Apple has released a major update for its iBooks app for iOS. There’s a new full-screen mode that lets you read without viewing your status bar, a new night theme with a dark background and light text for reading at night, and new font selections.

There are also new covers for public domain books, support for pop-up footnotes, and performance improvements in iBooks 1.5.

Honestly, most of these features are already available in third party eBook apps such as Amazon’s Kindle or Stanza apps for iOS. But it’s nice to see Apple playing catch up.

Thanks to changes Apple made to its rules for third party apps this year, iBooks is also the only digital book app for the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad that includes an integrated bookstore. You need to use a web-based bookstore to purchase titles for the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble NOOK, or Kobo apps.

You can download iBooks 1.5 for free from the App Store.

It looks like the reports of Stanza’s death have been somewhat exaggerated. Today Amazon and Lexcycle released the first update to the popular iOS eBook app since February.

The update doesn’t add any new features, but it does fix one glaring problem: the previous version of Stanza didn’t work with iOS 5. The new version does.

Stanza has long been one of the most versatile eBook apps available for the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

The free app makes it easy to download free eBooks from popular digital book marketplaces including Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks, and SmashWords. You can also add custom catalogs, or import books from a computer using iTunes or simply by emailing EPUB files to yourself and opening them in Stanza on your mobile device.

Stanza’s reading view provides more customization options than nearly any other eBook app I’ve used. You can choose from a variety of themes, have day and night themes, or create custom color schemes. The app lets you adjust sizes and fonts, and set up custom line and paragraph spacing, margins, or tweak the page turn effects and settings.

While Bluefire Reader offers a few features that you don’t get from Stanza, including support for Adobe DRM, Bluefire isn’t nearly as customizeable – and since upgrading from iOS 4.3 to iOS 5 I’ve noticed that Bluefire is also less responsive than it used to be.

Stanza is available as a free download from the App Store.

Update: OK, the reports of Stanza’s death were premature… but not completely wrong. Amazon tells MacWorld that today’s update will be Stanza’s last. That’s a shame, because it really does providing a better reading experience than any other eBook app I’ve used.

For a few year ab app called Stanza was the undisputed champ of eBook readers for iOS. Stanza allowed iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad readers to download and read eBooks from a number of digital book marketplaces or copy books from a computer. The app did a great job of organizing books, and offered a number of options for viewing your books by changing font sizes, background colors, and other features.

All that changes if you upgrade to iOS 5. While the Stanza app is still available as a free download from the App Store, the app hasn’t been updated to support Apple’s latest operating system.

The first time I tried to open Stanza after upgrading to iOS 5 I experienced a series of crashes. A few days later I gave it another try, and while the app loads the last book I was reading, I can’t flip pages — and it crashes if I try to return to the library view.

Stanza simply doesn’t work with iOS 5.

The app probably won’t be updated anytime soon either. The company that produces Stanza was acquired by Amazon a few years ago, and Amazon kind of has its own eBook apps to focus on. Stanza hasn’t been updated since February.

Unfortunately the official Amazon Kindle apps don’t support EPUB books. You can convert any DRM-free EPUB books to MOBI files supported by Kindle software, but it’s kind of a pain.

There are a number of other eBook apps ready to take Stanza’s place. Bluefire is probably one of the best. It supports EPUB files including books that use Adobe DRM and even digital books from public libraries that use the OverDrive system.

But I’m still kind of sad to see Stanza go. We’ve been good friends for the last year or two as I fell in love with reading eBooks on my iPod touch.

Update 11/10/2011: Apparently Stanza’s not dead yet… it’s just almost dead. A new version has been released, complete with support for iOS 5.0. Unfortunately, this will be the last time Stanza is updated.

One of the coolest features you get with an Amazon Kindle is Whispersync. You can start reading a book on an Kindle eReader and pick up right where you left off by firing up the Kindle app on your iPad, Android phone, BlackBerry, or other device. That’s because Amazon stores your data on a remote server and can keep your book list, bookmarks, and last read pages synchronized.

But what if you want to read a book that’s not available for Kindle? If you have an Android phone or tablet you can use a new free app called Aldiko Sync.

As the name suggests, Aldiko Sync is meant to work with the Aldiko eBook reader. You’ll also need a rooted phone and/or tablet, and a Dropbox account.

