The Digital Reader

Entourage released this update last Tuesday. Between one thing and another I didn’t get a chance to try it until Wednesday. I’ve spent the last couple days playing with it, and I’m thrilled.

They fixed a number of bugs in this update, and they tweaked several programs so they run better. But the mot important improvement is that you can now save a web page as a PDF or Epub.

My biggest complaint about the Edge was content creation. It was very good at editing existing content, but not so good at creating it from scratch. This latest update fixed that.

Let me give you an example of how I wanted to use it. When I go to a convention, I usually use the online planning tools provided by con. I might generate a list of sessions I want to attend, or a list of exhibitors to check out. Now I can save the webpage that list is on as an epub. Once I open it in the reader, I can attach journals of notes from each session/exhibitor. Now I have all my notes in one place instead of text files on my laptop or notes scribbled in a paper notebook. Sweet.

Some of the other improvements were:

• Youtube app (it works with some but not all videos)
• FlashLite support
• power management – it now has an auto-suspend state (screen, Wifi, and CPU)
• Wifi (more and different types of security now supported )

For a full list, go here.

Perhaps I shouldn’t gloss over the power management. That is pretty importnat. I don’t know how much this will improve battery life, but based on the behavior when I wake the Edge I think the CPU is shut down as well.