Barnes & Noble has offered an eBook reader for iOS touch for a while. But the company’s eBook strategy was starting to look a bit schizophrenic, with a Nook device available online and in-stores, Nook software for Google Android, but Barnes & Noble eReader-branded software for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Today Barnes & Noble is launching a fresh start, with the introduction of Nook apps for the iPad, iPhone, and PC.

The new strategy isn’t just about changing the names. The new apps also share some of the key features you’ll find on other Nook devices. That includes the ability to “lend” books to other Nook users.

There are also new features that are specific to each version. For instance, the iPad version has in-app content ratings, while the iPhone version includes cover art and text that’s customized for the iPhone 4 Retina display. Both the iPhone and iPad versions also let users customize their themes.

The Nook apps will synchronize your settings across multiple devices, allowing you to start reading a book on an iPhone or iPod touch — or even an Android phone, and pick up where you left off on an iPad since all of your Nook apps will remember the last page read on any device.

The new Nook apps for iPhone and iPad are available as free downloads from the App Store.

One of the new features in Google Android 2.2 Froyo is the ability to store applications on an SD card, freeing up space on your phone’s main memory. Developers need to enable this feature in their apps, so not every app available can be stored on an SD card, but I’ve already freed up plenty of storage space on my Nexus One by moving a handful of apps to my 8GB microSD card.

So I was pretty excited to learn that Barnes & Noble had released a new version of the Nook eBook reader for Android. When I first checked out the Nook app a few weeks ago, I was pretty impressed with its features, but underwhelmed by the fact that it took up more than 17MB of storage space — making it by far the largest app on my phone. I quickly uninstalled it.

Today I tried downloading the latest version of the Nook app and then I moved it to my SD card. You can see the results above. It still takes up more storage space than any other app on my device — and that’s main storage. When I uninstalled the Nook app, my phone storage available space jumped from about 28MB to 40MB.

In other words, moving an app to your SD card doesn’t actually move all of the files to your SD card. Some files will be left behind, and in the case of the Nook app, they still take up an awful lot of space. If you have a phone with a huge amount of internal storage space, or if you only plan to install a few apps, this might not be a problem. But with the Amazon Kindle app using less than 4MB and the Borders app taking up less than 1MB, it seems strange that Barnes & Noble’s eBook reader takes up so much space.

On the other hand, the latest version for the Kindel app also adds a few other features such a new search function in the library, four new themes, and new screen settings. You can also copy unencrypted ePUB files from a computer to your device and open them in the Nook app.

Nook for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market.

via Gizmodo

As much as I love the feel of holding a good book in my hand, there are a few things you can do with digital books that you can’t easily do with the old fashioned paper type of book. For instance, you can quickly search for text in the eBook, or highlight a word to look up its meaning in a dictionary. You know, assuming your eBook software lets you do that — which the Amazon Kindle app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad now does.

Here’s how it works, just fire up Amazon Kindle 2.2 on your iDevice and open a book. then press and hold any word, and a menu will pop up asking if you want to add a note or highlight the text. You should also see a definition of the word from the Oxford American Dictionary.

You can also click the Google or Wikipedia buttons to search for the word on one of those sites using the web browser. Or you can click the Full Definition button to see a more complete entry for the word from the Oxford dictionary, which has about 250,000 entries.

When you install the Kindle 2.2 app, it will automatically download the dictionary, which you can also open as a standalone eBook if you’re the sort of person who likes to read through dictionaries cover to cover in your free time.

The new app also adds the ability for searching inside of books on the iPad.

The Amazon Kindle app for iOS is available as a free download from the App Store.

The good news is that Android users now have a choice of buying and reading eBooks with apps from Amazon, Borders, Kobo, or Barnes & Noble (not to mention free eBook apps such as Aldiko). That’s because Barnes & Noble is the latest major US booksellers to launch an Android app, with today’s introduction of Nook for Android.

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The bad news is that the developers don’t seem to realize that most Android phones don’t have a ton of free store space for apps. The Nook installer is about 5MB, but after installing the app on my phone it took up 17.68MB of space. That makes it the largest app on my phone, by a longshot. Next up is Adobe Flash, which weighs in at 10.82MB. In fact the only app I’ve ever installed that was larger was Fennec (Firefox Mobile), but part of the reason I don’t keep Fennec installed on my phone is because it takes up 26MB of storage space.

