Marvin Classic - eBook reader for epub App Reviews

This app is so good it actually sold an iPad. I was looking at tablets and considering non-Apple models as well, until I realized that Marvin was iOS-only. Okay... Getting an iPad then. I was a huge fan of Stanza until Amazon killed it off; Marvin is a more-than-suitable replacement. Definitely a five star app. Really excellent interface and powerful features make this an excellent program overall. From note taking to navigation. I love the swipes for changing brightness and warmth. Lots of thought went into the design. Suggestions: On leaving the app it should auto send my position in the book for syncing on other devices. Seems lazy that I have to do it myself, and then the app tells me that the device Im on now is at an earlier position and asks if I want to go back. They do need a whole-app "night mode". Reading at night the bright white menus are blinding. They should also clean up the hinky "extra dimming" interface and simply allow the standard dimming swipe to go further. EPub 3 support! (Including video ePub) PDF support would be nice.

This was a non-starter on my iPad Pro: it crashes when trying to open it. Support was non-existent, I sent in a help ticket and was ignored by the developer. A waste of money and Ive reported this to Apple.

This app seems to have a lot of promise. When trying the free version, it “felt” great. Easy to read, nice aesthetics. Having recently started to migrate as many of my books to calibre as possible, everything I read online suggested that Marvin+Calibre worked great. So I purchased the full version only to find out that calibre sync has apparently been broken for quite a while. You can connect to the calibre server and download books one at a time, but that’s not very useful. I worry this is a sign that Marvin’s support for the future might be fading. I’ll keep using it for now, and just have to add books one at a time. Hopefully things will change in the future.

What kind of ebook reader doesnt support PDFs? Waste of money.

Im a fairly heavy consumer of ebooks. I started out with, and occasionally still use, Nook books; I regularly purchase books from Amazon that I read on a Kindle Paperwhite or an iPad via the Kindle app. Now and then I use iBooks for free or purchased content. Those are all decent platforms and content ecosystems, but when I want the most powerful and versatile reading experience I can get for non-DRM content downloaded from places like Project Gutenberg, Marvin is almost always the reading platform I choose. It is far more configurable (in terms of fonts, margins, line spacing, etc.) and in general more powerful than the proprietary readers. Its responsive and searching is fast. If you run Calibre on a desktop machine, you can connect directly to your Calibre library. In short, its both a power-users reading app and the best all-around reading app for someone who just likes to read.

Marvin is the book reader for geeks. All those features you wish an ebook reader had? Marvin added them. The more you dig in, the more thought you find was put into this app. Responsive and receptive developer as well. If you read ebooks, you will love Marvin.

Every 4th or 5th screen, there is a flash of the right hand side of the display! It truly ruins the reading experience, especially when in a night theme. Weve seen it on iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches and under iOS 6-9. Its a problem that has been around for a year or two or more, but the otherwise responsive app developer has failed to fix it! This is a relatively brilliant app otherwise, with a rich set of options and solid desktop integration, although the menu structure for library and books remains convoluted -- e.g., exiting a book, navigating folders, seeing which books one has, downloading books, and resuming reading are each awkward and confusing unlike the same operations in the venerable Stanza, ShuBook, and iBooks. Another major glitch is that the options screens come up in a brilliant, blinding white, even when in night mode. It undermines the purpose of the night mode As Spock would say, "Its illogical!" These problems really need to be fixed. The app itself deserves better! :-)

Marvin is the best. The formatting features and design are impressive, but I especially love how it keeps track of highlights, annotations and vocabulary. Its ideal for students, scholars and anyone else who might want to refer back to what theyve read.

So far, besides the Kindle app, this is probably the best ebook reader. There are definitely some issues though. Sync between devices is weak. Page sync is okay at best, but there doesnt seem to be any sync for highlights and annotations. So if I make a note when reading on my iPhone, its not going to show up on my iPad (and vice-versa). Other reviewers have mentioned that Marvin updates have slowed dramatically and it looks like Marvins developer has lost interest. Hopefully another app takes it place soon as the best non-Kindle e-reader.

Marvin does several things right: 1) You can move text to the very edge of the screen fully utilizing screen real estate. Why hasn’t Nook and Kindle figured this out? 2) Almost endless text and background color theme options. Nook gets it right. Kindle does not. 3) Clever and functional “temperature gradients” for even more joyful view tweaking. Wish list: GIVE YOUR READERS TEXT UNDERLINING. Highlighting is good, but underlining is subtle yet clearly distinguishes the chosen text. …..5 stars when underlining is possible. The developers who crafted Marvin demonstrate their love for ebooks by putting their talent and time into a superior app. They deserve more than appreciation. They deserve money.

