QuickAdvice: Carry An Entire Digital Library In Your Pocket With MegaReader
MegaReader – 1.8 Million Free Books ($2.99) by Inkstone Software, Inc. is an app that gives you access to almost 2 million free books right in the palm of your hand.
Yes, there are several apps in the marketplace that do this - give you a ton of free books to read and download at your leisure. But MegaReader is different.
When you launch the app, you'll get a nice splash screen (hey look! it's Retina display optimized!), and then you'll get to the main screen. The main screen contains a listing of all the books you've downloaded (there's even free books already waiting for you), and an Import section where it takes you to the vast repository of book catalogs.
There's 6 total book catalogs to download free books from: Feedbooks, Project Gutenberg, Baen Books, Smashwords, eBook Search, and Internet Archive. There's a description for each one in case you aren't familiar with what it contains. If you're familiar with other sources of getting free books, you can tap Edit to add a catalog in the "Other Catalogs" section.
When you find a book, tap it and you can view a description of it. If you like what you see, just hit Download - it will appear in your main listing of books once it's finished downloading.
Before you start reading, it would be nice to check out the app settings to customize your reading experience. You can find different color schemes (which you can further adjust to your liking by selecting font and background color) and a good selection of various fonts. Font size can be easily adjusted with the slider. There are more options for margin width, line spacing, right justify, lock rotation, device sleep, and restore on startup. End up not liking your changes? Restore Defaults is there for those emergencies.
Now, once you got those settings taken care of, it's time to read.
Selecting a book will take you to a screen that shows the title of the book, author, and cover. There's a chapter and part listing (if available) and even a Last Place option that will take you immediately to where you last left off in the book.
When reading, tapping the screen on the left or the right side will turn the pages, as well as sliding the screen in either direction. Tapping the screen in the middle will 'pause' the book and give you a menu bar of options.
There's a nice little button that will take you back to the home screen when you're not on it - that little house button in the lower left corner will do the trick (this appears on all screens other than the home screen). You can choose from Normal Reading or Speed Test if you are feeling up to the challenge. A megaphone button is there if you want to share what you're reading to Twitter or Facebook. The last button will be options to add the book to iBookshelf (a separate app and developer) or advertising for QuickReader, which is from the same developer as MegaReader.
The app functions the same in both portrait and landscape modes.
The app is optimized for the iPhone 4 Retina display, has a nice interface, offers tons of books, has plenty of customization - and is only $3! I mean, what is there to not like here? It certainly gives you more bang for your buck, compared to some other $10 apps.
So if you're a bookworm, high school or college student with required classical reading, or just want to have a huge repository of free books for leisure reading, then MegaReader is definitely one to check out.
