Kindle App for the iPad vs. Apple iBooks

May

2010

Michael Alexander, iPadNewsDaily Contributor
10:16 AM ET

Even before its release, one of the many anticipated uses of the iPad was as an electronic book, or "ebook," reader. It's bright screen, long battery life, Internet connectivity, and relatively light weight seemed to make it an ideal replacement to the printed book in the digital age.

Unlike dedicated ebook reading devices such as Amazon's Kindle, however, the iPad uses software applications, or "apps," to turn it into an ereading device. Right now, there are two main apps for reading ebooks on the iPad: Apple's iBooks app and Amazon's Kindle app.

Almost from the get-go, Apple’s iBooks and Amazon’s Kindle apps have been jockeying for the top slot in the App Store’s Top Free iPad eBook reader category. Are the apps really that close?

Not if you look at it from the point of view of their respective bookstores: Amazon claims to have more than 500,000 titles on its electronic bookshelves. Apple, meanwhile, admits to having only 46,000 titles in its bookstore.

More similar than different

Unlike the two bookstores, the iBooks and Kindle apps are not all that different.

Both take advantage of the iPad’s unique features starting with a high-resolution, LED-backlit screen that displays bright colors and sharp text.

You can read books in either portrait or landscape modes. You can adjust the brightness of the backlighting by moving your finger along a slider. You can zoom the size of text.

You can turn pages by either tapping on the right or left side of the screen, or by slowly dragging your finger across the screen in the direction you want to go. Pages in both apps curl over as they would with a real book when you flip them (Kindle gives you the option of turning page animation on or off).

You can also jump to a different part of the book by going to the table of contents and tapping a chapter heading.

Tap a title for the first time from the home screen and you’ll open the book to the first page. Close the app and reopen it, and you’ll automatically pick up where you left off.

Both apps give you the ability to bookmark and highlight words and passages.

The bottom line is that both apps are easy on the eyes, have intuitive controls and do a good job of emulating the paper book reading experience.

What’s Different about Apple’s iBook

Apple’s iBook app is just plain beautiful to look at: The books are displayed by cover on realistic-looking wooden bookshelves, just as they might appear in a brick and mortar bookstore.

Although you can read in portrait or landscape modes with either app, the difference is that with iBooks, you’ll see two book pages side-by-side instead of a single page as you do with Kindle. The iBooks presentation feels more “book-like” as a consequence.

iBooks features 10 font sizes and five type faces (Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times New Roman and Verdana).

One significant difference between iBooks and Kindle: Search. iBooks has it; Kindle does not.

iBooks gives you two ways to search. The first way is to tap the magnifying glass in the upper right corner and then enter your search term. The second way is to hold your finger down on the word, which will pop up a menu with three buttons: Dictionary, Bookmark and Search.

In either case, the Search function pulls up every instance the word is mentioned in the book as well as gives you the option to search further on Google and Wikipedia.

Tapping Dictionary brings up a definition for common words; tapping Bookmark enables you to add bookmarks and highlights words and passage in Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink or Purple.

What’s Different about Amazon’s Kindle

Kindle’s home page is less fancy than iBooks’, but still pleasing. The book covers are displayed on a muted background with a reader sitting under a tree in silhouette. Unlike iBooks, you can use pinch to change the size of your downloaded book covers.

You can archive books you’ve already read but still want to keep on your device. That’s an option you won’t find in iBooks.

Kindle gives you five font sizes, plus the option of changing the page color to black-on-white, white-on-black and sepia-on-sepia. There’s only one typeface.

Kindle’s controls are aligned across the bottom of the screen. Here, you can navigate backwards, add/remove bookmarks, among other functions.

Tapping the icon that looks like an open book pops up a menu: Cover, Table of Contents, Beginning and Location. The only one of the four that might need explanation is Location. Tap the menu item and you’ll have the option of entering a page number and then going there.

Tapping and holding a word brings up a menu to highlight a word or entire passage. Unlike iBooks, you can also add notes at the same time.

Here’s a big plus: In addition to the iPad, you can read your Kindle books on your PC, Mac, Kindle, iPhone, iPod touch and BlackBerry. Amazon’s Whispersync technology automatically syncs your last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights so you can pick up where you left off. iBooks has none of that capability.

Conclusion

On one hand, with its more book-like feel, multiple typeface choices and Search, among other features, Apple’s iBooks app is a step ahead of Amazon’s Kindle. But the Kindle allows users to transfer their books to other devices. Also, the number of titles on

Amazon’s bookshelves vastly exceeds those in iBookstore. So what should you do? Since they're both free, why not get them both?