The term “e-book” in the general sense describes any method by which one could read something approximating a physical book (sequential chapters of text) on an electronic device (hence the “e”). The problem is that due to the vagaries of reader devices and the unproven inancial and security models, no single dominant e-book standard has emerged. (You can look at a laundry list of e-book formats here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/comparison_of_e-book_formats.)

Nonetheless, a number of workable standards have emerged. You may be amused that text (.txt) and hTML (.html) are two of the most common standards, which shows how hard it is to improve upon the basics. a variety of iphone applications will allow you to experience the joy of reading literature on what is probably your most handy reading device.

An e-Book reader anthology

At the moment, books are handled rather inconsistently in the app store. Because apple didn’t want to go into the e-book distribution business and compete with amazon (yet?), there is no “books” option that allows you to buy titles to read with some one-and-true apple e-book program. instead, you have several options: download one of several e-book readers that work with a motley crew of DRM-free formats, or download one of dozens of books, such as iPhone: The Missing Manual (o’Reilly), that are packaged individually.

Stanza

The most popular app store e-book application is the free stanza, from Lexcycle (www.lexcycle. com). stanza works with the desktop application of the same name, which can work with hTML, pDF, Microsoft Word, RTF, as well as all the major e-book standards:

• Mobipocket

• Microsoft LiT

• palm doc

• The epub open e-book standard

• Unprotected amazon kindle

This desktop app lets you easily view and copy your e-books wirelessly over to your ipod. The ipod app also lets you browse from thousands of free e-books and download them straight to your device.

With an e-book open in stanza, you can share it to your device over a wireless network by enabling sharing. now from your device you can ind all the books that you currently have open in stanza and download them. and you’re ready to read!

One interesting feature of stanza is an experimental feature to export books as Mp3 audiobooks, so you can listen to them instead of reading them—especially useful if you are driving.

Ereader

eReader (www.ereader.com), is an application provided by ictionwise.com and ereader.com e-book store websites, and is the only one so far to support a form of DRM tolerable to a wider range of commercial publishers. The reader supports convenient direct downloads of eReader-formatted pDB books from these two stores. (note that pDB is a container format, and not all pDB books work with the program, so make sure that it matches eReader.)

When you purchase a DRM-protected title, you’ll have to enter your credentials at least once to make eReader unlock these iles. You have to get the name you registered with when you made your account online just right, and you have to type in the credit card you used for the purchase. it’s best to use the same credit card for all your purchases, as that is your DRM “key.”

Also, you can feed eReader-formatted pDB books you download from other sites, or pDB iles you’ve created yourself, by serving them from a local web server or uploading them to your eReader.com or Fictionwise.com account and then downloading them to your device (www.ereader.com/personal-content).

BookShelf

Bookshelf (www.iphonebookshelf.com) is an app store application that supports several e-book formats, as long as they aren’t DRM-encrypted, including text, hTML, a variety of palm formats (plucker, palmDoc, Mobi), and a few others. To feed it books, run the shelfserver application on your computer desktop (pc, Mac, and Linux are supported; shelfserver can also slurp the text out of pDFs to convert them for ingestion as an e-book.

pdFs

For reading e-books that are pDF format, there’s not much to do—you just email the pDF to yourself. The problem is that most pDFs are unreadable on small devices and require much scrolling and clicking when zoomed in to a readable magniication. This is not so much a fault of the iphone as a known fault of pDF, which was designed to preserve, with high idelity, the look and dimensions of a conventional book. if you’re in a pinch and need to read a large pDF, one trick is to email it to a Gmail account—Gmail lets you read the pDF attachment as a text ile, which can make a single-column view in safari a better experience.

Classics

one e-book offering available in the app store that has to be mentioned is classics. a model of user interface design, this application packages up nine classic books into a classy and funto- read interface. a bookshelf presentation, followed by 3D effects for page turns and attention to hyphenation, spacing, fonts, and readability, this application sets a high bar for e-books on the iphone. Unfortunately, as of now there’s no way to add books to this handsome bookshelf.

ComicZeal

If you like comics, then there’s another app for you—comicZeal (www.bitolithic.com/comicZeal/ comiczeal.htm). This application provides excellent features for reading comics. Because most of the cBR/cBZ comic iles that are downloadable from the internet are of too high a resolution for the iphone’s screen, Bitolithic provides the comicZealcreator for Mac and Windows to convert comic iles to the comicZeal .cbi format (www.bitolithic.com/comicZeal/ comiczealcreator/comiczealcreator.htm).

These reduced-size iles are easier on the iphone’s cpU, which translates to longer battery life and thus longer readability. The program even starts up a mini web server, so you can type the address into comicZeal and download your files.

Finding professional-Quality content

The problem with e-books is that no one has created the “iTunes of e-books” (not that amazon.com isn’t trying), in the sense that the majority of new books are not available in a digital format. Music cDs are inherently digital; books, using “dead-tree technology,” are still primarily analog media, despite their digital production process.

Like iTunes plus and the variety of music options available on the market without DRM, there are some places where you can purchase unencumbered e-books of twentieth- and twenty-irstcentury content (i.e., content still under copyright).

A good resource for e-book sources is d http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores. examples include:

• Feedbooks (http://feedbooks.com)

• eReader (www.ereader.com)

• Fictionwise (http://ictionwise.com)

• ManyBooks (http://manybooks.net)

• panMacmillan (www.panmacmillan.com)

• cyberRead (www.cyberread.com)

• project Gutenberg (http://gutenberg.org)