Stanza version 3.2 crashes on start-up on my 2nd gen iPod

I confess I was rather irritated the other morning when I tapped on my Stanza app on my iPod and it crashed on start up.  I had foolishly updated the app to version 3.2, which apparently doesn’t work on my 2^nd generation iPod.  To make matters worse, before I discovered the inconvenient fact about the incompatibility of version 3.2 and iOS 4.2, I had synced my iPod with my computer so iTunes had updated the Stanza app as well.

I started to search for a solution to my problem and I discovered Amazon.com has purchased Lexcycle.com and doesn’t seem to care much about providing a fix to this problem.  The forum entries from Stanza users did have a solution of sorts.  I deleted the version 3.2 from both my iPod and from iTunes.  Then I retrieved version 3.1 from my trash, reinstalled it on iTunes and then synced it with my pod.  I now have a working version of Stanza, but I did lose all my books.

I have backups of most of my titles so I can reload them, but I wonder how many of my readers are so lucky.  I did discover that with iTunes version 9 or later, it’s pretty simple to download a book to my pod.  The full instructions can be found at:

http://www.lexcycle.com/faq#3n619

I do hope that Amazon/Lexcycle decides to fix this bug, for Stanza really is my favorite eReader.  I also love the Stanza desktop application, which is still available for download for both Macs and PC’s at:

http://www.lexcycle.com/desktop

It does a great job taking any document in a PDF format and exporting it as an .ePub.  I can then read it easily on my iPod.  I have found this to be very convenient.  In my opinion, the Stanza desktop program does a cleaner job of the conversion than Calibre, http://calibre-ebook.com

I tried the Kobo app http://www.kobobooks.com/smartphones today and it does an adequate job handling my .ePub books.  If Amazon orphans Stanza completely, Kobo will probably become my eReader of choice.  You can use iTunes to download books into Kobo exactly the same as with Stanza.

I encourage all of my readers to download your copy of my eBooks to your computers first and then transfer to your device.  That way, you will always have a backup if the technology suddenly changes without advance notice.

If you find yourself experimenting with a new eReader app for your iPod/iPad/iPhone, you might find it handy to test the program by downloading any of my free samples.  They are available in pdf, ePub, mobi, pdb, and html formats.