Look Out, Amazon: iPhone Gets Real E-Books
While Amazon's sold-out Kindle is missing in action this Christmas, Apple's iPhone is becoming a more attractive e-book reader: NYC-based ScrollMotion has just started selling the first of many e-books it'll sell via the iPhone app store, including big-name books like Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass."
While there's plenty of e-books for the iPhone already, ScrollMotion has two advantages over its rivals: A gorgeous, feature-filled e-reader app called Iceberg and deals with several major publishers, including Random House, Simon and Schuster, Houghton Mifflin, Penguin, and Hachette.
Will the iPhone replace books -- or even a Kindle? Not for serious readers -- the screen is small, the battery life is iffy, etc. But we could see book snackers reading a chapter a day or so -- or a magazine, or travel guidebook, or reference materials -- on their phone or iPod touch. Especially if Apple starts selling a bigger-screen "iPod touch HD" of sorts someday.