長(zhǎng)時(shí)間在手機(jī)上閱讀可不是一件愜意的事。雖然掌上閱讀的途徑很多：Instapaper可以離線(xiàn)閱讀電子雜志；Kindle和iBooks也有對(duì)應(yīng)的移動(dòng)端應(yīng)用，但總的來(lái)說(shuō)，沒(méi)有一個(gè)完美的。究其原因，在狹小的屏幕上處理一大堆事情是非常惱人的。Kindle、Nook、iPad或平板電腦等大屏幕設(shè)備的閱讀體驗(yàn)要好很多，但讀者也需要更多的閱讀空間。
在Founders Fund的皮特•泰爾、Hunch聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人克里斯•迪克遜等多位風(fēng)投大佬的資助下，手機(jī)閱讀軟件Oyster橫空出世，向用戶(hù)展示了堪稱(chēng)迄今為止最為優(yōu)雅的智能手機(jī)閱讀體驗(yàn)。Oyster擁有超過(guò)10萬(wàn)本圖書(shū)的移動(dòng)書(shū)庫(kù)。只需每月9.95美元，用戶(hù)就能閱讀Oyster的所有書(shū)籍，還能隨時(shí)把它們加入書(shū)庫(kù)或從中刪除（這款應(yīng)用記錄了用戶(hù)最近打開(kāi)的10本書(shū)以供離線(xiàn)閱讀）。對(duì)于如饑似渴的書(shū)蟲(chóng)們，Oyster可謂天降大禮：它就像一個(gè)擁有海量藏書(shū)的全天候可定制移動(dòng)圖書(shū)館。當(dāng)然，如果和谷歌（Google）或亞馬遜（Amazon）這樣的老大哥相比，Oyster簡(jiǎn)直不值一提（尤其是考慮到亞馬遜那令人生畏的電子書(shū)數(shù)量。）不過(guò)，咱們暫且不提商業(yè)影響，作為一個(gè)每周都會(huì)閱讀好幾本小說(shuō)，而且通常是看紙質(zhì)書(shū)的讀者，我想從用戶(hù)體驗(yàn)的角度來(lái)點(diǎn)評(píng)下Oyster。
Oyster唯一的不足是應(yīng)用安裝流程。目前它仍采用邀請(qǐng)制，用戶(hù)必須通過(guò)手機(jī)或網(wǎng)站請(qǐng)求邀請(qǐng)，一旦通過(guò)（我用了兩天時(shí)間），Oyster會(huì)用郵件通知用戶(hù)下載應(yīng)用及創(chuàng)建賬號(hào)。首先你必須支付10美元會(huì)費(fèi)，沒(méi)有任何免費(fèi)體驗(yàn)選項(xiàng)可供選擇，不過(guò)你可以隨時(shí)取消會(huì)員資格。支付會(huì)費(fèi)后，Oyster就會(huì)提示你選擇5本書(shū)開(kāi)始閱讀。
Oyster的口號(hào)是“無(wú)限的圖書(shū)”，不過(guò)至少目前為止，它的書(shū)籍容量是有限的。我首先搜索了帕特里克•薩默維爾的《明亮的河》（This Bright River ），Oyster沒(méi)有。我又搜索了一些小說(shuō)：本•布魯克斯的《洛麗塔》（Lolito ）、凱瑟琳•戴維斯的《雙層公寓 》（Duplex ）、喬伊斯•卡羅爾•奧茨的《我們是馬爾瓦尼》（We Were the Mulvaneys ）、簡(jiǎn)•斯邁利的《一千英畝》（A Thousand Acres）、本•勒納的《離開(kāi)阿托查火車(chē)站》（Leaving the Atocha Station），詹姆斯•索爾特的《一切萬(wàn)有》（All That Is）、托馬斯•馬龍的《水門(mén)事件》（Watergate ）以及科博•亞伯的《拳擊手》（The Box Man ）還是一本都不找到。我并沒(méi)有灰心，轉(zhuǎn)而嘗試紀(jì)實(shí)書(shū)籍：羅伯特•考克爾的犯罪推理小說(shuō)《失蹤的女孩》（Lost Girls）和喬恩•穆斯理的動(dòng)物紀(jì)實(shí)小說(shuō)《野生動(dòng)物》（Wild Ones）。真是不走運(yùn)，我要的10本書(shū)一本都沒(méi)有。（Oyster只有一本約翰•艾文的小說(shuō)，這也有些說(shuō)不過(guò)去。）不過(guò)，Oyster在暢銷(xiāo)書(shū)方面表現(xiàn)不錯(cuò)，在“Oyster最受歡迎書(shū)籍”列表中，薩拉•格倫的《大象之水》（Water for Elephants）、蓋斯•斯泰因的《雨中賽車(chē)的技術(shù)》（The Art of Racing in the Rain）以及星巴克（Starbucks）首席執(zhí)行官霍華德•舒爾茨的《向前進(jìn)》（Onward）均榜上有名。
Oyster剛剛誕生，缺少一些書(shū)籍也情有可原。這家公司表示，添加新上市書(shū)籍的周期為3到4個(gè)月。（在我搜索的10本書(shū)中，有4本的確是剛剛出版。）向用戶(hù)推薦書(shū)籍是個(gè)難題，Hulu和Netflix也有類(lèi)似的問(wèn)題。對(duì)于那些想找找有什么書(shū)可以看的人，Oyster的推薦系統(tǒng)還是不錯(cuò)的。在軟件主頁(yè)你所閱讀的書(shū)的下方，Oyster展示了一系列閱讀主題，例如“夏末之約”和“環(huán)球之旅”等，以鼓勵(lì)讀者發(fā)掘書(shū)籍。很明顯，Oyster目前還無(wú)法徹底取代那些提供小說(shuō)新作的圖書(shū)館和書(shū)店。
社交是當(dāng)下的熱門(mén)，Oyster自然不想放過(guò)，它希望能在推薦方面有所作為。個(gè)人信息頁(yè)面會(huì)展示你目前正在閱讀和已經(jīng)讀過(guò)的書(shū)，你還可以給書(shū)評(píng)分。（當(dāng)然，你也可以選擇“私密閱讀”。）你在Oyster上的好友能關(guān)注你，還可以給你推薦書(shū)籍，Oyster自身也會(huì)利用用戶(hù)的歷史閱讀數(shù)據(jù)來(lái)薦書(shū)。
