Over at Forbes.com, speculation has been raised that the iPhone already has a larger number of ebook readers (people that is, not apps) than Amazon has sold Kindles… this is based on 390,000 downloads of an app called Stanza.

cover flow on your bookshelf?

Interestingly, this far outpaces the eReader software I’ve been using. I can’t see figures for it, but I believe the number to be around 1/3 of that CORRECTION: about the same (see comment below). I suspect this difference in take-up relates to the choice of ‘free’ books available on Stanza rather than offering access to a paid-for store with a broader range of titles. I will watch with interest to find out if the 390,000 who have tried Stanza stick around with it.

What it certainly reinforces for me is that, as discussed earlier on Sandlines, the future of ebooks is with devices you already carry, not new stand alone devices.

Tags: Book 2.0, ebooks, iphone, iPod Touch, Kindle

This has been brewing in my mind for a while, so it’s about time I talked ebooks - and the devices on which they’re read. And AFullerView’s comments on the subject have nudged me to action.

Following Sony’s belated entry to the UK market, the likely arrival here of Amazon’s Kindle, and the already available Iliad, there’s been a lot of talk about the future of the humble-yet-mighty book.

Jeanette Winterson wrote an impassioned, if Luddite, piece about why she’s not a fan, though somewhat muddled up with a defence of the importance of spelling correctly… a somewhat linked, but discrete topic. Her main criticism is that ebooks don’t make it any easier to get books into people’s hands.

Well, I do and I don’t agree. Not sitting on the fence: I want to make an important distinction.

I don’t believe the ‘dedicated device’ route is a good way forward for reading ebooks. Particularly via the Sony eReader approach, which (in true Sony style, limits you to buying a proprietary DRM format of books that is at odds with the best range of ebooks available online, over at the excellent Fictionwise.

And there’s good news. If you own a decent smartphone, you can read books in a variety of formats right there - on your iPhone/iPod Touch (by far my favourite ebook reading device to date), on Windows Mobile devices (I’ve had a couple of those) and on old fashioned PDAs. I started reading ebooks back in 2002 on my Palm T3, and I’ve never looked back.

The screens have become gradually more eye-friendly. The range of books is slowly but steadily increasing. The price is appropriate - a little less than a printed book. Reader: this is the way forward. And as the digital ink that makes the Sony device look so good gains currency, the experience can only improve.

And if you go down this path, the green credentials of ebook reading are pretty decent too: you’re simply expanding the value from a device you already have, so no overhead there. And no trees.

Book 2.0 in action

Crucially, it means that hefty tomes, such as Neal Stephenson’s new 800 page wopper, Anathem, is reduced to something that puts no additional strain on my briefcase for my commute.

So, better screens on existing ’smart devices’ = less eyestrain, less backstrain, less bagstrain. And removes the ‘barrier to entry’ issue from Ms Winterson et al… it’s not just putting books in the hands of people who haven’t tended to read them, it’s putting the opportunity for entire libraries there.

= result.

Tags: digital ink, DRM, ebook, Iliad, iphone, iPod Touch, Kindle, smartphone, Sony eReader