Macs are great. But you can get first class e-book readers for nearly everything but Macs and iphone. Symbian, Epoc, all versions of Windows Mobile. On virtually all of them you can hightlight text, make notes and sycronize it all with your desktop PC.

The main software here is Mobipocket, on which the Kindle is based, and the Reader from Microsoft.

On Macs and iphone the e-book software is rather primitive.

Stanza and e-reader is probably best. On E-reader you can even hightlight and make notes. But you cant syncronize with your Desktop. It will come. E-book reading i finally catching up, and – like Netbooks – as a surprise to the manufactures.

And why couple that with weak and tired arguments? Your point regarding the lack of copy & paste ability is fair enough – that is a big flaw in this area and across the board for the iPhone. And note-taking features are lacking in most or all iPhone readers as well.

But the rest of your stilted arguments – mostly rubbish that shows a lack of both objectivity and basic research.

“Sadly, iPhone users do not even seem to know the difference. It appears that as long as you can turn the page with your nose-mining finger, that’s all that’s required.”

Huh??? That would be based on what evidence? My experience is that the majority of iPhone users have very high standards for all sorts of apps.

Stanza is a good eBook Reader, but it is hardly the only one for iPhone. eReader (now owned by Fictionwise) offers a huge amount of content and is a solid reader program (that does do auto-scroll by the way). Classics offers a pre-selected group of famous novels and offers a very nice UI. Many standalone (self-contained) eBook apps offer narration, great illustrations, and quite a few multimedia bells and whistles.

“But then, maybe iPhone readers have such extensive vocabularies and are such polyglots that this feature is simply not necessary and is beneath their dignity.”

So on the one hand all iPhone users want nothing more from their apps than an ability to scroll with a finger they use to pick their nose – and on the other we are all arrogant barstewards who are too good to use word hints in a reader app???

How does this post even get past any sort of editorial screening – any sort of once-over that might determine that it is 99% antagonistic rambling, and maybe 1% touching on any valid mobile tech topic.

Oh, and you might want to rethink this sentence:

“Ebook reading remains a far superior experience on Windows Mobile devices.”

You’re confusing winning a contest of features with what makes up a user’s experience of using these apps. You’re seriously going to tout ‘the experience’ on a Windows Mobile device? The OS that leaves almost nobody with any sense of enjoyment when using it by now. The OS that is way overdue for a big-time makeover. The OS whose applications marketplace has been completely put to shame by that of the iPhone OS in under one year of existence.

Yeah, very smart post indeed …

autoscroll
fonts
text size
margin & line spacing adjustment
themes/colours
bookmarking
highlighting
add notes
dictionary lookup

no copy/paste, but that’s apple’s fault

any books you’ve already bought in the past all readable
great dictionaries

full selection of up to date books from ereader, fictionwise etc etc – good sales etc

no need to plug in your iphone to anything to buy or download the books if you don’t want to. You can do it all from the device. (althougjh it’s still more convenient to do the buying from a pc/laptop.

No, I don’t work for ereader, but I haven’t read a paper book for over 4 years so I nearly returned my iphone when I saw how bad the readers were. But now, eReader has solved all that for me, and it’s rate of improvement is very good. It’s one of my holy grail apps.

Give it a try, it’s free, and also, available in areas outside the US, which the Kindle app is not at the moment.

Truth be told however, even if it had all those features I wouldn’t use them as they don’t suit my needs. I want an ebook reader to be simple and straightforward for bus reading, like a paperback tossed in my bag. I don’t need to take notes or highlight or get word definitions usually..just to load quickly while I have a few minutes and have it remember where I was when I close. The difference between the iPod and a paperback are that it is smaller, has games and music available as well, and it holds the equivilant of whole gobs of paperbacks, all immediately available.

For me, form has to follow function…and the iPod Touch’s form (and software) suits the functions I need from an eBook very very well. Of course, your milage may vary, and you make some great points. Any iPhone App designers reading? If so, get on it.