Tuesday News: Aldiko hits 15 million downloads; YA author Malinda Lo seeks some answers as to why adults read YA; Apple event is today
Publishing NewsAndroid / Apple / Digital Reading Apps / Young-Adult5 Comments
Aldiko Hits 15 million Downloads – Passes Kobo & Nook Apps – Nate at The Digital Reader notes that Aldiko, an independent ereader program, has hit 15 million downloads which is more than the Kobo and Nook Android apps. The major source of books within Aldiko, I believe, is Feedbooks. Aldiko is popular with side loaders and library book readers. I also think it points to how weak Nook and Kobo are on the Android platform. The Digital Reader
Unpacking why adults read young adult fiction – Malinda Lo takes a stab at deciphering why adults read young adult fiction. Instead of focusing on what YA fiction might be delivering what adult fiction is not, the question is one about the audience or what Lo calls “reception studies.”
For those of you unfamiliar with this admittedly academic subfield, reception studies emerged from a few related academic subjects including cultural studies, reader response theory, and media studies. I first encountered reception studies during my grad school years in cultural anthropology. The point of reception/media/cultural studies in this case is: Study the audience (of a TV show, movie, etc.), not the creator of the media.
Lo unfortunately quotes Radway’s study as saying that romance text cannot be read objectively but rather the true inquiry is how women engage in it. Out of Radway’s study came the idea that the female characters were placeholders for the female readers. Malinda Lo
Apple’s iPhone event is today — get your liveblog here! – Apple’s iPhone event is TODAY at 10 AM PST / 12 CST. You can read the liveblog at Engadget. The rumors indicate two new iPhones, one an updgrade to the existing iPhone 5 and a cheaper “entry” level model. The newest feature for the iPhone 5S appears to be a fingerprint scanner that may or may not be tied to passwords your device and an additional flash (along with being faster and offering better battery power). Engadget
iCee Better – A dad developed a reading app that allows you to customize the colors of the background text. This is to aid readers who suffer from Irlen Syndrome. Apparently black text on orange background can help the words pop out. I believe you can customize Bluefire to do exactly this but if you are looking for another reading app, here’s a free one for iOS and Android users. iCee Better
…and offering better battery power
Please, please, please let this be true.
I’m also hoping for an iPad Mini with Retina, but I’ll settle for an iPhone that makes it to bedtime without needing a charging fix.
Blech. So not true for me or any of my reading friends. We want to like and/or understand the heroine, not be her.
I had Aldiko and it was a nice app, but I didn’t like that it makes a duplicate copy of the books I read and stored it on my phones memory. That’s why I have my library in the cloud. I can see why it needed a local copy, but I couldn’t find an option to store the files on my SD card. With so many other reading apps for android, I decided to try some of the others. Though I really don’t read enough on my phone to stress about it, I like the idea of having access to my books if something happens and I only have my phone with me.
When I started reading romance at the age of 12 all the heroines in my historical romances seemed to be between 17-22. So it doesn’t seem that odd to me to read about that age group now. And in truth its not like there is that many books out there with characters my current age, 38.
Also I think I enjoy YA’s because the romantic elements feel more real, it makes sense that these characters in high school and collage have lives that are more centered around their romantic journey. People in this age group are not always burdened with all the stuff that tends to bog down our lives as we get older.
I read all my ebooks through aldiko until I got my Kobo Glo. I tried swapping the app on my phone to kobo so it’d sync, but I just couldn’t get on with the kobo app after years of aldiko (and it took up more space, too). It’s just really nicely designed, no unnecessary bells or whistles, and very intuitive.
I have a Kobo app and Aldiko on my Kindle Fire. I actually dislike Aldiko (though I dislike Bluefire even more) because it’s so user unfriendly on the Kindle. For example, let’s say I want to switch a different ebook. When I press the back arrow, it closes the entire app instead of returning me to the main menu! The main menu itself has too much going on–I want to see my books when I open an app, not a page full of options/content (and do I really need to have two different views of my books?). Also, the Smashwords component is horrendous! You can’t find anything.
The Kobo app is perfect: book shelf well organized, design is crisp and simple, and I don’t need to click around to do what I want to do.