| | | Reading anything long on a cell phone has never been very appealing. There are options -- Instapaper will save magazine articles for you to read offline, Kindle and iBooks have adequate mobile apps -- but in general, none looks great. Whatever the exact reasons, trying to tackle a substantial work on a micro-screen is wearying. Reading a book on a Kindle, Nook, iPad, or any other tablet, meanwhile, affords a larger screen and often, well, more breathing room.
Oyster, backed by Peter Thiel of Founders Fund, Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon, and others, may be a temporary panacea: It offers the most aesthetically pleasing smartphone reading experience to date. The app provides a channel to more than 100,000 books on your phone. For $9.95, you get unlimited access to books and can add or drop any at any time (the app saves the last 10 you've opened for offline reading). In theory, the service could be a godsend to avid readers: a turbo-charged, 24-hour mobile library -- personalized. Of course, Google (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN) loom large as giants that could, it would seem, make Oyster obsolete with great ease (particularly Amazon with its formidable e-library). But ignoring the business implications for a moment, I wanted to evaluate Oyster simply on a user experience basis, as someone who reads a couple novels each week and usually prefers to do it on dead-tree material.
The only clunky trait of the app is in the setup: It is currently invite-only; you request an invite by mobile or online at its website, and once you're in (my wait was two days), it'll email you to download the app and set up an account. Only once you've paid your $10 -- there is no free test-drive option, but you can cancel membership at any time -- will it ask you to choose five books to start with.
"Unlimited books" is Oyster's motto, but for now, the library, as large as it is, feels limited. I first searched for This Bright River by Patrick Somerville, but Oyster didn't have it. I searched for the novels Lolito by Ben Brooks, Duplex by Kathryn Davis, We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates, A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, All That Is by James Salter, Watergate by Thomas Mallon, and The Box Man by Kobo Abe. Oyster had none, so I tried some nonfiction I'd been meaning to read: the crime mystery Lost Girls by Robert Kolker and the animal behavior book Wild Ones by Jon Mooalem; no luck. Oyster had none of the first 10 books I searched for. (It had only one John Irving novel, also a travesty.) Unsurprisingly, pop best sellers are better represented. A "popular on Oyster" menu suggests, for example, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's book Onward.
