I don’t know why, exactly, but I like holiday versions of things–I always buy Halloween and Christmas-themed paper towels at home, for instance, and I love Christmas movies and books set at Christmastime.  So it’s a natural progression for me to look for holiday-themed apps.

It’s just a bonus when it’s a holiday version of an app that I already love.

Angry Birds is by Rovio; the original game is here.  There is also a “lite,” i.e., free, version for you to try to see if you like it.

There are a lot of discussions on the Amazon message boards about Kindle book pricing, and a lot of anger, even going so far as to start boycotts against any book with a price higher than $12.99. I don’t claim to understand all of the ramifications, but apparently part of the problem is that Amazon discounts the physical books, but isn’t allowed to discount the ebooks, so you will quite often see an ebook at a higher price than the physical book which, when you think about it, makes no sense at all.

You run into instances like this:

 
“Don’t Kill the Messenger” is a trade paperback originally priced at $15.00. Amazon discounts it to $10.20, but the ebook edition is $12.99. I wanted to read it, but I just couldn’t justify it at that price, so I put it on the waiting list at the library.

When you buy a book, the main thing that you should be buying is the content, but of course, when you consider a physical book, a lot of the appeal is the packaging. I kind of like separating the content from the packaging–I have often seen a book that I would like to read, but I’m turned off by the font, or the paper, or something else, and don’t buy it. I don’t have those constraints with an ebook–they all look the same, so it’s just the content that’s important.

I used to want to own the books I read, but over the last few years I’ve gotten away from that. Part of it is expense–I seldom re-read a book, so it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to buy them if I can get them at the library. The other consideration is space. I have a LOT of books. I’ve been slowly getting rid of some of them, either selling them (either at Half Price Books or online at Amazon or Half.com) or donating them to the library.

Ebooks don’t take up any physical space, so it’s easy to have a library of hundreds of books that will fit in the palm of your hand. I enjoy reading on my iPhone; I know a lot of people don’t, they think the screen is too small, but I actually enjoy it a lot. I download a lot of free samples of books, but I really do think long and hard before I spend the money on one. At $.99 or $1.99 it’s not a big deal, even $6.39 isn’t bad, but when it gets up over $9.99, I definitely have second thoughts.

The article I referenced above made me think, and I believe the author made a lot of good points. I don’t buy $4.00 cups of coffee, but I will buy a couple of lunches on the weekends while I’m out running errands; I don’t have a problem spending $10 on lunch, so why do I have a problem spending $10 for an ebook? I think it’s the issue of necessity. No, I don’t have to eat out–and seldom do, anymore–but I do have to eat. I don’t generally need a new book. I have a lot of books that I haven’t read yet, so I could read one of those, or I could put the book on the hold list at the library and wait a couple of weeks.

Spending ten dollars or more on an ebook seems frivolous, extravagant. Which is why I’ve been so pleased to do the Swagbucks thing and earn a few Amazon gift cards. I still think a long time before I buy a $9.99 ebook, but at least when I do buy one, the price is coming out of a gift card, and not going onto a credit card.

You are given different numbers and combinations of birds for each level, which makes it even more difficult, i.e., if the only bird “ammunition” you have consists of the egg-laying birds, the strategy is different than if you were given the “bomb” birds.

The levels get more difficult as the game progresses, of course, and there are over a hundred different levels. You are awarded stars for each level completed–a one star attempt will let you advance to the next level, but there are three stars possible for each level, so once all the levels are achieved, you can go back and try to get three stars in all of them. That’s what I’m doing, while I’m waiting for more new levels.

One of the most addictive games I’ve purchased for my iPhone, and definitely worth the $.99.

“The thing about purchasing and listening to an album was that on any given album there would usually be a couple of songs you loved, a couple of songs that were just okay and one or two you didn’t like at all. And because vinyl (and later cassette tapes) made it difficult to jump from one track to another you usually just ended up enduring the tracks you didn’t like. (That is, unless you made your own mix tape.) The upside of purchasing an album was that you would purchase (or record) an album because you liked a track or two and then, once you were listening to it, discover a few more that you liked or loved but would never have heard had you not gotten the album in the first place. In fact, often the “best” track on the album often ended up being one that you would never have even heard were it not included on the album.”

