Oyster离理想的电子书技术有多远

    真正重要的是，Oyster阅读体验简约低调。调节页面大小和字体都十分便捷。与平板电脑上功能操作多是水平方向不同，Oyster的设计适合iPhone的竖条形屏幕：翻页不是靠手指向左滑动，而是靠向上滑动，而且进度表也是位于屏幕右侧的竖条，而不是位于底部的横条。另一个很巧妙的细节设计是：在右下方不仅会显示当前章节还剩下多少页，还会估算出看完当前章节大概还需要多长时间（比如说“剩余37页，需时23分钟”）。长篇内容阅读网站Longreads等站点所发布的文章也会附上平均阅读时间。（有些型号的Kindle电子书也会显示剩余时间。）

    不过，用户不能标记精彩段落，也无法做笔记。在这方面，Oyster比不上iBooks和Kindle，后两者都有标记和笔记功能，而且之后还能导出相关内容。（不过，反正可以进行屏幕截图嘛。）

    要我看，我自己以及其他好些读者可能不会在手机上阅读大量书籍。就我而言，除非某部小说真是引人入胜，让人欲罢不能，否则我不会选择用手机来阅读。而且，由于我喜欢看最新的作品，所以Oyster上往往没有我想看的书。不过，在必要时，Oyster是个很不错的选择。目前，这款应用仅推出了iPhone版。不过iPad版即将于秋季推出，而且据该公司发言人称，iPad版将有“更多个性化的功能”。

    有了Oyster，当你手头除了手机什么都没有的时候，也能有书可看。哪怕就冲这一点，它每月10美元的会员费也不算贵。不过，它还是只处理了一个与阅读相关的需求，即在手机上看书。还有别的与阅读相关的需求，已经有其他应用程序和网站试图来满足，但都未能成功。比如说：现在有书籍点评网站Goodreads。它的用户往往是非专业人士，网站通过聚合用户的主观评论，对书籍评定星级，最高为5星。但是，还没有点评类网站或应用能将这样的用户生成内容与来自《泰晤士报》（Times ）等重要媒体的高水平书评结合起来，建立一个电影及电子游戏评论网站烂番茄（Rotten Tomatoes）那样更为二元的体系（比如说，就直接给出“78%的人喜欢这本书”）。再比如说：还没有哪款阅读应用，能使用户在做笔记或标记某个段落后，能即时将相关内容导出并保存。还比如说：目前还没有哪款阅读应用，能兼顾书籍、杂志以及保存下来的网络文章的阅读。

    而精通技术的文艺青年们需要的则是这样一款一体化应用：它能用于所有手机和平板电脑，能阅读任何格式的内容，不论是书籍、诗歌、漫画、杂志，还是你从网上保存下来的文章，而且能轻松导出段落或笔记，在社交媒体上进行共享，并带有“你是否推荐该内容”的排名功能。Oyster最终不一定能填补这个市场空白。排名功能将形成一个更有用的数据库，为那些正在寻找自由阅读材料的人士提供参考。它更像是仅仅专注于阅读的Facebook或谷歌（Google）。所有这一切在技术上都已经可行，且看这样的产品什么时候才会出现吧。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    What really matters: The reading experience is clean and visually unobtrusive. Print size and font are easily, instantly adjustable. In contrast to the horizontal leanings of the functions on a tablet, the Oyster design is suited to the tall, thin iPhone: you turn the page not by swiping left, but by moving your thumb up, and the progress meter is vertical, on the right side, not horizontal along the bottom. Another smart, subtle design detail: At the bottom right, where you can see how many pages are left in the chapter, it also gives an estimate of how long it'll take ("23 minutes, 37 pages left"), just as Longreads and other sites post articles with the average reading time attached. (Some Kindle models also show remaining time.)

    What you cannot do is highlight a passage you like or take a note. In that regard Oyster doesn't stack up to iBooks or Kindle, both of which allow you to highlight a line and write a note for export later. (Then again, you could always screenshot.)

    other readers -- will ever read a great number of books on a phone. I'd plunge into a novel that way only if it's one I'm dying to devour, and because of my affinity for brand new books, Oyster won't usually have the ones I want to read. But in a pinch, it's a lovely-looking option. For now, it exists only for iPhone, but an iPad version is coming in the fall and will boast, "even more personalized features," an Oyster spokesperson says.

    Oyster is easily worth the reasonable $10 per month even if just for the ability to have books to read when you've got nothing on hand but your phone. But it still handles just one reading-related need: book supply on mobile. There are other needs that other apps and sites have attempted to handle, but remain unfulfilled. One: a review site or app that collects not just subjective, often-amateurish user reviews (the way Goodreads, a sort of Yelp for books, does, giving them an aggregate out of five stars) and not just high-level reviews from the Times and other critical outlets, but all reviews in a more binary, Rotten Tomatoes-style system (i.e. plain and simple, 78% of people liked this book). Another need: a reading app that makes it easier to jot a note or underline a passage and instantly save it somewhere other than inside that app. Another: a reading app that isn't just for books, or magazines, or one-off articles saved from the web, but all of the above.

    What tech-savvy literary folks need, still -- and Oyster may or may not fill this gap eventually -- is an all-in-one app, available across all phones and tablets, that allows for reading of any materials -- books, poetry, comic books, magazines, articles you've flagged from the web -- with easy, seamless exporting of passages or notes, social sharing, and quick, do-you-recommend-it-or-not rating ability that would translate to a more useful database for anyone seeking their next free-reading choice. Think of it like a Facebook or Google focused squarely and solely on reading. All of it is doable already -- let's see how long it takes someone.