Amazon Kindle for Android, by comparison takes up just 3.58MB, while the Borders app is just 888KB.

If you can get past the enormous file size, Nook for Android offers pretty much everything you’d expect from an eBook app. There’s a library showing books that have been downloaded to your device, an information page with a synopsis f each title, and a decent reader which lets you adjust fonts, add bookmarks, or lock screen orientation to portrait or landscape mode. There’s also a pretty nifty page-turn animation effect.

The Nook account synchronizes your digital library, bookmarks, and last read page settings with other Barnes & Noble eReader devices. That means if you have a physical Nook eBook reader, your settings will be transferred automatically. The same thing happens if you use the Barnes & Noble eReader for the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Nook for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market. The app supports Android 1.6 and up.

You can find more screenshots after the break.

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Apple pushed out an updated version of iBooks this week. The app now features PDF improvements and the ability to double-tap an image within a book to get a better look. But the biggest change is probably that iBooks 1.1.1 supports audio and video content in digital books.

Existing iBooks users will probably be prompted to download the update automatically, or you can download the latest version of iBooks for free from the App Store.

While the audio and video capabilities are pretty nifty, they’re not unique. Amazon added similar capabilities to its iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch apps a few weeks ago.

Borders is the latest company to enter the eBook space, and Borders is doing it in a pretty big way. The company launched a web-based storefront today. And after introducing a new iOS app a few weeks ago, Borders today launched mobile apps for Android and BlackBerry devices.

I’d probably be a lot more excited about all of this though, if it weren’t for the fact that the web store is powered by Kobo… which has already been offering mobile apps for iOS and Android since mid-June.

The good news is that Kobo has more than 1.5 million titles in its library with thousands of free eBooks among them. The Borders mobile apps are virtually identical to the Kobo apps. The biggest difference is that the Borders versions have the Borders logo. But like the Kobo app for Android which I checked out last month, the Borders app lets you browse for books by lists or genre, search for books, and of course read books. The apps also synchronize with your account, which means you can put down one Kobo device and pick up reading an eBook where you left off on another device.

As an added bonus, one of the lists available for your browsing pleasure is “Can’t Get These in iBooks,” a list of books that are not available through Apple’s new eBook store.

Amazon launched a new Kindle app for Android devices today. Like the company’s iPhone app, the new Kindle for Android app will let you find, purchase, download, and read digital books on your mobile device.

The mobile app synchronizes your last read pages, bookmarks, and annotations with other devices linked to your account. So if you have a physical Kindle eBook reader, an iPod touch or iPad with the Kindle app, and an Android phone, you can start reading a book on one device, put it down and pick up reading where you left off on another.

Kindle for Android lets you read in portrait or landscape mode, adjust text size,and background color. You can also search Amazon’e library of more than 600,000 free and paid books. You can also read the beginning of a book before making a purchase.

Newspapers, magazines and blogs are not available on the Android app, and you’ll need Android 1.6 or newer to use the app. While Kindle for Android is available in a number of countries, the book selection will vary by region. And it doesn’t look like the new audio and video capabilities that Amazon added to the iOS app today are available in the Android version.

With the launch of an Android app, Amazon now joins Kobo as one of the few companies with a decent cross-platform eBook reader that works on both iOS and Android and which offers a decent selection of book titles.

Purchasing books is easy if you already have an Amazon account — and you can even choose to purchase a title using the Android app and have it sent to another device linked to your account. When I logged in, I saw that I was able to download books to my iPod or PC, both of which also have Kindle software installed.

Amazon has rolled out an updated version of the Kindle software for Apple’s mobile devices. The new app adds support for eBooks with audio and video content. This opens up the doors to all sorts of multimedia content.

For instance, the latest Kindle edition of Knitting for Dummies comes with 6 videos that can actually demonstrate how to perform different knitting techniques. And the new version of Rick Steves’: London 2010 includes 5 audio tours that you can use while navigating historic landmarks in the city.

