iPad: No "ragged text" or hyphenation option in iBooks e-reader?

From Fox News: Clayton Morris and fellow reporters use the Apple iPad, examining the e-book functionality.

Rumor has it that the iBooks e-reader currently does not let readers choose an "unjustified text" format. I hate reading justified text but am assuming that future version of iBooks will fix this. From a post by John Gruber:

iBooks uses full-justified layout for books, with no apparent option to switch to ragged right. It doesn’t do hyphenation, so you wind up with very unsightly word-spacing gaps. No e-reader I’m aware of does justice to proper book typography, but I was hoping for better from Apple. It’s decent web-caliber typography, not print-caliber typography.

Comments

[Wayne]

I suspect that changes will be made. This is after all version 1.0 of the IPad, and they did have to set a cut-off date for features.

Debbie,

Don't know if you've heard of Roughly Drafted, it is a blog that covers Apple in depth:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com

There is also a Roughly Drafted Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roughly-Drafted/432348860261?ref=ts#

I've found Roughly Drafted a good place to get updates on Apple.

Wayne

[Christina Rodriguez]

I thought justified text was supposed to be easier on the eyes. Perhaps that's just for printed-on-paper text? Is it different for screens?

[David]

Justified text rarely works in print and never works on screen. The gaps are very disruptive to the reader. Im amazed that apple didn't let us turn this off. It's not quite as bad with the iPad in portrait orientation as that give you a much longer line length - but it's still not great.