It'll Never Fly

So in my constant quest to find ways of off-loading everything I do onto one pocket-sized device, my iPhone, I’ve now got myself on an eBook kick. I now carry my iPhone with me practically 90 to 95 percent of the time, compared to probably only 20% of time tops with my old phone. And now since my iPod and cell phone are one and the same, I never miss a call now when I’m listening to music on my iPhone.

I’m hoping the same theory holds true for these eBooks. By having them there at the ready, just a few finger taps away, I should theoretically be able to get back into reading. The problem is I don’t have an hour and a half commute into work anymore like I did a few years ago, so I don’t bother bringing a book with me these days. And like hell I’m going to give anyone at work the chance to see me take a book into the bathroom!

So I started to check out a few eBook reader apps for the iPhone. I’ve heard plenty of good things about eReader, but it seems to only be tied to the one eBook format.

Oh right, that’s the other thing. It would seem everyone likes their own format over everyone else’s. As Andy Tanenbaum said, “The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.”

I’ve also tried Stanza, which seems to have a lot more flexibility in terms of the formats it can import and export, and it really satisfies the geek quotient, because it really makes you want to start delving into specification documents and writing scripts to do all kinds of XML, HTML, and RTF manipulation to create the perfect eBook. Bookshelf is another one, and it sounds similar to Stanza in functionality, but I’m turned off a bit by the comparatively steep price (compared to free) of the app until I’m sure reading eBooks is something I even feel comfortable doing on a regular basis (or if it’ll become just another way for me not to read the books I want to read).

In the end, I decided on eReader for the time being. As much as I want to have the flexibility that Stanza offers, it’s kinda weak so far in terms of what it does do. Ideally, the best app for doing this eBook syncing would be one with that all too familiar iLife interface (i.e. iTunes, Mail, Yojimbo, Comic Book Lover, etc…). In other words, something that’ll let you edit the meta data like title, author, chapters, cover art, etc… The document-based interface Stanza has now doesn’t really suit a syncing app.

I tried converting/making my own from stuff I’ve found online, but after an hour of getting mediocre results, I realized my time was better spent doing other things. For now, I’ve signed up to Fictionwise.com as it carries a lot of the books I’m interested in reading.

After having used it for a couple of weeks now, here’s my iPhone 3G wishlist, in order of most desired at the top, which I’ll add to and remove from as updates occur:

- Can anything be done about all the crashes?
- Not having to sometimes power off and on the phone to get GPS working
- Emailing photos keeps EXIF intact (for emailing photos to Flickr with GPS info and simultaneously blogging). AirMe works but it’s slow, it can’t use aleady taken photos in the camera roll, and I can’t blog through it.
- A way to delete entered text faster (whole words and sentences)
- Landscape mode for email and notes
- Syncing of notes and todo’s with mail.app
- Ability to choose a different font than MarkerFelt in notes

[Somehow, I have one note in there that's not MarkerFelt, and this is with a standard 3G iPhone, but I don't remember what I did. I don't recall doing anything fancy.]
- Be able to get info on photos (time, date, size, resolution, etc…)
- Safari URL autocomplete makes use of URLs in adressbook/contacts.
- Add, edit, and delete contact groups directly on the phone without having to do it in Address Book first and then sync
- Double tap at top to toggle between time and date
- YouTube app allows me to login to my account to rate and comment videos, and to add, edit, and delete favourites
- Text selection, and copy and paste
- Find on page in Safari

[Apparently there's a Bookmarklet for doing this. Haven't tried it, tho.]
- An official Flickr app
- Full featured iTunes store app (not just music)
- Video recording (and then be able to email/upload said videos to the likes of Flickr and YouTube)
- Flixster app (rate/review movies from my phone)

[There is one now, but I'm still waiting for them to add the rate/review part.]
- GPS locations in contacts (when a place doesn’t have an address)
- Last.fm scrobbling while I listen to my own music, not just their radio
- Livejournal app
- Adium app

[BeejiveIM is decent enough.]
- Salling Clicker app
- VLC remote app (playlist management and media player controls)

[I can make do with an HTTP interface for now.]
- SSH/Secure telnet terminal app

If any of these are already done/possible let me know and I’ll try them out and update my list.

Also, does anyone know what the deal is with podcast show notes? Most of the ones I subscribe to have them, but only a handul of them show up when playing them on the phone. Is it up to the podcasters to set up their RSS feeds a certain way?