I know that you know about this need in PNG already. It has to do with various pending partnerships with eLearning initiatives and several Universities in the Pacific and their “Pacific Storybook Initiative”. University of South Pacific is front and center. They want to base their thousand or so pending books, on the Bloom system, in the manner of the successful “African Storybook Initiative” (which also does do hundreds of check in/outs a month, right now, after years of deployment).
But they don’t necessarily want to “publish” by the labor-intensive RAB process we have today. It makes more sense to them to have a simple to use for Android ePUB 3 reader. Now it doesn’t have to be a true PUB 3 reader… it could be a simple down-loadable SIL eReader App (more kudos to SIL Int’l later) that would be “easy to use” and doesn’t “phone home on the Internet” all the time. This SIL eReader app would of course, handle audio files well.
But make no mistake, this would not, in any way, replace RAB… rather it opens up an important new niche in the application of Bloom materials development. It’s not an either/or, but rather a both/and in terms of Pacific Applications.
Let’s wait and see whether recommendations are what @Brian wants.
Regarding Calibre, it’s a Windows program, and there appears to be no official Android app (though I do see at least three apps that give you access to a Calibre library).
Well, this was reposted in the suggestions area, and yes, LSDev did pick up on what we wanted. It is my understanding that a simplified “Bloom Reader” which does the important functions that an ePub 3 reader would do, is coming out soon. So our MLE project over here (PNG) helping Universities in the Pacific reach MLE type goals can now be realized easily, on tablets and phones, using the Bloom Library approach. We’re talking about “bridging” techniques where one starts with vernacular and moves to English, which is highly prized in the world, and by governments. I can create multiple talking/ highlighted documents/ books/ booklets, and download for off-line use, and I won’t have to go through the machinations of RAB, which is nice and has it’s place in the world too… but normally such books are in the Google library somewhere and also necessitate the use of the Internet.
All the standard ePub 3 readers out there pretty much necessitated the Internet with advertisements, etc. and worse were hopelessly complex and therefore confusing to the simple end user, who just wants to read a Bloom book and have it speak. Our users are 6th grade leavers, not high school, and certainly not University trained in any way. But all have smart-phones. There’s no power for their smart-phones either, but they keep going with inexpensive solar panels, and we have those solutions mapped out already.