Native ebook reading applications coming to an iPhone near you!

Jul 08 2008

Everyone knows that the 2nd generation 3G iPhone is being released this Friday (July 11) and along with it, an application store on the Apple website that will finally allow iPhone/iPod Touch users to download native apps to our beloved devices. And if you didn’t know that, then you have been living under a rock for the last 7 months and probably aren’t worthy of the iPhone!

Well I’m pleased to announce that among these applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch will be a native ebook reader (actually, there will be several, according to reports I’ve read)! A recent post on The Unofficial Apple Weblog announced one particular ebook reader that looks promising.

ZappTek plans on partnering with "today’s hottest writers" to distribute new fiction using Legends to bring the reading experience to iPhone / iPod Touch 2.0. Each book appears as an icon on the Home screen, and the books automatically re-open to the last page you were reading. You can also bookmark or annotate any page.

It appears that the app itself will be free, but they will charge $1.99 for short stories and $4.99 for novels. Not too shabby.

The app is called Legends and so far, has more features than most other ebook apps for the iPhone I have seen announced. One of the biggest features is bookmarking, so you don’t have to scroll down 20+ pages to find where you left off. Also, if you look on the Legends website, the app looks clean and easy to use.

A few concerns

My only hope is that Legends and other ebook applications for the iPhone won’t be tight to a single format. My feeling is that, at least for Legends, you will have to buy your ebooks from them directly.

A standard ebook format (or lack thereof) has long been the achilles` heel of the ebook industry and a very frustrating part of being an ebook reader. For example, I own the Sony Reader 500, which means that I cannot by ebooks meant for the Amazon Kindle, and vice versa. Many companies peddle ebooks in PDF format because it is more universal, but PDFs are also very clumsy and don’t do well on small screens.

Pricing of ebooks is another concern. Again, there are no standards. On Sony’s ebook store website, I’ve seen books approaching $20 – far too much for an ebook. Amazon tends to stick with a safer 9.99 for most titles. Some companies even give you the ebook for free, provided you don’t mind a little advertising in the beginning of your novel.

No one can really agree on how much an ebook should cost. Everyone, or most people, agree that the electronic version of a print book should be much less than said print book (duh!). But how much less? What about DRM? Once I buy an ebook should I be able to transfer it to as many devices as I want?

The Good News

The good news in all this is that the concerns I posted above are signs that ebooks are gaining in popularity. My feeling is that over the next few years, issues like format standards and pricing will work themselves out. I think ebooks still have that "novelty" aspect to them. People think they’re cool and trendy (they are) and willing to shell out a few more bucks than the ebook is worth. But that novelty feeling will disappear as ebooks become more mainstream and eventually people will just stop paying overly high prices.

In closing, I will be eagerly spending every free moment I have this Friday exploring Apple’s new app store for the iPhone/iPod Touch and will hopefully find an application for reading ebooks that suites my needs. And you can be sure, when I do find one, I will write about it here!

One Response

Note that the Lexcycle Stanza eBook reader is going to be available at the App Store (http://iphone.lexcycle.com). It integrates with Stanza Desktop, which is not tied to any single book format.

Marc 7/9/2008 5:24 am