Overview
E-readers haven’t caught on in a huge way yet. They seem way too high-tech for something as low-tech as books. BeamItDown’s Fifty Books app combines simplicity with convenience to take a large step in the right direction for digital reading. The books’ text is displayed on-screen, automatically scrolling at a speed you control. You’re also in control of the look of the page – text color, page color, font and size. This ultimately resulted in reading I had to work less for – just holding my phone in front of my face was a lot more comfortable than propping up a book, maneuvering to keep the pages open. I am a big fan.
Features
- 50 Awesome Books. In Your Phone. For $10. Come on.
You really can’t beat the value here. While some would probably argue all day about what 50 books they would include in a collection like this, the app’s name isn’t “The 50 Best Books”. What we have here are fifty fantastic works of literature that will entertain and educate you. For $10 dollars. Shopping on Amazon.com (without particularly hunting for deals), the price for the first ten books on the list is $43. Times five is $215. So, 50 books is a savings of around 200 bucks? Are you still reading this review? I’d have bailed to go buy it by now, to be honest.
- Easy On the Eyes
I spent a couple hours reading with Fifty Books and felt no worse for wear than if I’d spent the time reading the real thing on paper. To be honest I was much more comfortable, the iPhone being lighter and smaller than most books.
- Options, Options
As mentioned in the overview, you’re in complete control of how the text appears to you. There’s a surprisingly large selection of fonts, and sizes from 10 pts to 34 pts.
- Coming Soon…
BeamItDown let us know that a new version of this app is coming within a month. The new app will include a whopping 100 books for the same price, and features enhanced user options. The decision on whether to wait for it is up to you – I’m not sure whether a free upgrade will be available (yes, please!)
Breakdown
The Good:
This felt like kind of a no-brainer. My only worries starting this review were that it’d be hard on the eyes or otherwise weird to read from an iPhone rather than a book. These fears being unfounded, I proceeded to enjoy a good book for a couple hours. The features and auto-scrolling make for the laziest, least hands-on reading experience I’ve had. That, slothful as it sounds, is a good thing.
BeamItDown also offers a ton of other collections – most based on authors. There’s collections of Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and more. The price is really unbeatable in any of these cases. What it seems like we’re headed for is a central app with modules you can purchase and add-on. This would likely be a little bit easier than managing a bunch of different collections strewn about your Home screen.
The Bad:
Well, there are going to be the diehards that insist that absolutely nothing beats curling up with a good book. Like, a REAL book. I can’t ridicule that standpoint, as something about the idea that reading will become almost 100% digital someday has a real sadness to it. Reading from an iPhone doesn’t have the nostalgic, old, paper-smelling feelings that a real book’s got. To be honest when thinking practically, I’d choose inexpensive, easy to read, easily stored books over a library full of the real thing any day.
Oh, and you don’t look as scholarly and dedicated to literature as you’d look holding a giant tome like War and Peace.
Verdict
Fifty Books is, hands down, the app that I think I will use most in the coming months. As someone who has always felt an urge to read “the classics” but hasn’t gotten around to many of them, having them on my iPhone takes away all my excuses. Putting the text in your hands and allowing you to read it the way you want is a huge boon to the convenience of literature. Though holding an iPhone isn’t like holding a big hardcover or a well-worn paperback, the content’s the same, and ultimately more portable. Highly recommended for anyone who likes good books.
Our Rating
ifty Great Apps for Ten Bucks!
- Developer: BeamItDown Software
- Category: Book
- Released: 01-13-09
(currently 2.3.1)
(currently 0.99)
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! i must say I’m highly suspicious the developer of this app paid you off for a good review. i seriously don’t even know where to start. ok, how about here? STANZA!! stanza is a FREE app with THOUSANDS of free books, i believe including every single one of the measly fifty in this app. and it also has tons of font, size, color, etc. options. plus many more features not in this app. and did I mention it’s free? or what about the shakespeare app, with every one of the bard’s works, also free? or “classics,” which is $2.99 for about 15 books and new additions with every free update, around the same price as the app you reviewed but much more polished stylistically with a more realistic book feel to the pages. so please explain to me how this RIP-OFF of an app gets a 5 for value when there are infinitely better free versions, and also considering that no app on your site that costs more than $1.99 EVER gets higher than a 4. seriously, i believe this is the FIRST app reviewed here to avg 5/5, and i cannot think of an app less worthy. TEN DOLLARS?! have you not realized that even incredibly well-crafted, useful and enjoyable apps price themselves no higher than $4.99, because due to the vast number of apps out there ppl just aren’t willing to spend more than $.99 for a mediocre app and $4.99 for a phenomenal one? and I’m not joking about my suspicion; granted it’s unlikely you were paid off, the odds of such a fawning review (wholly undeserved) the likes of which this site has never seen being unbiased is perhaps more unlikely. perhaps.
Wow eli… this wasn’t a comparison! I agree that 10 bucks is definitely too high – but geeze, are you sure you aren’t the competitor? haha
Hi, Eli.
I am not kidding you. I am giving my opinion of the application I reviewed. That’s kinda what a review is. Your rant is wholly uneducational, very offensive, and makes you look like a fool. I stand by my review: I think this is a great application. I’m sure there are others out there like it, but those weren’t the topic of review.
If you want an app reviewed, I believe we have a link for sending in tips. If you want to piss and moan about other people’s opinions, do it on somebody else’s internets.
I am one of the founders of BeamItDown Software. We did not pay off anybody for this excellent review, although we did provide one promotional copy of the app, just like everyone else does. Regarding the comment about the “free” books that you can get with Stanza, if someone thinks that $10 is too much for 50 carefully selected and packaged books, then I suggest that they get the Stanza reader and try downloading 50 books and see just how much time and effort it takes. I doubt that many would conclude that the effort was worth the$10 “savings” unless they value their time very, very cheaply. Beyond that, you will still have to read them with the Stanza reader instead of our iFlow Reader which we believe provides a far superior reading experience. We think it is a bargain at $10. Most people seem to agree.
I was wondering if there was a way to load ebooks I already own onto my iPhone to read using your iflow. I love iflow, but I already have bought hundreds of ebooks (maybe thousands – I own a kindle for reading at home, just like iflow for when I am away). Anyway, thanks for a great product.
I agree with the last mail. I found the technology superb but I have many ebooks I would like to convert to this great reader. If you find a way I would be happy to pay the premium I think it’s that good!
Yes, I too think it’s the best reader for the iPhone – by far. It’s also the only app I definitely would buy if there were a possibility to load other ebooks into it. In the meantime I’ll stick to the free version(s), though, even if the 50 for 10 offer does seem like a steal.
I want to see sexxer movies with the toolbar for free.I also want to have YouTube.
I have recently added one of your books (Sex) on my iPhone. I Iove the iflow feature, but don’t care to read much fiction (I prefer technical books, self-help, magazines, etc.) and that was one of the only ones that interested me. I mostly wanted to just try out reading a book using auto-scrolling. I am very impressed with how easy and fast I am able to read a book and practice my speed reading techniques from the EyeQ program. But, there aren’t enough in your selection that interest me.
How can I use your auto-scrolling feature for other books and texts I have stored in my iPhone? Is there just a general software application I can purchase?
Also, is there a way to increase the speed even faster for people like myself who practice speed reading?
I don’t see anywhere here or at The App Store where it is indicated that these are complete books. Are they or are they abridged?
Do you have to pay for each book that you want get from this program after the $10 charge?
Amazing brand new football drills application for the iphone great vaule just key in FKC1