Sony Reader App for Android 2.2 Released
Sony has been promising an eReader app for some time, and now it’s here. You can use it to download ebooks from Sony’s online bookstore, as well as sync your reading between your Sony Reader Daily Edition and any Android 2.2 smartphone or other mobile device.
Yes, you read that right: The long-awaited Sony eReader app will only work with Android 2.2, leaving users of devices with Android 1.6 (and others) out in the digital cold. Since there are not many devices yet taking advantage of 2.2, that’s a lot of users.
The app, which can be downloaded free from the Android Market, features touchscreen controls. You can swipe the screen to turn pages, use “long pressing” to highlight words or phrases, set bookmarks, and adjust fonts as well as brightness. In other words, it does everything you expect from an ereading app.
The interface of the Sony Reader App is clean and attractive. At the home screen you will see different sections, including a top section showing recent books, a list (which is scrollable) of all of your books in a middle area, and a section at the bottom showing favorites, bookmarks and highlights. And, of course, there’s a prominent link from theapp to the Sony Reader Store. Navigation is simple and intuitive.
The Sony Reader for Android supports ePub and PDF ebooks formats in addition to Sony’s proprietary formats. The app is also one of very few in this genre that enables reading Adobe DRM within the reader.
The app comes with three classic books and excerpts from three current bestsellers.
The new Sony Reader Android is designed to be used in conjunction with the Reader Daily Edition PRS-950SC (with firmware version 2.0). It’s a shame, though, that it Sony has chosen to release an eReading app that is, for now anyway, so limited as to the number of other devices with which it can work.
Sony says it has an iOS version of the app coming soon. When that version arrives — and as more mobile devices adopt Android 2.2 — we’ll likely see the Sony eReader app come into its own.
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