Right now there are only about a dozen titles with audio and video features. But I suspect that list to grow pretty quickly — especially if Amazon makes the audio and video features available on other versions of the Kindle eBook reader. Right now the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are the only devices that support all the new features. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see multimedia capabilities show up in the upcoming Android app. And then there are the Mac, PC, and BlackBerry versions of the Kindle eBook reader. As my buddy Dave Zatz suggests, maybe we’ll see a multimedia version of Amazon’s physical Kindle eBook reader soon as well.

It’s also worth noting that the multimedia titles take up much more disk space than text-only documents. This means you can only download them over WiFi, not 3G. And it also means that if Amazon does release a new Kindle device with multimedia support, it may include more storage space than current models.

The new Kindle app is available as a free download from the App Store.

Borders has entered the battle for dominance of the iPhone eBook market. Well sort of. Today Borders launched an official eBook app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. But it’s basically just a rebranded version of the Kobo app which has been available since last week.

Kobo and Borders are partners in the eBook space, with Kobo powering the Borders eBook store. Kobo also sells a physical eBook reader with an E Ink display that competes with the Amazon Kindle, and which has access to the Borders eBook store.

Anyway, the fact that the Borders and Kobo apps are virtually identical isn’t necessarily a bad thing — because they’re both pretty good apps. The main difference is that the Borders version has a predominantly red color scheme, while the Kobo version uses a light blue color.

Both apps let you browse the online bookstore, download free books or pay to purchase titles. You can also download previews of some works. When I first launched the app, it even recognized some of the books I’d already downloaded with the Kobo app — which would be kind of a nice feature if it weren’t for the fact that there’s really no good reason for anyone to keep both apps installed at the same time.

When you’re reading a book you can easily add bookmarks, change fonts, adjust the display brightness or lock the screen orientation. One kind of useless but charming feature is that when you exit a book to return to your bookshelf, a digital bookmark descends as if you were saving the page with a ribbon. It’s the little things that get me.

You can download both the Borders and the Kobo apps for free from the App Store. The Kobo app is also available for Android, although there’s no official Borders app for Android yet.

I was pleased to note that the Kobo app for iPhone was also much more responsive than iBooks on my iPod touch. Transitions from one screen to the next were very smooth, as was rotating from portrait to landscape mode.

There are more screenshots after the break.

via TeleRead, thanks KT!

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Apple has released a version of its iBooks app for iPhone and iPod touch models running iOS 4. Up until now iBooks was only available for the iPad.

The eBook store and reader joins a crowded field of eBook apps for the iPhone. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo (Borders) already offer apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. And there are a number of other free eBook apps that let you download free and paid books from the internet.

There is one killer feature that iBooks has that others don’t, though: integration with iTunes. That means you can pay for books using the same iTunes account that you use to pay for music, movie, and app purchases. It also means that you can pay for purchases without leaving the iBooks app. And your bookmarks and other notations can optionally be saved to your iTunes account for synchronization across multiple devices, such as an iPhone and iPad.

That said, iBooks is surprisingly rough around the edges… at least on my third generation iPod touch 8GB model. Admittedly, my device has a slower processor than new models, but I really wouldn’t have expected an eBook app to be resource intensive. But it’s one of the slowest apps on my iPod touch at the moment. Launching the application takes a surprisingly long time, rotating from portrait to landscape mode takes so long that at first I didn’t think it was even possible… until a few seconds later the screen shifted. And opening a book is at least as slow as loading the application.

Once you do manage to open a book, the reading experience is pleasant enough. You can adjust fonts and screen brightness easily, and the books manage to mix pictures and text nicely.The search function is also pretty decent, and one of my favorite features is the ability to download substantial previews of paid eBooks to read before deciding whether to shell out some money for the full title.

It is a little disconcerting that you have to click on a book title in the iBooks store to see the price. Most other eBook apps show you the price on the search results or browsing pages. But on the bright side, Apple’s iBooks prices seem competitive with those found in the Amazon, Kindle, and Kobo stores.

You can download iBooks for free from the App Store. And you can check out some more screenshots after the break.

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