Regular readers will know that we are big fans of e-books here at Gadget Lab, and I am especially fond of anything that will let me read books on my iPod Touch. So when I found out abou the launch of Shortcovers today, I got excited.
There are a lot of ways to get books onto an iPhone or other mobile device, but so far there has been no way to browse. In fact, that’s true of online book buying in general — nothing beats going in to a book shop and wandering the stacks then reading over a few chapters with a mochachocachino, or other child’s “coffee” drink.
The aim of Shortcovers is to bridge this gap. With it you can browse single chapters of many books and then buy them, either in electronic format or as traditional wads of paper. And Short Covers has overcome the biggest hurdle of this kind of endeavor — it has managed to sign up real publishing houses, so you’ll find new books and popular authors (Steven King) as well as unicorn-stroking fan fiction.
And while Short Covers works fine as a website, once you have signed up you can use the iPhone application. I grabbed it this morning and took it for a spin. Here’s what happened.
The front page gives the latest books, kind of a store window for the
iPhone. This is fine, and you can click around from here (or even
rotate to get a decidedly clanky cover flow-esque version). But head to
the search and you find out just how many titles there are:
Of course, I went for nerd-fave Kurt Vonnegut, but there are a lot more mainstream titles in there should you want them. After you have browsed a chapter (usually these are free, but some cost money and therefore will never be read) you can opt to buy the book. I couldn’t check this out as I am outside of the US and Canada, but Short Covers says that the rest of the world is soon to follow. We assume this is the usual rigmarole of international copyright negotiations.
You can also browse for articles and blogs. I couldn’t find any blogs yet, and I’m pretty happy with NetNewsWire for RSS, but we like that the option is there. And in the "Popular" section, I found but one "article" about illustrator Ronald Wimberly, a person about whom I am now much better informed.
The last part of the puzzle is the inevitable social aspect. Not only can you bookmark your own choices, you can share them via almost every still-relevant social network. On the website, a staggering amount of options is available. In the iPhone app, I only have the option of Twitter, which very nicely opens up my Twitter client of choice, Tweetie. Here is the list in full:
I told you there were a lot. Short Cover looks rather promising. The one problem (apart from the US and Canada-only store) is the reader itself. The screen is somewhat cluttered and instead of flipping pages horizontally like iPhone e-reader Stanza or the Kindle, the software opts for a hybrid, although mostly you’ll be scrolling down, web browser style. It’s fine for excerpts, but reading a whole book would be very tiresome.
In conclusion, Short Covers is a great little solution to the problem of finding new books online. Even if you don’t use the service to buy anything, it’s still a great way to browse for free, and ideal for those idle moments waiting in line at the grocery store.
Product page [Short Covers]
