[just_the_tip]

You can get $5 O'Reilly EPUBs from the App Store everyday.

Extracting an epub from an iPhone app is easy. First you unzip the .ipa file. Then you cd to Payload/*/book. Finally, you zip up the files to an .epub file: zip -X ~/book.epub mimetype && zip -r9DX ~/book.epub META-INF OEBPS.

mimetype must be first in the archive for validity, which you can test with EpubCheck.

[ydant]

Interesting. I just checked on the Android Google Market and found several of the books I was considering were just $5.

They are in multi-file HTML format inside the APK, so this is even cheaper and given I wanted them on the Android phone/tablet anyway, easier.

Even better the eBook app O'Reilly delivers has an "Export to ePub" button that will send it to an ePub on your sdcard.

[anotherperson]

This is definitely a hacky way to go. I just tried it with Matz’s Ruby book. Reading it with Stanza on OSX is just about the ugliest digital reading experience outside of scanned text.

Oh well, it only set me back 5 bucks.

[just_the_tip]

It's an issue of using a subpar client, not a subpar format. I have yet to find a decent epub reader for a computer. Stanza for iPhone, iBooks, and dedicated hardware render epubs beautifully.