App Review: 3D Bookshelf by Ideal Binary

While we don’t review a lot of ebook apps around here (mostly games and utilities) we did have a change to examine and test drive 3D bookshelf by Ideal Binary. 3D Bookshelf is, like every other classical ebook reader, just that - an ebook reader for the common classic books like A Christmas Carol, Sheflock Holmes, Frankenstein and many others. However, 3D Bookshelf has taken the iPhone-ebook reader a step beyond many of the other classic book reader clones by adding a cool 3D interface.

As mentioned, the developers for 3D Bookshelf have built in several 3D animations. These cool animations include page turns and zooming in and out of the book and pages. 3D Bookshelf also has book scrolling just like that of cover flow in the iPod, allowing you to browse the many classic books that it has. Included with the animations are appropriate sounds (page turning) to add to the realistic experience.

While within a book you can add any number of bookmarks, a necessary function of any ebook reader app. Also, while reading, you have immediate access to the book’s table of contents to easily jump around from chapter to chapter. The app however, lacks font resizing and landscape reading for those that don’t like to read in portrait mode or who would like a smaller (or bigger) font.

3D Bookshelf is a decent and fun classic ebook reader for the iPhone. The interface is excellent and the app offers a great, wide selection of classic books that are right at your fingertips. We can easily recommend 3D Bookshelf for the classic book lovers out there that will appreciate the small animations added to enhance the reading experience.

What we liked: Cool 3D interface, decent classic book selection.
What we didn’t like: Needs more books?

[itunes-link]

App Review: Classics Brings the Books to You

There are lots of ways to read books on your iPhone or iPod.  I have always enjoyed the app Stanza, which is free, but doesn’t have all the latest books.  Then, there is Amazon’s Kindle, which was recently released in the App Store.  Kindle is also free, but you have to buy the books for it.  With the iPhone commmercials spotlighting it and its position in the top 100, Classics has caught my attention.  I decided to try it out.

When you launch the app, there is a book shelf with several books on it.  Simply tap on the book that you want to read to start reading it.  Simple enough, right?  The reader interface in the app is beautiful.  The pages of the books are an off white color, which makes the pages less bright, while the words are still easy to read.  You do not have pages that turn and then scroll either.  The text on each page fits on the screen.  At the end of the page, you turn the page either by swiping your finger right to left or tapping the corner of the page.  The page turns look remarkably real.

If you return to the menu after starting to read a book, the app will place a bookmark where you left off to mark your place.  Bookmarks can be seen hanging out of books in the bookcase.  My only complaint with this app is that the book selection is limited.  Having said that, there have been, and I am sure there will be, updates that add more and more books to the app.  Right now, there is a good starting selection of classic books.

Classics is on sale for $0.99 in the iTunes App Store.

Developer’s Website: www.classicsapp.com

App Review: WeatherCyclopedia - The Most Comprehensive Weather Encyclopedia Under the Sun

I have not spent much of my time looking through weather encyclopedias, or encyclopedias in general.  However, this app seems to be just what it claims, “the most comprehensive weather encyclopedia under the sun.”  When I first loaded the app and started to browse through it, it was a little overwhelming.  The app offers everything from weather jokes and stories to pictures, charts, and animations.  The menu seemed to go and go.  Some parts of the menu offered exactly what I expected and others were not completely intuitive to me.   Sometimes, I had a hard time finding the information that I was looking for.  Much of the information in the menu is organized around the way that weather is formed.  It is a logical way to organize an encyclopedia, but not obvious to any person browsing topics on the small screen of an iPhone.   The information that I did find was well-written and easy to understand.

The app also contains lots of pictures and animations that help to explain and illustrate concepts.  The only drawback that I found was that it always took awhile for my iPod to pull up the animations.   I don’t know if that is a function of the device or the app or a little of both.  The glossary of terms seems to me one of the most helpful functions of the app for someone like me who knows little about weather.  It contains an alphabetical index of weather terms and definitions.

If you are looking for information about weather, how it is formed, how it is forecast, or the many different things that affect it, this app can answer all of your questions and more.

WeatherCyclopedia is $9.99 in the iTunes App Store.

App Review: iStory by Taylor Steil

When I found this app in the iTunes App Store, I was excited to try it out.  I loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid, and was excited to see what they had to offer.  I downloaded the app and set out to read my first story.  I was surprised to find that there are not really any complete stories available at this time.  However, there are sample stories and puzzles there to show you what the app can do.  The real value of the app comes in its ability to help you create your own “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories and share them with other iPhone and iPod Touch users.

To create your own story, you tap “Create your own iStory.”  The app then asks for your email address.  After entering your email address, you receive an email with a registration link.  You click on the link and it takes you to their website where you can create your own stories and then submit them for review.  The iStory team reviews and approves each story before it is released to others. This process also links your iPhone or iPod with your iStory account so that the stories that you are working can be read on your device before they are submitted for review and publishing.   The only real goofy thing that I ran into in the setup process was that it didn’t seem to matter what email address you gave them to start with, you cannot login into or use the website without having a Google email address.  When you log in there is a disclaimer from Google saying they are not affiliated with iStory, but why the Google email address requirement?  Luckily, I had one already set up and could proceed.

At first, I did not know where to start.  When I clicked on the help link at the top of the page, I found detailed instructions on how to get started on a story.  The actual creation of the story was pretty easy.  I did make a couple of mistakes early on that took some thinking to work past, but eventually got it all straightened out.  You start your story by creating a cover with or without a picture.  From there you start typing your story.  When you get to a spot where you want to place a fork in the road, you click on add a choice and enter the text for that choice.   You can use as much text or as many pictures as you want.

A story of this type presents a unique challenge in keeping track of the pages and where they go and come from.  The interface that iStory offers helps you keep track of the pages with a drill down type menu on the left hand side of the screen.  Each time you add a choice to a page, the program cues up that choice as a page in the drill down menu that needs text. You can navigate from one page to the next by clicking on a page in the drill down menu.  To check your progress and make sure you are doing everything right simply click on “Play Story” and you can see your story as it would appear on your iPhone.  Or you can click the refresh button in the iStory app on your iPhone.  Your story will then appear on your phone and be available to download.

You can share your story with others at any step in the creative process.  When you share your story with someone, you can give them reader, author, or admin status.  As a reader, they can only read the story.  As an author, someone can add to and delete from your story in a collaborative effort.  Admin status allows them full access to the story.  When you are finished with your story, you can submit it to iStory for review.  Once approved, your story will be available to other iPhone and iPod users to read and enjoy.

I wasn’t so sure about this app until I actually went through the process of creating a story and downloading it to my phone.  It was fun and kind of neat.  This app is a great one for encouraging kids to write and be creative.  What kid wouldn’t like to see their story being published and enjoyed by others?  This app is not only for kids, though.  It is appropriate for people of all ages.  I think the app will only become better as more and more stories become available for reading.  It was only just released Feb. 4th and needs some time to grow.

iStory is in the iTunes App Store for $2.99.

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