When I was your age, iPhones were called books

These days, the iPhone is starting to remind me of that old Beatles’ song “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby.” Whether it’s the accessories market, third-party developers, or website designers, everybody wants to cash in on the iPhone—even that most old school of media, books.

Harper Collins has launched a website specifically targeting iPhone users, allowing them to read sample chapters, browse titles, and even look at cover art. And, of course, every title has a prominent “Buy” link at the top which will shoot you right over to Harper Collins’s store so you can order the book online. At the moment, there’s a pretty limited selection of titles.

The interface itself is kind of a mixed bag. The text are images scanned from the book, so they take a little while to load, especially over an EDGE connection, and the size of the text varies, meaning that you may have to resize it to fit the iPhone’s display and be legible.

While I’m long been a voracious reader, I’m still not convinced I’ll spend a lot of time reading books on my iPhone; it just seems so much less convenient than carrying around my old standby paperback. But if you’re stuck some place and want a little relaxing reading, I suppose you could do worse.

Category: Software

Posted by Dan Moren on Aug 15 2007, 12:34 PM ET

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