It may be unfair to knock the app for some missing titles at the outset; the company says it takes 90-120 days to get a new release. (Of those first 10 that I sought out, four were indeed new releases.) Selection is an issue for Hulu and Netflix, too. For those looking to discover a book spontaneously, Oyster will do just fine. On the mobile home screen, under your current books, the app offers a "spotlight" of curated, themed collections like, "the end of summer" and "around the world." These encourage discovery. What Oyster cannot yet be, it is clear, is a total replacement for the library or bookstore for those who like to read new fiction.
There is, inevitably, a social element too, Oyster's attempt to double as a recommendation engine: Your profile shows which books you're reading and have read, and your ratings if you choose to rate books. (You can, however, choose to "read privately.") Friends that have Oyster can follow you and recommend titles to you, and the app will also recommend based on what you've read in the past.
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真正重要的是，Oyster閱讀體驗(yàn)簡(jiǎn)約低調(diào)。調(diào)節(jié)頁(yè)面大小和字體都十分便捷。與平板電腦上功能操作多是水平方向不同，Oyster的設(shè)計(jì)適合iPhone的豎條形屏幕：翻頁(yè)不是靠手指向左滑動(dòng)，而是靠向上滑動(dòng)，而且進(jìn)度表也是位于屏幕右側(cè)的豎條，而不是位于底部的橫條。另一個(gè)很巧妙的細(xì)節(jié)設(shè)計(jì)是：在右下方不僅會(huì)顯示當(dāng)前章節(jié)還剩下多少頁(yè)，還會(huì)估算出看完當(dāng)前章節(jié)大概還需要多長(zhǎng)時(shí)間（比如說(shuō)“剩余37頁(yè)，需時(shí)23分鐘”）。長(zhǎng)篇內(nèi)容閱讀網(wǎng)站Longreads等站點(diǎn)所發(fā)布的文章也會(huì)附上平均閱讀時(shí)間。（有些型號(hào)的Kindle電子書(shū)也會(huì)顯示剩余時(shí)間。）
不過(guò)，用戶(hù)不能標(biāo)記精彩段落，也無(wú)法做筆記。在這方面，Oyster比不上iBooks和Kindle，后兩者都有標(biāo)記和筆記功能，而且之后還能導(dǎo)出相關(guān)內(nèi)容。（不過(guò)，反正可以進(jìn)行屏幕截圖嘛。）
要我看，我自己以及其他好些讀者可能不會(huì)在手機(jī)上閱讀大量書(shū)籍。就我而言，除非某部小說(shuō)真是引人入勝，讓人欲罷不能，否則我不會(huì)選擇用手機(jī)來(lái)閱讀。而且，由于我喜歡看最新的作品，所以O(shè)yster上往往沒(méi)有我想看的書(shū)。不過(guò)，在必要時(shí)，Oyster是個(gè)很不錯(cuò)的選擇。目前，這款應(yīng)用僅推出了iPhone版。不過(guò)iPad版即將于秋季推出，而且據(jù)該公司發(fā)言人稱(chēng)，iPad版將有“更多個(gè)性化的功能”。
有了Oyster，當(dāng)你手頭除了手機(jī)什么都沒(méi)有的時(shí)候，也能有書(shū)可看。哪怕就沖這一點(diǎn)，它每月10美元的會(huì)員費(fèi)也不算貴。不過(guò)，它還是只處理了一個(gè)與閱讀相關(guān)的需求，即在手機(jī)上看書(shū)。還有別的與閱讀相關(guān)的需求，已經(jīng)有其他應(yīng)用程序和網(wǎng)站試圖來(lái)滿(mǎn)足，但都未能成功。比如說(shuō)：現(xiàn)在有書(shū)籍點(diǎn)評(píng)網(wǎng)站Goodreads。它的用戶(hù)往往是非專(zhuān)業(yè)人士，網(wǎng)站通過(guò)聚合用戶(hù)的主觀(guān)評(píng)論，對(duì)書(shū)籍評(píng)定星級(jí)，最高為5星。但是，還沒(méi)有點(diǎn)評(píng)類(lèi)網(wǎng)站或應(yīng)用能將這樣的用戶(hù)生成內(nèi)容與來(lái)自《泰晤士報(bào)》（Times ）等重要媒體的高水平書(shū)評(píng)結(jié)合起來(lái)，建立一個(gè)電影及電子游戲評(píng)論網(wǎng)站爛番茄（Rotten Tomatoes）那樣更為二元的體系（比如說(shuō)，就直接給出“78%的人喜歡這本書(shū)”）。再比如說(shuō)：還沒(méi)有哪款閱讀應(yīng)用，能使用戶(hù)在做筆記或標(biāo)記某個(gè)段落后，能即時(shí)將相關(guān)內(nèi)容導(dǎo)出并保存。還比如說(shuō)：目前還沒(méi)有哪款閱讀應(yīng)用，能兼顧書(shū)籍、雜志以及保存下來(lái)的網(wǎng)絡(luò)文章的閱讀。
而精通技術(shù)的文藝青年們需要的則是這樣一款一體化應(yīng)用：它能用于所有手機(jī)和平板電腦，能閱讀任何格式的內(nèi)容，不論是書(shū)籍、詩(shī)歌、漫畫(huà)、雜志，還是你從網(wǎng)上保存下來(lái)的文章，而且能輕松導(dǎo)出段落或筆記，在社交媒體上進(jìn)行共享，并帶有“你是否推薦該內(nèi)容”的排名功能。Oyster最終不一定能填補(bǔ)這個(gè)市場(chǎng)空白。排名功能將形成一個(gè)更有用的數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)，為那些正在尋找自由閱讀材料的人士提供參考。它更像是僅僅專(zhuān)注于閱讀的Facebook或谷歌（Google）。所有這一切在技術(shù)上都已經(jīng)可行，且看這樣的產(chǎn)品什么時(shí)候才會(huì)出現(xiàn)吧。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）
