More Choose Your Own Adventure On iPhone -- Courtesy Of Kindle

J.R. Bookwalter — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:49:15 -0600

The classic Choose Your Own Adventure series already had a brief flirtation with the iPhone a year ago (courtesy of Magnetism Studios) with a 99¢ app featuring two books — Return to Atlantis and Journey Under the Sea. But now, you can collect nearly 30 more titles, courtesy of the free Amazon Kindle app.

Timed with their 30th anniversary, parent company Chooseco, LLC recently inked a deal with Amazon to make their titles available on the Kindle, including the ever-popular The Abominable Snowman and Terror on the Titanic.

The series, which has been helping kids read for three decades now, was launched in 1977 with R.A. Montgomery’s Journey Under the Sea (written under the pen name “Robert Mountain”). In 1979, Bantam Books took over the series and christened them Choose Your Own Adventure.

This is an extra benefit to iPhone and iPod touch users, since the free Amazon Kindle app (and soon, a Mac version of the desktop software already available to Windows users) already opens up the e-book floodgate, negating the need to buy Amazon’s pricy hardware.

Kindle versions of the Chooseco titles are only $5.59 each, and Amazon is offering a free download of House of Danger (Choose Your Own Adventure #6) for a limited time. As always, Kindle books have to be purchased via their website first, then they are wirelessly transferred to your device. The iPhone app includes a “Get Books” link to a mobile version of the Kindle Store to enable purchasing from your device.

eReader

Rick Broida — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:21:42 -0500

Read on the run with eReader. The app is free; the books will cost you.

When boredom strikes, nothing beats a good book at your side. eReader makes it possible, turning any iPhone or iPod touch into the next best thing since the Amazon Kindle. Granted, it doesn’t endow your device with all the Kindle’s features, but it does make reading on the run as easy as swiping your finger.

The free app comes with a pair of public-domain books—The Last of the Mohicans and Tarzan of the Apes—to get you started, but you’ll want to browse the impressive selection of fiction and non-fiction titles at eReader.com. Most are discounted, and you can get an extra 10 percent off by subscribing to the free newsletter. Alas, the eReader app lacks a built-in bookstore like the one on the Kindle: It can download only those books purchased from the eReader site proper. (It can also download from Fictionwise, eReader’s parent company.)

Because neither eReader.com nor Fictionwise is optimized for the small screen, your best bet is to browse and buy on your Mac, then download your purchases via the eReader app—a quick and painless process. That said, we did manage to make a purchase using mobile Safari, so you can shop on the go if necessary. The average book consumes just half a megabyte, so even a 4GB iPhone or touch can store dozens of titles without making much of a dent in available storage.

The eReader app is a model of simplicity: Just tap a book to open it, then swipe your finger left to turn the page or right to go back a page—much like flipping the pages of a real book. Tapping the screen brings up a toolbar for viewing the table of contents, searching text, or adjusting the font and font size. Speaking of which, text looks razor-sharp no matter what settings you choose. eReader is fully tilt sensor-compatible, rendering pages in portrait or landscape mode depending on how you hold your device.

Though it may seem a bit awkward at first to read a book on a smallish electronic screen, most readers get acclimated quickly—then fall in love with the convenience of a pocket library. eReader may be little more than a rudimentary e-book viewer, at least in its initial release, but its value can’t be overstated. It’s a must-have app.

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More Choose Your Own Adventure On iPhone -- Courtesy Of Kindle

eReader