Fast forward to today, and the iPhone. There are several iPhone apps that allow you to read ebooks on the iPhone. The free eReader app is pretty good. Books can be purchased through eReader.com or Fictionwise, and they can be sent to your iPhone automatically. Fictionwise also allows you 25 MB of space on their servers to upload “personal content,” so if you have ebooks that you acquired previously, you can upload them and send them to your iPhone to be read through eReader.

Fictionwise also has frequent rebate specials where, if you purchase a new release or best-seller, they will rebate the purchase price back into your account to use for future purchases.

eReader splash screen and library list:

The eReader app has quite a few customization settings–font, font size, line spacing, margins, justification–and you can create personalized “themes” and set your own background and font colors. You can also change the page turn gesture to “tap” or “swipe” either up/down or left/right.

eReader book page, with and without menu settings bar:

Before Amazon came out with the free Kindle for iPhone app, I used eReader and was happy with it, but now that I’m more used to Kindle, a couple of things about eReader annoy me.

On the Kindle app, you “tap” on the left or right-hand side of the “page” to turn pages, and if you want the menu and settings bar, you tap in the center of the screen. In eReader, you choose either “tap” or “swipe” to turn pages, and the other one is the gesture for the menu, so, for example, if you’ve chosen “tap” as the page turn gesture, you have to “swipe” to get the menu. I invariably try to tap in the center of the screen, and end up turning the page rather than getting the menu. A small thing, but annoying.

Kindle splash screen and library list:

Having said that, the Kindle for iPhone app doesn’t have many customization options. You can change the font size, and you can choose from three pre-determined themes–black on white, white on black, and brown on cream (“sepia”), which is the one I use.

Kindle book page, with and without menu setting bar:

Both eReader and Kindle allow you to lock the orientation, which is something that the iPhone in general doesn’t allow you to do, so that it doesn’t automatically flip to landscape orientation if you move the phone too far from center.

If you have an actual Kindle appliance, or use the Kindle app on your Mac or PC, the Kindle for iPhone app will automatically sync to the last page you read, so you can pick up your book right where you left off the place you were reading. The Kindle appliance isn’t backlit, so you can’t read it in the dark without a light. In contrast, the iPhone is backlit, so it’s no problem (barring eyestrain) to read in the dark. I often find myself sleepless in the middle of the night, and pick up my iPhone off the bedside table, switch it to night mode (white on black) and read a few chapters of my latest book.

Browsing the Amazon site for Kindle books is a pleasant experience, and if you find a book that you think you might be interested in, you can request a free sample, which is sent automatically to your iphone. The next time you open up the Kindle app, the book sample (usually the first chapter) will show up in your book list. If you like the sample and want to buy the book, just click “buy this book” at the end of the sample, and you can have it on your iPhone in a matter of seconds. You can quite often find free Kindle books on Amazon, as well. Just search Amazon for “free kindle books.”

There are other ebook readers in the iTunes store. Barnes & Noble has one, which is basically the same as eReader, with a few additional setting such as an “invert” button that quickly changes to the white-on-black color scheme.

B&N ereader splash screen and library list:

B&N ereader book page (inverted), with and without menu bar:

Stanza is another popular ebook reader.

Stanza splash page and library list:

Stanza is ineresting in that they have connections with loads of ebookshops, just click the “Get Books” button and you are presented with a long list of online bookstores divided into sites where you can purchase books (Fictionwise, O’Reilly, SmashWords), and sites where you can get free ebooks. Most of the free ones are public domain.

Stanza book page, with and without menu bar:

I love ebooks. It’s the convenience that I love, and not having to carry around anything other than my phone, which I have with me all the time anyway. If I’m stuck in line at the post office, or waiting at the car wash, I can read a couple of chapters of my current book, or buy a new one immediately if I need something new to read. It’s also saving me space at home, I seldom buy a physical book anymore. My local library has also started to offer ebooks for limited loan, but they don’t have anything that works on Macs yet. I’m sure that will happen one day.