I can not make it work, to hard to use.

This was one of the best readers I had ever used. I loved its coordination with Calibre and the ease of moving things. However now I can move nothing in and out of Marvin. There is no support except a circular try this, try that, try the next and back to try this. No place to contact about error messages. Can’t use it through iOS Reader Apps or Marvin XD, Does not coordinate with Dropbox. It has become useless. I hope someone reads this review and helps me to take it down, but right now I have no other hope of contacting someone who might help.

UPDATE I just wanted to chime in with everyone else complaining how Marvin hasnt synced with Calibre since iOS 8.3 and if your try to download multiple files from DropBox, Marvin crashes. The bottom line is Marvin hasnt been updated in quite some time, and it doesnt appear the developer has any plans to do so. Im downgrading my original 3-Star review to 2. ORIGINAL REVIEW Marvin quickly became my go-to ePUB reader primarily due to its [more] robust support of metadata and per-book preferences. In all other aspects of reading a book, it’s as capable as iBook so long as the lack of curled-page flip animations aren’t a deal-breaker. That Marvin lives outside the Apple ecosystem is both a plus and a minus, and you’ll have to decide for yourself the net. For me, the flexibility of syncing through myriad methods (dropbox, a 3rd party plugin + Calibre, OPDS and the web) is a boon. Others will no doubt find this added layer of complexity annoying. Marvin is also comparatively feature-rich, and the way to some its features is not always intuitive. Marvin’s online help is extensive, however, and one really ought to read it through before using Marvin. Of course, that’s pretty un-Apple. Take, for example, dictionary lookups. When I first started using Marvin, I was shocked to discover I couldn’t highlight and look up the definition of a word. Turns out, you can, but this feature (and a whole lot of other things) is turned off by default. You have to enable such context-menu items in the preferences on Marvin’s home screen. So, on the one hand, runes out Marvin has a whole lot of things I can customize and turn on and whatnot, on the other hand it kinda felt like I was in a Windows App. It’s apps like Marvin that make me wish for half-star increments, because I really want to give it 4.5 stars. In every metric that I care about, Marvin outperforms iBook and ultimately I’m okay with the added complexities Marvin’s power introduces. I basically love everything about it with the exception of no pdf support. Unfortunately, for me, the lack of pdf support is a pretty big deal, and it’s now the only reason I ever launch iBook. In Marvin’s online FAQ, the author claims such support might happen, but that he’d rather do one thing well rather than spread himself too thin. I get that. For me, however, I would far rather pay $5 for a pdf plugin than $1 for a color theme.

I tried the free app and was pleased with the overall design. My reason for purchasing the full version was to make use of the calibre plugin functionality only to find out that it has not been working for some time. I have contacted customer support and have yet to hear back from them. So many people recommend this app and I want to give it a fair try but it is failing to meet the basic needs for accessing and holding an ePub library.

Bought this because the website says it connects with Calibre, but that is not true any more. Wish Id read the comments - a waste of money. Annotation is better on the Kindle app so I guess Ill stick with that.

This app is my epub reader since Stanza died. I love the function to search for characters (artificial intelligence). But the features which were promised: vertical scrolling & bugfixes never came even after waiting for months. The developer already has vertical scrolling in Gerty, so I think it can be added here easily. I have lost all my hopes for v3. Wish developer proves me wrong...

“native calibre support” is a lie. Calibre support was provided by a third-party plugin which has been broken since iOS 8.3.

Best ebook reader for iOS.

Marvins main problem is that its difficult to get stuff into it. The Dropbox importer frequently crashes if you try to use a batch. What Marvin needs is a file picker like Goodreader. Until then...1 star.

Bought it for Calibre and Dropbox integration. It looked slick, but I deleted it within 2 hours after downloading. (1) Calibre integration is broken. After following the directions the plug-in wouldnt show up in the Calibre tool bar. I poked around and found a discussion thread that states in big red letters at the top, "This plugin is NOT compatible with iOS >= 8.3. Nothing can be done about it till Marvin itself is adapted to the changes by Apple." (2) Tried bulk sync to Dropbox, but Marvin kept crashing. (3) Was able to import some ePub books from DropBox, but Marvin said that my books are in ePub 3 and may not be displayed correctly. So, exactly what DOES this app do correctly? Well, it launched and it warned me that it couldnt reliably render my books. Thats as far as I got. Wonderful. Life is too short to waste time like this. The developer should change the description or take down the app. Reading some of the other comments it looks like Marvin is verging on abandonware. Its a shame because I could use an eReader that allows me to sync my DRM-free technical books, including annotations across platforms with Calibre integration. iBooks sure doesnt cut it.