A few days ago, I reviewed two e-Book readers for the BlackBerry PlayBook, EPUB Reader and PlayEpub. Both applications seemed lacking in one way or another, but both live up to their claim of letting you read EPUB format books on the PlayBook. In that review, I mentioned a few things that I thought should be improved upon. The latest release of EPUB Reader improves upon a few things.
In this latest version, the endless scrolling through pages is gone; it was one of my biggest complaints about EPUB Reader. Now, the app flips pages like most e-readers. Touch the right or bottom side of the screen and the page moves forward; touching the right or top sides of the tablet returns to the previous page. Adding a little pizzazz, the pages are animated as they "turn." The animation provides all-important feedback, reminding you which way the pages are going. On the surface, this may seem trivial, not all-important. In practice, it's quite another story.
In an odd twist of events, PlayEpub has also been updated (to version 1.0.20). During my brief look through the app, I didn't notice anything incredibly different. I was really looking forward to reading properly formatted books on PlayEpub, but that wasn't in this update.
All in all, I'm really glad to see both of these applications updated, even if only behind the scenes. Reading books on the PlayBook is an enjoyable experience, preferable to reading physical books for some. With these updates, the developers signal their intentions to continue to improve upon these BlackBerry PlayBook applications. I love to read, and with these apps, I love to read on my BlackBerry tablet.
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