The iBooks app and the Kindle app are the top 2 ways to read books on the iPad. What are the pros and cons of each?
The Kindle app–the good
- Incredibly large selection of books.
- Pricing is very low, usually $10, even for new “hardcover” books.
- Out of copyright books are available for free through Project Gutenberg, archive.org, and Kindle’s list of “Popular Classics.”
The Kindle app–the bad
- The reading experience is only ok: only one font to choose from, the line spacing isn’t wide enough, and turning pages is just a simple scroll.
- The link to purchase a book takes you to Amazon’s webpage within the Safari app.
The iBooks app–the good
- The reading experience is elegant: turning pages is smooth and fast, the font choices all look good, the line spacing makes it easy to read, and there’s a brightness control right inside the app.
- Out of copyright books are available for free.
The iBooks app–the bad
- Lots of books aren’t available–the list of titles is fairly limited.
- Many of the titles available are either brand new or out of copyright; not a lot in between.
- Prices are just slightly higher than Kindle (usually by a few dollars).
The winner: iBooks. Reading a book in the iBooks app is so much more pleasurable that it’s worth the tradeoff of the smaller book list.