blio? more like blech!

hello, dear reader

well, great news! put away your kindles, nooks, iPads, laptops (oh, wait not your laptop), and get ready for the greatest e-book reading application ever in the history of man (woman, pet) kind . . . blio!! and the lowercase is theirs.

okay, maybe i exaggerate. actually, if you read this entire blog post, you will know how exaggerated that statement is! because if i didn't want to avoid using the lord's name in vain, i would say it was god-awful. oops. well, it's lowercase.

blio is an e-reading application created by a company called KNF-B (who already have me ticked off by making me use CAPS). blio is currently available for windows with android and iPhone/iPad apps to come (unfortunately).

the blio website says blio is "Smart enough to know that books are more than just words; there’s style, presentation, and a world of color. Blio is also intelligent enough to know all of that enhances your reading experience. That’s what you love about books." no, that's what i love about magazines. a book is papers with words on them. engaging, funny, thoughtful, provocative words. most of the books i've read since adulthood (more like 8th grade) have had more words than pictures. world of color? i think not, unless you count the cover. or my dr seuss phase.

the blio website also says that "eBooks are intended to be different…that’s why they put that little “e” in front of “book”." silly me. i thought the 'e' was for electronic, not entertaining.

the blio website says that blio will read to you, highlighting each word along the way. you can "look up words you might not be familiar with." that's great!!! now i can stop wasting time looking up words i AM familiar with.

the blio website says you can get more info on a topic by searching google or bing. isn't that why i'm reading the book? okay, now i'm just being petty.

"and more!" i didn't make that part up.

you can "write in the margins." good luck figuring out how to do that. you can take notes, add pics and web links to your notes. that's AFTER you highlight text in the book. simply want to add a note? sorry.

again, from the website: "blio wants to make reading enjoyable and easy." okay, you really can't get much easier than reading an actual physical book and enjoyment is in the hands of the reader so that's a giant FAIL. trust me, it's a FAIL.

blio has what they call "ReadLogic" - it "knows" to auto zoom or to navigate to the next logical place in the book for you to read. knock, knock. who's there? george orwell. it's 1984!

So, of course there was nothing left to do after receiving this breath-taking information than to download it. *sigh*

and download it, i did and then proceeded to look at one of the pre-loaded books. "could not connect to search server." i got that error message a few times before it finally allowed me to create an account (with a password that HAS to have a number and letter - grrr) trust me, no one will want to hack in to THIS account.

my account came preloaded with a quick start guide, a user manual (seems like they could have combined these two), two children's books and one adult book (woodstock: peace, music and memories). groovy.

i see why they thought using woodstock would be a good idea to show off the "benefits" of blio. it's got lots of color - pictures, ticket stubs, stuff like that. like a scrapbook. except it doesn't really translate that well, imho. it would look a lot better in the full-color, glossy-coated pages of a 'real' book.

the page turning - stilted. the notes sidebar, as i mentioned previously, not intuitive at all. the 3-D view doesn't make things any better. it places the book at an angle, and the pages turn like a toddler's board book. *double sigh*

the final frustration was when i hadn't yet figured out how to use the notes function. i clicked the help link for getting started and was redirected to a web page that said, wait for it . . . coming soon! WHAT?

i hope the only thing coming soon is the early demise of blio. oh, don't believe me?

singularityhub
endgadget
geardiary
wired

happy reading . . . no matter the format (except blio). blech!