There are many different book reading apps on the App Store. However, most of them are either inconvenient to use, in particular when loading books into the application, or are paid. Not everyone knows that there is no need to look for a specialized tool for reading books on the iPhone. iOS has an excellent app for this. This manual, as you already understand, is about iBooks.
iBooks is Apple's official book reading app. Over the past few years, iBooks has evolved from a not-so-good e-reader into an excellent tool that is both flexibly customizable and allows you to download books in the fastest possible way. Surprised to hear this about iBooks? This means you haven’t tried to use it for a long time, but now we’ll explain everything.
This is what makes iBooks scary at first glance. Lack of Russian books in the store. But this is not a problem at all.
Advantages and disadvantages of book reading apps
The main advantage of reading applications is their compactness. Your favorite books and audiobooks are always at hand and don't take up extra space. They are convenient to take with you and read anywhere.
Perhaps reader applications will not appeal to those who, when reading, enjoy not only the content, but also the reading process itself - turning pages, the smell of printing ink, folded corners, marks in the text.
Otherwise, the applications have many more pros than cons. Especially considering that the cost of a paid application usually does not exceed the cost of just one printed book.
How to read books on iPhone. A complete guide for dummies
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For the last 15 years I have hardly read paper books. It all started with the purchase of my first pocket computer, the HP iPAQ h1940. Despite the simply disgusting, by modern standards, quality of its screen (what a resolution of 320×240 pixels was worth compared to modern 2880×1440), inconvenient applications and turning pages with a special device called a stylus, I spent hundreds of hours on it reading various texts (books and articles)!
Modern smartphones, including the iPhone, provide much greater capabilities than the devices of that time, and the reading pleasure is comparable to a real book (perfect image clarity, smooth 3D page-turning animations, colorful virtual shelves with books, and much more).
Therefore, if you have an iPhone and love to read books, it’s time to turn your smartphone into a real library (and for owners of Android smartphones, we have an excellent comparison review of the best e-readers)! You can do this in three ways:
Method 1. Books application as the most obvious solution
Your iPhone already has an Apple app for reading books, which is called Books, already installed (if you deleted it, you can download it again in the App Store). The application has limited functionality, although it is made of very high quality. If you are not a very demanding user and are willing to put up with a number of limitations, which I will discuss later, this is an excellent choice!
In what formats can books be read?
The application supports only one book format - ePub . Yes, you can open a PDF file without any problems, but reading it on the small iPhone screen will be inconvenient, to put it mildly (an iPad is more suitable for this).
How to download a book on iPhone?
The easiest way is to launch the Safari browser and write the phrase “books in epub format” in the search bar, after which Google will return many sites and book catalogs:
When you've found the book you're looking for, there will likely be several formats available on the site, but we're only interested in epub. If this format is on the book download page, click and wait a few seconds.
The screen should prompt you to open the book in the appropriate application. If instead another program is indicated, click just below the “More..” menu and select “Copy to Books”:
The book has now been added to the application and is available for reading. In the program itself, you will have a minimal set of settings, namely: font style and size, background color, night mode (to reduce eye fatigue in complete darkness) and a choice of display method - page by page or solid text with vertical scrolling.
Also in the application you can highlight important passages with a “marker” (different colors) and leave your comments on the text. All this will be stored in the iCloud cloud, so even if something happens to your phone or application, all the notes and underlines you have made will not be lost.
Sometimes I highlight the most important and interesting, in my opinion, parts of the book, and then, after some time, I can return to just these fragments and refresh my memory of the main idea of the book.
It wouldn't be Apple if it didn't add realistic 3D page turning animation to its app:
What is the disadvantage of this application?
The main drawback for many will be the lack of support for the popular electronic book format - fb2 (as well as others - txt, rtf, doc, prc, html). But for me the main disadvantage is the inability to change the width of the fields. For some reason on the iPhone the margins are too wide and the text is right in the center of the screen. Too much useful space is lost, the text becomes uncomfortable to read (very short lines):
And if this application does not suit you, there is a second option:
Method 2. Alternative “readers” with richer functionality
The App Store contains many book reading apps. A good example, in my opinion, is the eBoox program. It supports all popular formats (including epub, fb2, txt, docx), is completely free and contains advanced text display settings (field width, line spacing, background color, font):
You can find any application you like in the App Store. You can add your books in the same way as in Apple Books, only instead of the “Copy to Books” menu item (in Safari), you need to select “Copy to eBoox” (or the program that you chose as the main reader).
