so most of your know i'm an avid reader and i've been fully converted to the digital reading experience. I read on my Samsung Galaxy S, I read on my iPad 2, I read on my Macbook Pro. So, the question I'm putting before us today is how best to get the e-books that you want
in an efficient and cost-effective manner. I have 4 "ecosystems" to choose from
1. amazon
2. apple
3. google
4. illegal as you can tell from the above, I have a problem in that I have OSx, Android, and iOS as my systems. I only sometimes use Windows–but nonetheless, being cross-platform and cloud synced takes on importance with this setup and with the following evaluations. amazon has certain advantages–
1. good prices
2. cross-platform–Kindle is on windows, mac, android and iOS. There is syncing of your notes and bookmarks and where you left off reading.
3. Buying Experience: well, you need to set up one-click wit ha credit card so you can buy stuff fast. But the problem is that you still need to make sure that you have a US address and are in the US store if you want the full selection of books and goodies.
Buying Experience 2: if you are using the mobile kindle apps, the iOS one has no link to the s tore, the android one does. But in the end, you cannot link the two–that is, you cannot go to the store, buy something, and then return to Kindle right away. You have to go to a browser–that is NO APP can complete the purchase of an ebook. Apps are fine for non digital content, eg computers, but not ebooks. Therefore it's a bit slow and inefficient.
4. Other advantages: if you are into magazines, you can get texty version of your fav mags but there are almost none of the graphics sand presentation that make them enjoyable. Google, for example, doesnt offer magazine subscriptions.
5. Kindle.Amazon.com allows you to see your highlights and bookmarks, thus allowing you a way of reviewing what you read by using any browser. THis is a really nice and probably underutilized feature (I didnt know about it until today). Google:
1. It's nice to be part of the Google ecosystem, and again once you set your credit card up things ought to be a breeze. BUT if you are
in China you are going to have a hell of a time getting the requisite apps installed from the official MARKET. use the unofficial ones or sideload.
There is no app that takes care of browsing and shopping and buying. You are better off doing this on a browser on your computer. Then what you buy will sync on your mobile devices, but again, that's a pain in the ass. Another bad thing is that you have no wish list and way of annotating what you want. The amazon wish list is one of the best features of Amazon and google dont have it.
Google *sometimes* offers good prices but they are never that muc hbetter than what you'd get on Apple or Amazon. Furthermore, there are some cases where the books you get are just scanned pages and you can't get the clean text reflow going. Major minus.
ON the other hand, some of those books are old non copyrighted books that amazon or other sources might not have.
Google is very cross-platform–Android, iOS, the web…
but again, it might not be worth investing in Google if you are already heavily invested in Amazon and/or Apple. Another CON: regions. If you sign in from Taiwan, where I am at the moment, you have the problem of being in a region where many of the books are not available. The only solution to this is to VPN into the US where you are still going to get the best combination of price and availability. Apple: Well, price is never the strong suit with Apple. Perhaps they give more to the content creators and publishers than Amazon, but on the other hand, it's sitll more expensive to the end user. The problem with Apple for me is that I don't have an iphone or ipod, so I have to only read these books on the iPAd, and that's not always the device that I have on me. So for somenone more invested, perhaps it's a good choice but not for me. For someone invested, I think that Itunes new Cloud goodness should be something worth checking out, in that you can sync with your various iDevices.
The other thing with Apple is that if your Apple ID is American from the getgo, then you don't ever have to worry about what mobile carrier you are using…which is how Google restricts you (there are workarounds, but the point is that these restrictions exist). However, for someone like me, the problem is again that there is nothing for my ANdroid phone. Illegal shit: I mean library.nu or torrents. Get these pdfs and .mobi and .epub files for free, and then open them in ibooks or kindle or whatever. Again, you might need to VPN to get to library.nu from China. Conclusions:
NOne of the processes are seamless, but I think overall Amazon is still the strongest choice. Sure you have to make sure it's set up so that your browsers and account are always in US mode. But after that it's a pretty smooth process and price and other things being equal, the amount of features that you get with AMazon–like the Wish list and cart–make it better than Google and Apple.