In other words, this solution isn’t going to work for everyone. But if you meet the requirements, here’ show it works. You install Aldiko on your phone, tablet, or other devices. Then you install the Aldiko Sync app and it will copy your books and bookmarks between devices. You can also use it to synchronize your position in books so you can pick up reading where you left off no matter which device you’re using.

The Aldiko Sync app comes in Free and Pro versions. The Pro version costs 99 cents and offers automatic synchronization and the ability to work with external apps such as Tasker for automated jobs.

Amazon is expected to launch a 7 inch tablet later this year running a highly modified version of Google Android with a focus on eBooks, music, movies, and apps that you can acquire from Amazon’s digital media stores. But the company hasn’t abandoned its apps for other Android phones and tablets. Amazon recently launched a major update to its Kindle app for Android.

The Kindle 3.1 app includes a new home page which offers quick access to books you’ve purchased, books on your device, and to the online Kindle Store — something Apple has prohibited the company from doing with its iOS app. There are also recommended titles at the bottom of the screen and tabs

The new Kindle app also offers in-app notifications when there are upgrades available.

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

Microsoft is discontinuing its eBook platform. Long before EPUB and Amazon Kindle books had become the de facto standard, the Microsoft Reader .lit format was one of the most popular eBook formats around. I read some of my first digital books using Microsoft Reader for Pocket PC (back before Microsoft’s mobile operating system was rebranded as Windows Mobile and then Windows Phone).

The company has also offered Reader software for desktop and laptop computers as well as tablet-style devices.

Starting on November 8th, 2011 you won’t be able to purchase any new books in the .lit format, and Microosft will stop offering Reader software from its website on August 30th, 2012.

If you’ve already purchased eBooks using the .lit format, you can continue to read them using  Reader software or any other compatible client after that point.

You can use Calibre or other eBook software to convert DRM-free .lit files to EPUB or another format. If your books have DRM you’ll need to remove the copy-protection first using software such as ConvertLIT first.

via The Digital Reader

This week Kobo, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and a number of other companies updated their iOS apps to comply with Apple’s new rules for in-app payments. Basically if you’re not going to use Apple’s system for collecting payments, the company wants you to stop using the app to collect payments at all. Rather than give Apple a 30% cut of proceeds, these companies have taken the latter approach.

Now Kobo is planning on going a step further. The digital book provider is working on a new mobile app designed using web tools such as HTML5. When it’s ready, users will be able to use the Kobo app by visiting a web site in a web browser. If you’re using an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad you’ll be able to save the app to your home screen so that you can even synchronize your book collection with your mobile device. In other words, you’ll be able to read eBooks in the Kobo web app even if you don’t have an active internet connection — just as you would with a native app.

Of course, this approach could save Kobo a lot of money, but only if the company manages to convince people to install the web app. Part of the appeal of the App Store is that it’s designed to make app discovery easy. I guess we’ll find out soon whether Kobo has enough clout to convince people to install an app they didn’t discover in the App Store. At the very least, existing Kobo users trying to figure out how they’re supposed to purchase eBooks now that there’s no link to the web store in the mobile app will probably go to the web site to see what’s up.

As an added bonus, since the new app will be built with HTML5, it should work on any platform that supports the web standard. This means that the same app should work on iOS, Android, webOS, and other mobile operating systems.

One of the biggest complaints early reviewers have had about the HP TouchPad tablet is the lack of high quality apps available for webOS 3.0. In fact, some of the apps HP had promised would be available at launch didn’t make the cut when the tablet started shipping earlier this month. Take the Amazon Kindle app for the TouchPad, for instance.

The TouchPad hit the streets on July 1st. Nearly three weeks later, Amazon released a beta version of its Kindle app for the tablet last night.

You can find the new app in the webOS App Catalog, but there’s no mention of it on Amazon’s web site yet. The eBook app is also geographically restricted right now — you can only download it if you’re in the United States.

The folks at PreCentral have put together a detailed hands-on review. In a nutshell, there are a few bugs that have to be worked out (for instance, many users are seeing multiple copies of the same book), but overall the app provides a good experience for reading eBooks. You can also search books, take notes, or highlight passages.

If you’ve already used the Amazon Kindle app on another platform, any books you’ve already purchased will be available to download and sync with the TouchPad.

While an Amazon Kindle app doesn’t really set the TouchPad apart from the competition (there are similar apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry), it does help the new tablet compete.