There is, however, another way to copy all books directly from your computer to your smartphone, but it is less convenient. You can connect your iPhone to your computer via wire, launch the proprietary iTunes application and select an e-reader here, and then add files from your computer to it.
There is only one difference between the first and second methods - in the first case you use the official application from Apple, which supports only 1 format, in the second - from third-party developers. Searching and downloading books are identical. But there is another way to read books, which differs from the previous two:
Method 3. Read books by subscription
If you don't want to waste time searching for the book you need (and you'll have to buy most of them anyway), then there's a convenient way to read them by subscription! For a certain price (depending on the application), thousands of books in Russian will be available to you.
Popular applications include MyBook:
You can also try the BookMate app:
The principle of operation of all these applications is the same - you pay a subscription (the application will withdraw a certain amount of money from the card monthly) and legally download any number of books onto your device.
This type of application is suitable only for those people who really read a lot. Otherwise, it will be much cheaper to buy e-books individually and read them in your favorite application (Apple Books and others).
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Bookmate
The Bookmate book reader is convenient even with basic functionality. But it can be remade by changing the text margins, font and background gamma. Before you start working, you will have to register. By downloading any of the books presented, the user receives recommendations from the program. An abstract, reviews of other readers and quotes are displayed for the work.
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Thanks to the millions of works that are in the built-in library, you can read around the clock in different languages (so far 9 languages are available). If you wish, you can upload your books and sort them into 3 main categories: “Later I’ll read”, “Reading” and “Read”.
The software also has a “What They Read” section. In it, the application collects the activity of friends from Facebook and Twitter. There is also a “Strangers” tab for those who want to try a new genre that other users are interested in.
This ereader for iPhone works with the most common formats:
- FB2.
- EPUB.
The application has a free trial period. After its completion, the user will have to complete tasks from Bookmate. For example, choose your favorite genre. For each completed task you can get several additional days.
It is much easier to buy a subscription, which expands the functionality of the program and gives access to all books, audiobooks and comics. The price is quite affordable - 149 UAH per month for the Premium package. There are also “Audiobooks” and “Books and Comics” subscriptions. The cost of each is 116 hryvnia per month.
KyBooks
This program is shareware. For a month after downloading, you can use it just like that, and then the developer demands a fee, blocking part of the functionality. But by paying the required amount, you can get rid of annoying advertising and get an e-reader for eternal use.
In KyBooks, design themes change according to the user's wishes. He can sort files into cells that he created personally, connect dictionaries and turn on speed reading mode.
The formats of books for iPhone that the program works with are text txt, EPUB, FB2, RTF, PDF, DJVU, MOBI, AZW3, CBR, CBZ, CBT and audio MP3, M4A, M4B. The program works with zip and rar archives, text documents. You can also create password-protected bookshelves that only the user can access.
TotalReader Pro
TotalReader Pro is suitable for full viewing and editing of texts. The software works with more than 20 formats (among them FB2, DjVu, ePub), that is, with its help, all known types of books will be opened.
The functionality of the reader is simply enormous: fonts are adjusted (their type and appearance), voice search is enabled, and the level of backlight and screen is adjusted. An additional plus is that the software correctly displays all footnotes, tables and links.
There is a Pro and a free demo version. The application developer provides the software for trial use. The application can be called stable and fast, regardless of the device firmware.
You can download works of art via a cable, a search engine, or cloud storage.
Content synchronization
What does this mean? That all the books you are reading or have read will be available on all your devices - from where you finished reading, with all bookmarks, text highlights and other changes. Synchronization is carried out through Apple’s proprietary cloud service – iCloud. To turn it on, on all devices, open Settings, tap your account icon, select iCloud, and turn on the switch next to iCloud Drive and Books.
Note: If you only want to sync books you buy from the Apple store and not your ePubs and PDFs, don't activate iCloud Drive.
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Highlight text
This process is very similar to adding notes. Tap the word you want, hold your finger on the screen, then select Select from the menu and tap the icon with the image of multi-colored circles.
There are several colors to choose from to highlight text – yellow (default), green, red, blue and purple. If desired, the text can also not be highlighted in color, but highlighted in red.
You can also share or deselect the selection.
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Upload books to iBooks via Wi-Fi
- Connect the device to the computer and launch iTunes;
- Click on the iPhone or iPad icon, then go to the “Review", in which we put a tick next to the item "Sync this iPad (iPhone) over Wi-Fi»;
- After changing the configuration, click on the “ Done ” button.
After setting these parameters, disconnecting the cable from the iPhone is not scary. Now the device will always have a connection to iTunes via Wi-Fi. Without the need to attach a cable, you can also delete books from iTunes.
