Android devices. Built in e-reader vs. e-reader app. Your preferences?

[norweger]

I haven't had an Android e-reader before. I guess some of them get the hiccups when you install and use your favorite Android e-reader app, like Moon+ Reader, Cool Reader, FBreader).

So, if you own an Android e-reader, do you use the built in app, or an app from Google Play?

[Question Mark]

All depends on what I am reading.

Most often I will use the native reading app on my Onyx ereaders, especially if I want to make notes on the book as I am reading it.

However, I also have a variety of other ereader apps installed on my ereaders. For example, I usually use Moon+ Reader when reading in Japanese because it handles furigana properly unlike most other ereading apps I have tried.

And then, when I am using Moon+ Reader to read in Japanese, I might have a couple of other ereading apps open so that I can easily jump from one app to the other if I want to check on something. For example, I'll have a Japanese ebook open in Moon+ Reader and its English translation open in Cool Reader.

Also, when reading in Moon+ Reader, I can jump between that app and a Japanese language app very easily if I cannot find a term in the dictionaries which I have installed for Moon+ Reader.This has proven very convenient for me.

Unfortunately, when just using Onyx;s native ereading app, although one can have up to four different books open and jump between them easily, one cannot jump between the native ereading app and other ereading or language apps so seamlessly. Thus, I find it necessary to have a number of different reading and dictionary apps available to me.

[JSWolf]

The answer depends if the supplied app or the external app is garbage or not. Garbage is when the app doesn't respect the CSS as is the case with most Android reading apps which is why most are garbage.

[Skydog]

Moon+ Reader

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The answer depends if the supplied app or the external app is garbage or not. Garbage is when the app doesn't respect the CSS as is the case with most Android reading apps which is why most are garbage.

Personally I feel a lot of the css is garbage so a reader that I can set to ignore it the best option.

[alfpier]

Hello

do anyone know if is there an ereader app optimized for eink that has these functionalities for pdfs:

page reindexing: useful to add an offset to page number in order to be able to go to actual page in the main text and skip those pages that are not main text (contents,lists of figures, etc). This should work also after having splitted two page landscape documents.

Automatic skew correction: useful to correct the skew of those documents that come from scans non perfectly done where text is not always horizontal.

I know that these features are present in ebookdroid, app that I used thoroughly on my previous Samsung tablet. Using ebookdroid on my eink (boox nova pro) I found the rendering of text is not as good as that of the default app (neo Reader, which however lacks the useful features mentioned before)

Unfortunately the devs of ebookdroid refuse to release an eink version of their app, so I am asking you guys if you know some alternatives with similar functionalities

Sent from my NovaPro using Tapatalk

[stumped]

is there even such a thing as an android ereader app that is optimised for e-ink?
the market for that must be... miniscule? ?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by norweger

So, if you own an Android e-reader, do you use the built in app, or an app from Google Play?

I use Moon+ Reader Pro on my android eink device. I like the customization it allows me.

Originally Posted by stumped

is there even such a thing as an android ereader app that is optimised for e-ink?
the market for that must be... miniscule? ?

I bet (without trying) several ereader apps are optimized for eink by default. I don't recall having to do anything drastic to Moon+ Reader when I placed it on my eink device. I simply chose the theme appropriate for my device and that was it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

Personally I feel a lot of the css is garbage so a reader that I can set to ignore it the best option.

There's no problem having overrides, but the program also has to respect the CSS. The best way to do it is for each override is to have an off setting. So you can turn all overrides off or on as you want. This way it's not all on or all off.

Besides, once I'm done editing the CSS, it's not garbage. It may not be as clean as it should be, but it's giving good results on screen.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

is there even such a thing as an android ereader app that is optimised for e-ink?
the market for that must be... miniscule? ?

When I used using a Sony Reader PRS-T1, it used a version of RMSDK (ADE) that worked with eInk. The T1 runs on some version Android.

[Quoth]

I think all the later Sony models used Android. Though why is a mystery. But then Sony abandoned their own decent TV GUI to use Google's Android TV.