譯者：項(xiàng)航
| | | What really matters: The reading experience is clean and visually unobtrusive. Print size and font are easily, instantly adjustable. In contrast to the horizontal leanings of the functions on a tablet, the Oyster design is suited to the tall, thin iPhone: you turn the page not by swiping left, but by moving your thumb up, and the progress meter is vertical, on the right side, not horizontal along the bottom. Another smart, subtle design detail: At the bottom right, where you can see how many pages are left in the chapter, it also gives an estimate of how long it'll take ("23 minutes, 37 pages left"), just as Longreads and other sites post articles with the average reading time attached. (Some Kindle models also show remaining time.)
What you cannot do is highlight a passage you like or take a note. In that regard Oyster doesn't stack up to iBooks or Kindle, both of which allow you to highlight a line and write a note for export later. (Then again, you could always screenshot.)
other readers -- will ever read a great number of books on a phone. I'd plunge into a novel that way only if it's one I'm dying to devour, and because of my affinity for brand new books, Oyster won't usually have the ones I want to read. But in a pinch, it's a lovely-looking option. For now, it exists only for iPhone, but an iPad version is coming in the fall and will boast, "even more personalized features," an Oyster spokesperson says.
Oyster is easily worth the reasonable $10 per month even if just for the ability to have books to read when you've got nothing on hand but your phone. But it still handles just one reading-related need: book supply on mobile. There are other needs that other apps and sites have attempted to handle, but remain unfulfilled. One: a review site or app that collects not just subjective, often-amateurish user reviews (the way Goodreads, a sort of Yelp for books, does, giving them an aggregate out of five stars) and not just high-level reviews from the Times and other critical outlets, but all reviews in a more binary, Rotten Tomatoes-style system (i.e. plain and simple, 78% of people liked this book). Another need: a reading app that makes it easier to jot a note or underline a passage and instantly save it somewhere other than inside that app. Another: a reading app that isn't just for books, or magazines, or one-off articles saved from the web, but all of the above.
What tech-savvy literary folks need, still -- and Oyster may or may not fill this gap eventually -- is an all-in-one app, available across all phones and tablets, that allows for reading of any materials -- books, poetry, comic books, magazines, articles you've flagged from the web -- with easy, seamless exporting of passages or notes, social sharing, and quick, do-you-recommend-it-or-not rating ability that would translate to a more useful database for anyone seeking their next free-reading choice. Think of it like a Facebook or Google focused squarely and solely on reading. All of it is doable already -- let's see how long it takes someone.
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