International Day of the Book: Android Apps for reading

Mondays aren’t such a nasty when they coincide with special days. Although for the most of us this isn’t a day off, there’s always some magic in the air when we talk about the International Day of the Book. Today, people from around the World give books as gift to each other. In some places like in Catalonia, the International Day of the Book is their own “Lovers Day”: traditionally men give a rose to women and women give a book to men. Currently it doesn’t work strictly in this order but the tradition keeps on.

We wanted to bring the magic of the Day of the Book to Android. Thus, we’re going to introduce you three apps for mobile e-reading. Actually, three apps for reading three kind of editorial products: books, news and comics. Although, it’s been called the International Day of the Book, we believe it would be called the International Day of the Readers, since they’re dedicated readers that not necessarily read only books. Here, there’s a share for everyone.

Cool Reader

This an e-book reader set in a retro theme that emulates weathered pages. You’ll feel like you’re actually reading an old book. It supports lots of formates (.fb2, doc, text, rtf, .pdf, .tcr…) page flipping animation and scroll view. Likewise you can adjust brightness, day and night profiles, background, paperbook theme, font antialiasing and much more. You’ll be able to search for specific words in the text, copy and share text or bookmark text fragments. There’s an online catalog that will help you to quick find recent books. In a nutshell, interface and customization are its strongest points. A great choice if you’re a dedicated e-book readersreader.

Feedly This is one of the best RSS reader that you can currently find on Google Play. If you’re subscribed to blogs, news websites and other related RSS resources you already know how important is having a platform that makes things easier. That’s what Feedly does while offering a user-friendly interface.  You need to log with any of your Gmail accounts in order to sync GReader subscriptions. Once done, you can start swiping between RSS entries, tap on categories (latest, MyFeedly, blogs, news…), add/remove subscriptions, add articles to read it later, change view, copy article URL for sharing… Actually you can easily tweet or post on Facebook an article. If you’re also a Chrome browser user (desktop version), you can download a Feedly add-on too. You’ll find everything sync (articles already read, read it later list, etc.). In summary, Feedly added value lies on simplicity and cuteness.

Comics (ComiXology)

Finally, it’s comics lovers time. ComiXology has developed a great comic reader for Android that provides a good-looking and easy-reading layout and a comics store. First off, the app is set in a ICS-like layout. It looks like Google Play Android app with a featured highlighted comics at the top and a vertical swiping list of other suggestion (by category). You can navigate from “featured” tab to “Just added” (latest) or “Popular” (best rated/most downloaded). You can also see your own library or visit the comic store. Most of the comics are paid although you can find some free too. The only catch: you need to create an account for getting access to the store, otherwise you cannot purchase/download comics. Flip pages by swiping, pinch for zooming and set other reading preferences from settings. In a nutshell, a great comics reader, an app which comics passionates cannot miss.

This was Emmanuel Lund, swimming in a word pool.