Snazzy e-book look in XO-2, but I’m not the only one grumpy about OLPC’s current book software
Tech-hip people in the book business are looking forward to OLPC’s XO-2, which, as you can tell from this photo, could be a promising p-book replacement.
But the current e-reading software supplied with the XO-1 is pathetic. OLPC should have risen above "Not invented here" and have adapted the existing FBReader—simplifying it for young users. Unlike the current PDFcentric mess FBReader can read the IDPF’s new ePub standard.
OLPC News writer’s complaints
Now I see that I’m not the only one grumpy about the software’s failing. In the independent OLPC News, Hilaire Fernandes notes:
- "There is no obvious way to switch full screen the page view
- Navigating from one page to the previous or next one is far to be perfect. Indeed, when asking for the next page of the book with the appropriate button, it is sort of buggy as the user found itself in the middle of two pages, and not at the next one as expected."
Wait! That’s just the start of the problems. Kids, especially those with special needs, should be able to choose fonts and color combinations and otherwise make the software their reader.
Note: You can also use the XO-1’s browser to read books, if you know what to do. But it still doesn’t offer the full flexibility that an FBReader approach or other alternatives could.
Related: How the 2nd gen XO could succeed as a boost for e-books and How OLPC laptops could give commercial e-publishers an iPod moment.
Leave a Reply