Yes, indeed. It begs the question: is MarginNote an ebook reader or is it a document reader? It is not both, although it could one day be if epub was treated properly.
When I purchased the app on the app store, I was under the impression that I would be able to read books on Marginnote. I bought MarginNote 2 and MarginNote 3. I think MarginNote 2 was slightly better for books, to be honest.
I’ve sadly taken to reading books on another app where reading is actually a pleasurable experience. But that other app is not good for annotating. All I can do is highlight text and later when I am finished with the book I will move those highlights over to MarginNote 3 and add annotations. That means I have to read a book twice sometimes. It is very inconvenient, but the sad truth is that reading epubs on MarginNote is an ugly and slow experience. It is not a good e-reader.
But not all is bad news. I like that MarginNote has an active community and a dedicated team consistently working on their product. The only good e-reader on iOS is abandonware at this point - it was developed by a lone developer. I’m sure with time MarginNote can live up to great potential. But it’s going to require a new engine under the hood, it seems. I would willingly pay for a separate app that focuses on ebooks and takes advantage of epub’s strengths. Highly customizable fonts, backgrounds, text sizes, Font colors, bookmarks, adding your own cover art, word counts, sorting by author, genre, series. These are things other ebook readers can do very well. I think it’s going to come down to one of four possible events:
- MarginNote will take on the challenge of being a great ebook experience
- Other ebook readers will take on becoming better annotation apps
- A new player comes on the market.
- Nothing happens and no one is satisfied.