There are two main reasons why Android exists and why Google bought it in:
1) Symbian used only the official Mobile Java because Sun (later Oracle) mysteriously wouldn't licence Desktop Java on the same terms. Android uses a clone of desktop JVM so as to run full Java essentially. The court case is still running.
2) Android had a much better touch orientated GUI than the stupid Series 60 on top of Symbian (Nokia had due to politics internally abandoned a touch GUI based on the superior Series 80 used on the Communicator, back in maybe 2003).

An eink GUI needs to be designed for eink. The reader app needs to be page based. Mobi used on PalmOS was bought up by Amazon.

There is no good reason to use Android (which uses a Linux kernel) over plain Linux, GNU utilities as on Linux distros and a custom GUI and application, both of which are needed for Android anyway. Regular Android apps are not going to be sensible on eink. Earlier Sony readers didn't use Android, well it didn't exist!

First Smart Phone 1998, best was the 1998 Nokia Communicator on AMD x86 like a 486. Then 2001 there was colour and ARM CPU on Nokia. I had both models.

Sony Librie in released in 2004 predates Kindle and Android.

iPhone was released on June 29, 2007 Earlier that year touch screen 4G phones (Flash-OFDMA by Flarion with tile GUI by Trolltech) were demoed. Qualcomm bought Flarion for the 4G IP and that killed the project.

Kindle November 2007.

Android on phones in late 2008 , four years after the first Sony eink based ereader. The PRS-T1 was 2011, by 2014 Sony had ditched the ebook reader. Too much influenced by media division and wanting to sell ebooks. They now only do high end PDF based eink, "digital paper".

Android was bought by Google bought in 2005.
Amazon bought up Mobipocket. The Mobi format and Moboreader was well known from 2000 and on Symbian, WinCE, Windows desktop, PalmOS for PDAs (Psion and WinCE), smartphones and feature phones.
Amazon.com bought Mobipocket.com in 2005 and kept it running until October 2016, when it permanently shut down the Mobipocket website and servers. I'm not clear if the actual reader on the original Kindle was based on Mobi Reader.
Also shows the evils of DRM, how it and evil so called "licences" rather than regular copyright deprive consumers.

[pazos]

Android itself isn't a bad decission for embedded devices with a touchscreen and Sony did a good job with their T devices. What is bad are Google Play services, vendor spy/bloatware and having a bunch of apps running in them. Sony killed all these problems shipping a "closed" version of android 2.2.

Another nasty choice that some vendors do nowadays is choosing a platform with deficient power management (rockchip), a platform with known issues handling cpu freq (allwinner) or a platform without sources at all (mediatek). Sony used freescale like Kindle, Kobos, Cervantes, Tolinos.

The java vm used in android has nothing to do with the standalone Oracle/Sun machine. It just happen that both are compatible with bytecode for java7. The old one was Dalvik and the new one is ART.

The sad thing is that most e-ink devices with android are promoted as "Android with Play Store" and use that as an excuse to ship bad reader software.

[JSWolf]

And in the USA, the Sony Reader PRS-500 was released September 2006.

[HLS]

@Dopedangel I thought that bug in your avatar was a bug on my screen and it freaked me out LOL

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by pazos

Android itself isn't a bad decission for embedded devices with a touchscreen

No, it's pointless for eink and pointless for something you can't install apps on.

I had a PRS-T1 and it didn't do anything Androidy. I think the T2 is basically a T1 that works better. Considering that Sony had FOUR years of experience doing ereaders without Android rather than being new in 2008 it made no sense. Also they had there own decent TV GUI before the Ghastly Android TV.
They produced PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4. The PS2 even had a Sony Linux Distro.
Minidisk
PSP (various models)
PCs & laptops

The only way it would have been slightly logical was if the Phone Division was taking over the ereaders.

I've written a program for Android and one in Java to run on Linux or Windows desktop identically.
I've written C programs for Linux (Debian) and also for OpenWRT with no GUI. I helped port Debian on to a 320 x 240 LCD panel portable gadget with touch screen, email, MP3, player, Firefox etc and Trolltech QT based GUI in late 2006 early 2007.
So from my own experience I can see no point to Android for an ereader of any screen type and less for eink. Especially when you've already been doing better ereaders than the first Kindle. No point to Android unless you are including the Android home screen and stock apps and no point if you can't install apps. You don't absolutely need the Playstore to install apps on Android, but unless you are Samsung, Huawei or Microsoft it's a bit mad.