In part two of my continuing series describing my conversion from Palm OS to Android, I discuss how to read DRM Palm eReader and Mobipocket Reader books on your Android Phone.
(Read Part 1 here)
I love to read books on my smart phone. In my opinion, it is the perfect medium. Since my phone is almost always with me, it gives me ample opportunities to get some reading in.
Once I got the Sprint HTC Hero, I began looking for the Android Ebook readers that could read the books I already owned. I was somewhat disappointed to find the choices I had were poor.
First off, I naively thought that I would be able to find a Kindle reader for the Android. This does not exist (at least not yet). I figured, okay, the Barnes and Noble Nook reader runs on the Android OS so surely they have a compatible reader for my Hero. Not a chance. My belief is that Amazon and Barnes and Nobles what to sell as many Kindles and Nooks as possible. They don’t what to loose possible Kindle or Nook sales to Android users yet. Barnes and Nobles probably agreed to create a reader for the iPhone because of favorable licensing agreements. Just my two cents. Perhaps these two Ebook formats will have readers for the Android OS soon!
After that mild shock I discovered a sluggish (un-android) beta version of the eReader here:
Android OS eReader
By un-android, I mean, no scrolling pages, no night mode, etc. The non-beta release should bring improvements.
Mobipocket reader does not have a DRM reader for Android, or iPhone for that matter. Amazon owns the rights to the mobi format and apparently they want it too die. There future is the Kindle after all.
A great DRM eReader and Mobi Pocket Reader for your Android
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I was happy to find the iReader for Android Smart Phones. This reader allows you to enter your Mobipocket PID and your eReader PID to unlock the books you already own. You can visit the iReader web site here: iReader Web Site, and you can download the iReader app from the Android Market Place.
Happy dancing,
Terry.
Great Terry, I own a Samsung Galaxy S with Android 2.1 and try to use my MobiPocket books on that with iReader, but how do I unlock those books? I tried to just copy but ireader can’t open them
I have used iReader to read mobi books on the android, but there is a formatting issue. For instance, it can’t handle hyphens in the text. And by an odd chance, the two books I tried to read have a lot of hyphens in them. What makes it worse, they are frequently used at the end of paragraphs, when one character interrupts another, and not only is the hyphen missing, but the surrounding spaces and paragraph breaks.
Makes it very confusing indeed.
ireader is a good choice for DRM Mobipocket, format I’m currently using on an 8″ Wondermedia and a Pandigital 7″ Novel. 4 years ago I bought a few ebooks from Amazon and quickly switched to public libraries. The Palm PDA’s and Bookeen Opus are always my 1st choice. But it’s becoming an android world.
I am totally new to Android and can’t seem to do anything. I have an enormous collection of Mobipocket and eReader. I deleted the free version and installed the full version of iReader, but no matter where I go in it I can’t find anything but Chinese. How do you find where to put your PID or persuade the thing to speak English? How do you even get a PID for an android phone when they don’t have a Mobipocket download for android. I am very confused. Thank you all.
Pat,
I understand your confusion.
What you need to do is get the PID from Mobipocket on your Palm device and enter it into iReader on your Android. This way iReader can unlock your eBooks.
Terry
Hello Terry,
Thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss the Palm>Android prob.
I’ve the iReader app on my htc Desire and I’ve put my Mobi PID into it. Where do I go from here, ie. how do I get my books from Mobi Desktop or whatever, to iReader, please?
Also, how do we Englishers find our way around a Chinese app?
Kind regards,
Laurence.
Laurence,
Your Mobipocket books should be on your Palm’s SD card. Easiest way to copy them to you Android would be to plug the SD card into a PC. Browse through the directories to find where the books are stored. Once you find the books copy them to your PC. Copy the books from your PC to your Android via the USB connection.
As for the iReader language issue. If you use the iReader (offline) version it is in English.
Let me know if this helps.
Terry
On my Droid Razor phone I can enter the mobipocket PID from my destop PC (when prompted as I use IREADER to open the document which I have copied to my phone’s SD card from the PC).
However it then asks whether I want to read it via TEXT or HTML — the TEXT does at least allow me (technically) to read it … BUT none of the links work – it’s only straight text – i.e. no table of content links will allow me to jump straight to a particular chapter etc…, the sad part though is that the HTML DOES NOT work at all.
So for the Motorola Droid Razor phone (Android based opsys) even IReader offers only very limited functionality for DRM Mobipocket (*.PRC) books.
-Dennis
Does this also apply to books listed under the Palm Reader program?
Hello,
First, thank you for providing information that I could read my mobipocket ebooks on Android.
My Android is 4.0.4 on Galaxy Note. I copied my ebooks on the phone and I input my PID in iReader.
When I browse to open en ebook, iReader displays the front cover of the book on top of the window but also never stops displaying “Reading Book… Please wait!” It seems it will never end…
Have you an idea of what might be the problem ?
An alternative to iReader ?
J.Marie
I have all my books on my PC. I downloaded a “Calibre” program to convert the books, but I don’t know how to get the books from the file on the PC to the conversion program. Any suggestions?
Hello Nancy,
Have you tried copying the files to your Android’s internal memory or sdcard?
Terry.