I didn’t know I was in the market for a book tracking app until a friend told me about ReadMore ($1.99 through iTunes).
I used to use Excel to track the books I read. I’d track books by title, author, who referred it, and my comments. I liked keeping track of my reads, but it was inconvenient. I’ve tracked reads every which way, old fashioned (pen and paper), a Facebook app, web-based apps (but I don’t remember which ones and haven’t gotten around to trying GoodReads – mostly because I apparently created an account and resetting my password never seems to work, so I can’t log in), etc. Excel wasn’t perfect, but it worked for me.
I bought ReadMore in December and have used it faithfully. What I like most about it is I just scan the ISBN with my phone, and the app pulls the book info from that – no data entry. I can also search for a book manually (yes, data entry, but until my iPhone learns to read my mind, I’m stuck), like when I hear about a book I want to get, I just search for it and add it to my stack until I get the book and read it.
The other thing I like about ReadMore is logging my reading sessions. ReadMore lets me track the time I spend reading, and it calculates how many pages I’ve read, how many pages are left, and how many days (at the current rate of reading) until I finish the book and log it as complete. If you like statistics, you’ll love this.
ReadMore also allows exporting, so I will eventually try to export my reading history to Excel. I’m eager to try this, but I’m waiting to get a few more books under my belt.
In summary, ReadMore keeps me honest with my book reading.
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I’m always looking for more apps that might be useful, and recommendations go far with me. So, let me know if you’re using a great app and why you recommend it.
I really like Momento for a personal diary. I think of it as a private Twitter and use it to store thoughts from throughout the day that I wouldn’t want to make public. The user interface is just a delight.
I’m also about two weeks into replacing Mail completely with Sparrow. It’s likely not for everyone but I’ve grown fond of it. And it has an innovative user interface.
If you’ve got a lot of events or are a heavy calendar user, I’d recommend either Week Calendar or Agenda Calendar. I use the former to replace the default app and really like it. It’s user interface is a little clunky but its calendar views are much better than Apple’s.
Thanks! Momento sounds interesting. I will check it out. I’m not really in the market for email or calendar apps but will check out options if things change and become harder to manage with the default iPhone apps.