop updating their OS’s because an app isn’t being updated.
This is 100% Amazon at fault here.
I agree whole heartedly mike i will never send any business in amazons direction for doing this as for a temp solution ive found a combo of mega reader and pdf reader does the job and just continue to use calibre to maintain your library. Ive tried a few other readers (even paid ones) and none of them cut it i think we should beg calibre to release their own idevice app i would happily pay for it after the amount of money ive spent on apps that just dont do the job they are advertised to do.
ps mike we can blame apple for alot of things just not this one for a change
FOUND A BETTER ALTENATIVE!!
bluefire reader + i-funbox both free
you can drag and drop all your epub and pdf files into the bluefire apps directory thru ifunbox the only draw back compared to stanza is you hav to plug in thru usb so not so bad.
if you are a nub with these programs (no shame in that)just email me and i can talk u thru it
toad2003@hotmail.com
like i said till calibre realeases their own app i dont intend to give amazon a cent
Stanza IOS 5 update just came out 11-10-2011 – works great!
Stanza gets updated for iOS5
Woot!
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/11/stanza-ereader-returns-with-ios-5-compatibility/
It’s been updated! Hallelujah! It’s been a long (almost) month without it!
Happy day!
Today the App Store has the iOS 5 update for Stanza – and it works!!
I too shared everyone’s horror -my iPod Touch 3G died, and I got the new type with ios5, and Stanza crashed right after opening. I found the new version, and it works, but there is one problem that drives me nuts:
The margins on epub books are zero (I haven’t yet tried other formats). Text goes all the way to the very edge of the screen. I’ve gone into Stanza and reset margins to maximum width, but there is no change. Does anyone have a fix for this?
But augh! If you couldn’t upgrade to iOS 5, now Stanza no longer works for iOS 4.
I made the mistake of updating Stanza to the newest version from the AppStore updates on my poor old iPhone 3G and now it (Stanza) crashes as soon as it is launched. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling with a fresh download from the AppStore, same result….and I have no way to go back to the previous version of Stanza