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Some very interesting statistics about iPhone /iPod Touch Apps from Ben Lorica at O’Reilly. While the fact that games and entertainment software are numbers one and two in terms of App Store Apps comes as no surprise, eBooks come in at a very respectable if slightly shocking fourth. Even more impressive is that over the last three months eBooks have been far and away the fastest growing category in the App Store, nearly quadrupling in 12 weeks.

This may be due to many factors…for one thing eBooks tend to be less expensive then other Apps, and far easier and quicker to produce and release. Also, hard economic times may be bringing people back to simpler, less expensive and more time consuming pastimes such as reading.

Also a major factor I feel is that the iPod Touch has been being discovered and discussed on eBook blogs and websites more and more as a good device for reading. Add to this growing awareness and support from the eBook community the fact that eBook readers developed for the platform (such as Stanza and BookShelf) are improving rapidly and that many of them are available for free, and the iPod Touch and iPhone are looking more and more like a highly versatile rival to the Kindle everyday….without the long wait. I have a feeling my usage model of the device is becoming typical. I use my iPod Touch first and foremost as an eBook reader, and then as a game machine. I have yet to actually listen to music on it more then once or twice.

Thanks to the iPod Touch, I carry a library in my back pocket wherever I go…and isn’t that supposed to be one of the beauties of eBooks? I get that in spades from my iPod…or maybe I should say iBook.

UPDATE: Kindle for iPhone just released…the following is from the press release.

With Kindle for iPhone, you can:
* Buy a Kindle book from your Mac, PC, or iPhone using a Web browser and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone
* Read first chapters of any book for free before you buy
* Download the Kindle books you already own for free — they are automatically backed up on Amazon.com
* Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle device
Kindle for iPhone also includes Whispersync, which allows you to seamlessly switch back and forth between your Kindle device and Kindle for iPhone while keeping your bookmarks and reading location synchronized between devices. Now you can easily pick up reading right where you left off on your Kindle or iPhone.

Zealot (445 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).