Quick Look: Leatherbound – eBook Price Comparison App for iPad

Leatherbound is a new iPad (and iOS) app that lets you compare eBook prices and availability across three major iOS stores – the iBooks store, and the stores for the Kindle and Nook readers.

Here’s a little more detail, via its App Store description:

This free app features all of the powerful functionality you’ve come to love on Leatherbound, in a beautiful native app.

With the Leatherbound app you can:
• Compare prices and availability across Nook, Kindle and iBook stores with a single click
• Purchase your desired ebook directly from the application
• Discover ebooks by author, title and category

I gave the app a quick trial run last night, and found that it does a good job. It’s a single-purpose app, with a very basic UI – but it gets the job done as advertised.

When you launch the app it offers a few suggested, popular titles and a search bar so that you can look for whatever books you like.

The results show the book title you searched for, a brief plot summary, and pricing at each of the three stores. If the title is unavailable in any of the stores, that will be clearly shown in the results as well.

The plot summaries offered are quite short and often cut off mid-sentence. This app is not for finding out a lot about an eBook; it’s for finding the best price for an eBook you’re already interested in.

The results also offer direct links to the three stores – so if you see a price you like you can head on over to your chosen store to grab the title you’re after.

There’s not a lot more to say about Leatherbound. If you’re a frequent flyer in terms of eBook purchases on the iPad (and iOS devices) then this may well be a very useful app for you – one that can help you save some money on your eBooks. It does what it says on the box and does it well.

You can find Leatherbound in the App Store now, and it’s a free app.