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The iRead31: Day 5 of an iPhone-only Month of Reading

First week. Like quitting anything else, giving up paper involves a few withdrawal symptoms and the first couple of days are the hardest. Like the last time around (http://tinyurl.com/5c2p7s) the first adjustments are about muscle memory: hand position, reading angle, getting used to turning pages, the look of print on the screen. This adjustment was less of an issue with the iPhone, probably because it is already a device that has worked its way into my life as an email-checker, internet browser, iPod, and so on.

The first week has highlighted the difference between eInk readers and the iPhone's touchscreen LCD, for better and for worse. Over the next couple of days, I'll be highlighting the ones that stand out the most.

Portability and Ubiquity
My Sony Reader is indeed portable. Thinner than a trade paperback and just a tad heavier, it is easy to slip in a bag and carry anywhere. As a commuter, frequent traveller and chronic briefcase overstuffer, I have managed to cut back on book-based spinal distortion in a significant way. But my iPhone goes with me everywhere. It is small enough to slip into a jeans pocket or inside a jacket. It is phone, email reader, alarm clock, music device, et cetera ad nauseam. So my books are now always with me. This has changed the way I read and the way that books show up throughout my day. 

I am much more likely now to pull up a book and read a couple of pages while waiting for the streetcar or in the two minutes before my son gets out of piano lessons**. I always have my book with me if I'm stuck in a waiting room or reception area. So reading happens in more places and fills more cracks in the day. 

Interruptions
The downside of the iPhone as all-in-one device is that reading is no longer protected from the distractions of the digital world. The arrival of text messages, the tendency to flip over to check email -- the same interruptions that rob us of attention at our desktops -- now reach me while I'm reading. It is harder to reach that ideal reading state, the long, deep dive that is immersive, singular in focus, and resistant to mental chatter.

Backlighting
When using the Sony, I didn't find eInk's lack of backlighting to be a big issue. I needed light to read with the Reader the same way I needed light to read a paper book. Less eyestrain, a more natural reading experience. But backlighting is handy. As a late-night, every-night reader with a tendency to stay up late, I can read in bed without firing up the bedside light and risking the ire of my already-fast-asleep partner. The first night, the iPhone threw off a lot of light and the contrast with the dark room was a bit hard on the eyes. A quick flip to the Stanza reader's preference page flipped black type on white page to white text on a black background. Easier on the eyes and no more getting bathed in screen-glow in the middle of the night.

(** This tends to work better for pulp and pop non-fiction than with either literary fiction or more cerebral non-fiction. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, with its long, idiom-strewn, almost stream-of-consciousness paragraphs, is tough to dip into a page at a time without dropping the thread of the story. It also works better for a book that I have already started. The mental buffering that goes on at the beginning of a book, when you organize characters, settings and plot, needs more sustained attention than quick, on-the-go screen glances allow.)




The iRead31: 31 Days, All Reading on the iPhone Only - starts tonight!

Last year, I did a 30-day no-paper, all eReader endurance test using the Sony Reader as my sole means of reading. This December, I'm doing the same thing, but with the iPhone. The rules:

 - no reading on paper for 31 days
 - all news, books, and magazines must be read on the device

Unlike last time, I have a few more choices this time around. I can use any app, with content from any source, but it all must be consumed via the iPhone. 

Day 1

Buy some books
My plan was to use Lexcycle's Stanza as my reader and rely on the large trade selection of eReader.com to keep me in worthwhile reading material. If the Sony eBook Store was like the Platonic Form of an airport bookstore, the eReader.com store looks like a bookstore run by your crazy uncle. The design is very 1998, search is a bit rough and, at first glance, the selection looks like vaguely crazy-uncle-ish too. Of the top 12 bestsellers, two are fantasy; one each for fantasy, mystery, horror and sci-fi; and the other seven are romance. More proof, if any were still needed, that while other publishers send out tentative digital expeditions, Harlequin has invaded in force and is buying up beach-front property. 

Home page aside, selection is uneven but improved from last year's 30-day eRead: Anthony Swofford is here, but no Michael Chabon. Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon is there, but not Through the Children's Gate. Goodwin's Team of Rivals is prominently displayed, but only Next and the (quite old) New, New Thing from Michael Lewis. The Shack, The Story of Edward Sawtelle and The Host are available. Canadian content? Atwood's here with five titles, but she's eclipsed by Kelley Armstrong, Canadian author of the Women of the Otherworld Series, who has ten and counting.

In the end, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao goes in the cart (albeit at a tiny discount - $13.30 US, down from $14), as does The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson (with no discount at all at $24.95 US). By comparison, the same are $7.95 and $17.61 in paper at Amazon.com and $7.95 and $9.99 on the Kindle. 

Getting the books on the iPhone
Content transfer -- getting the book you bought onto the device you want -- is still the part of the user experience that forms the most significant barrier to entry for everyday consumers. It is where people get frustrated, call on a spouse, kid, or friend, or more likely, give up. This, more than any other reason, is why Kindle is currently dominating the eBook market. Pick and click is everything. Anything more complicated than a traditional e-commerce transaction loses customers at a frightening rate. And even the traditional online purchase is tougher on a mobile device -- typing is clumsy, credit cards need to be juggled, etc. So ease of use is huge.

Stanza is the nicest reader of the iPhone crop, so I was hoping to use it as my go-to for all book-length materials. I was hoping to take advantage of Stanza's recently announced alliance with eReader.com to access my eReader.com-purchased content on the Stanza. It worked out in the end, but not smoothly. What was supposed to be a "tap-download-read" experience turned into "tap - download - error - tap - error - Google "stanza eReader download error" - tap, tap, tap - login to eReader - tap, tappety, tap - download". But then, there they were, the two books I had purchased. 

(When I tried the same process using eReader's own iPhone app, the process was as quick and painless as one could hope. A quick login, two taps, and some login/password typing and my books were quickly downloaded to the iPhone. Stanza needs to do some work on interoperability.) 

Up next... the reading experience.