Several apps available to enhance e-reading

After years of waiting, the day is almost here. Finally, we'll be able to read electronic books and articles — "published" using no paper!

OK, you and I know this isn't a new idea, but reading media coverage over the past few months, you'd think electronic books were a brand-new development. They've been available for decades, but it's been the high-profile (and widely marketed) actions of a few players that are sparking an interest in e-books among people who wouldn't previously consider reading a novel or other extended text onscreen.

Amazon.com's Kindle showed there's a larger market for reading electronic text (even though the company is cagey about actual sales, saying only that the Kindle is the top-selling product at all of Amazon, which, honestly, I find hard to believe).

Sony has been producing electronic readers long before Amazon, but never marketed them enough to catch much public attention.

But when you're talking about marketing, you can't really compete with Apple. That's one reason why the upcoming iPad — scheduled to ship April 3, with pre-orders being accepted as of Friday — and its iBooks app has sparked so much interest in e-book reading.

Until the iPad arrives, however, my current e-reader of choice is my iPhone, on which I read books and articles when I'm commuting on the bus or have a few minutes to cool my heels.

Several apps are available for reading e-books. I've read novels on Lexcycle's Stanza (www.lexcycle.com), and I like not only the reading experience, but also easy access to many libraries of free and for-purchase titles.

Amazon also offers a Kindle app for the iPhone or iPod touch (itunes.apple.com/us/app/kindle-for-iphone/id302584613?mt=8) if you want to take advantage of the company's growing library of titles but don't feel the need to buy a Kindle reader device. The Kindle app uses the same Whispersync technology as the reader, so the books you purchase on one device are available on others (if you share a Kindle with someone else in your house, for example).

However, articles constitute most of my onscreen reading these days, and I just don't have enough time to read them during the day when I find them or when friends recommend them. Because I've never liked having dozens of Web browser tabs or windows open at one time, my favorite tool for reading text has become Instapaper Pro ($4.99, www.instapaper.com/iphone). A free version, Instapaper Free, is also available.

Instapaper started as a way to bookmark articles for reading later on the Web, but I almost never do my reading there. The Instapaper Pro app does two things I love.

First, it saves articles for offline reading, so when I find an article on the Web I like, I click an Instapaper bookmarklet (a bookmark containing some JavaScript code) in my computer's browser to add the article's contents to my Instapaper account. (The iPhone app can create that bookmarklet for you.)

Many other iPhone apps support Instapaper; for example, I get most of my article suggestions via Twitter, so I tap and hold on a URL within Twitterrific (twitterrific.com) and then tap the Add to Instapaper button.

Second, Instapaper strips all the cruft that accompanies most of today's Web sites (ads, mainly, but also confusing layout and unfortunate color choices), leaving a clean text-only version that's easier on the eyes.

Instapaper Pro also includes a neat tilt-scrolling feature that uses the iPhone's accelerometer to advance the text based on the angle you're holding the device. However, I find I prefer the option to just tap the edges of the screen to navigate the text.

Speaking of easier reading, my co-columnist Glenn Fleishman made me aware of Readability (lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/), a Web site that can reformat any page in a much more readable format. Choose how you'd prefer the text to appear — font, size, margin size and the like — and create a bookmarklet. When you hit a site with interesting content but, say, dark gray text on a black background or some other unreadable formatting, click the bookmarklet to make the page readable.

The net result of these options is that we're all gaining more ways to read text electronically. Finally it's becoming acceptable — and not "geeky" — to be e-readers. I think the iPad, with its larger, more legible screen, will push even more electronic reading.

Jeff Carlson and Glenn Fleishman write the Practical Mac column for Personal Technology and about technology in general for The Seattle Times and other publications. Send questions to carlsoncolumn@mac.com. More Practical Mac columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.