Google Books Now Also Optimized for iPhone!
Sure, we lost iGoogle, but we gained Gmail Tasks, have been promised Google Latitude, and now have been served up a piping hot portion of Google Books optimized for the iPhone.
Authors, no doubt, may continue to have a problem with Google willfully ignoring copyright for their own content lust, while mobile users jump up and down in glee, like one author and mobile accomplisher, Andy Ihnatko is doing on his Celestial Waste of Bandwidth:
Yes, all 1.5 million public-domain texts in the Google Books project are now available to mobile users, behind a fairly awesome, slick interface. [...] And I scroll down a bit and find many titles of interest. I give one of ‘em a tap, and soon I’m looking at a very credible little mobile book reader. [..] Good golly. If Google is evil, then they’re a Doctor Doom sort of evil. What’s a little evil, when the totalitarian dictator takes such wonderful, indulgent care of his subjects?
Indeed. Google is really stepping up to showcase what great WebApps can still do in the post-App Store iPhone world. Any ebook aficionados try this out yet? How does it compare to native apps like Classic and Stanza? And how does the iPhone experience compare to the Kindle for that matter?
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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Google Latitude is coming, you can learn more here: http://www.ehow.com/how4763023use-google-latitude.html
It will be great, and there's no doubt it will happen because they need the iPhone to lead the charge. It's the most capable phone to do it.
How is Google ignoring copyright when all of these texts are in the public domain?
Rajiv
It does not compare to Stanza as it only lets you read books provided by google. With Stanza you can read your own ebooks.
Very weak, does not measure up to Stanza or the othet ebook readers at all.
Slow interface, unexpectedly limited offerings in many categories (e.g. sci-fI), needs net connection, no tap to advance by page,etc.
Not ready for prime time, don't waste your time!
One interesting thing to consider is that with Stanza, you can enter the URL from the Google Books page, and download it into Stanza. Just something to take into account, not that it makes Google Books any better. It just means that Stanza is really a great application.
Here's another vote for Stanza--a good only way to do Gutenberg. Sooo...the-gpowers-that-be killed iGoogle iphone, which was great and wasn't broke, then they give us googlebooks, gnotes which are just er uh ok.
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points.
Doesn't this cry out for Google's Gears? I want to download my book and be able to read even if I disconnect. Hey Google, how about Gears for iPhone?
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