Of course illegal and free are great as well, but it takes longer and you aren't always gauranteed that they will have the book that you want
in an efficient and cost-effective manner. I have 4 "ecosystems" to choose from
1. amazon
2. apple
3. google
4. illegal as you can tell from the above, I have a problem in that I have OSx, Android, and iOS as my systems. I only sometimes use Windows–but nonetheless, being cross-platform and cloud synced takes on importance with this setup and with the following evaluations. amazon has certain advantages–
1. good prices
2. cross-platform–Kindle is on windows, mac, android and iOS. There is syncing of your notes and bookmarks and where you left off reading.
3. Buying Experience: well, you need to set up one-click wit ha credit card so you can buy stuff fast. But the problem is that you still need to make sure that you have a US address and are in the US store if you want the full selection of books and goodies.
Buying Experience 2: if you are using the mobile kindle apps, the iOS one has no link to the s tore, the android one does. But in the end, you cannot link the two–that is, you cannot go to the store, buy something, and then return to Kindle right away. You have to go to a browser–that is NO APP can complete the purchase of an ebook. Apps are fine for non digital content, eg computers, but not ebooks. Therefore it's a bit slow and inefficient.
4. Other advantages: if you are into magazines, you can get texty version of your fav mags but there are almost none of the graphics sand presentation that make them enjoyable. Google, for example, doesnt offer magazine subscriptions.
5. Kindle.Amazon.com allows you to see your highlights and bookmarks, thus allowing you a way of reviewing what you read by using any browser. THis is a really nice and probably underutilized feature (I didnt know about it until today). Google:
1. It's nice to be part of the Google ecosystem, and again once you set your credit card up things ought to be a breeze. BUT if you are
in China you are going to have a hell of a time getting the requisite apps installed from the official MARKET. use the unofficial ones or sideload.
There is no app that takes care of browsing and shopping and buying. You are better off doing this on a browser on your computer. Then what you buy will sync on your mobile devices, but again, that's a pain in the ass. Another bad thing is that you have no wish list and way of annotating what you want. The amazon wish list is one of the best features of Amazon and google dont have it.
Google *sometimes* offers good prices but they are never that muc hbetter than what you'd get on Apple or Amazon. Furthermore, there are some cases where the books you get are just scanned pages and you can't get the clean text reflow going. Major minus.
ON the other hand, some of those books are old non copyrighted books that amazon or other sources might not have.
Google is very cross-platform–Android, iOS, the web…
but again, it might not be worth investing in Google if you are already heavily invested in Amazon and/or Apple. Another CON: regions. If you sign in from Taiwan, where I am at the moment, you have the problem of being in a region where many of the books are not available. The only solution to this is to VPN into the US where you are still going to get the best combination of price and availability. Apple: Well, price is never the strong suit with Apple. Perhaps they give more to the content creators and publishers than Amazon, but on the other hand, it's sitll more expensive to the end user. The problem with Apple for me is that I don't have an iphone or ipod, so I have to only read these books on the iPAd, and that's not always the device that I have on me. So for somenone more invested, perhaps it's a good choice but not for me. For someone invested, I think that Itunes new Cloud goodness should be something worth checking out, in that you can sync with your various iDevices.
The other thing with Apple is that if your Apple ID is American from the getgo, then you don't ever have to worry about what mobile carrier you are using…which is how Google restricts you (there are workarounds, but the point is that these restrictions exist). However, for someone like me, the problem is again that there is nothing for my ANdroid phone. Illegal shit: I mean library.nu or torrents. Get these pdfs and .mobi and .epub files for free, and then open them in ibooks or kindle or whatever. Again, you might need to VPN to get to library.nu from China. Conclusions:
NOne of the processes are seamless, but I think overall Amazon is still the strongest choice. Sure you have to make sure it's set up so that your browsers and account are always in US mode. But after that it's a pretty smooth process and price and other things being equal, the amount of features that you get with AMazon–like the Wish list and cart–make it better than Google and Apple.
Of course illegal and free are great as well, but it takes longer and you aren't always gauranteed that they will have the book that you want
