We did a fairly extensive rundown of eBooks for the iPhone/iPod touch in August; you can take a look back if you're new to the eBook universe for Apple's mobile devices.

BookReader [iTunes Link] , a US$4.99 app for devices running OS 2.21 or higher, has just joined the crowded eBook market -- but it brings little to the table to recommend itself. The app when first run looks beautiful. You are shown a wonderfully rendered bookshelf which looks very similar to the one found in Classics [iTunes Link], but a bit more nicely rendered, showing the spines of books instead of covers in a scrolling list.

Impressive, but now what? I really had no idea since there were no instructions on how to operate the app either in the app, or on the Readdle site. This, as I've often said, is a major downfall of many of the apps in the store. It would be fine if it were an adventure game, but not at all acceptable in something offering utility that you would like to get at quickly.

The only documentation in the app is a cursory explanation of one of three methods of getting content into the app -- connecting via Wi-Fi and WebDAV to your computer in a fairly arcane manner. You connect to an external server and provide an app-created numeric password. From there you can add books to the server folder... or so they say, but they don't go as far as saying how. I added books to the server, and they never showed up in the app. I was left stranded on the Wi-fi access page and didn't know where to go from there. Now I know that I'm missing something minuscule, but that's exactly my point; there wasn't enough given to me to allow me to complete the task.

The second method of acquiring content is through Readdle Storage. You need to set up an account on the Readdle site which gives you a free 512 megabytes; larger amounts of storage are available for purchase. Once you set up an account, it works fine, but unless you know what to do, you may not find it on your own. You can easily add documents to Readdle Storage and they do show up in the app.

Many documents, unfortunately, don't look very attractive. Anything that started as a .pdf document winds up looking like garbage since all the graphics are gone, and the formatting is stripped out. The list of formats that BookReader handles is also lacking. It doesn't understand some very popular formats such as Kindle, MobiPocket and Microsoft Word's .DOC as do other apps such as Stanza [iTunes Link]. DRM is not supported, but that's par for the course in the eReader market.

Before the release of the original Amazon Kindle a little over a year ago, there were a number of electronic book readers that tried to create and capture the market for a replacement to traditional "dead tree" books. There have been readers for just about every handheld unit since the Newton, as well as a series of devices that all required would-be readers to hook their book to a PC or Mac to transfer the content.

Amazon changed all that with the Kindle by creating a device with built-in 3G networking that delivers books to you the minute you buy them. I was one of the people who purchased the first-generation Kindle, and though it delivered on wireless purchase of books, it was a clunky, poorly designed device.

In the meantime, Apple introduced the iPhone 3G and the App Store, and several ebook reader apps have worked their way onto the home screens of millions of iPhone owners. So, is Steve Jobs right? Is there no need for a dedicated electronic book device like Kindle?

I've used both the original Kindle and the new Kindle 2, and I've also read my share of electronic books on the iPhone. Which of the reigning champions of the ebook world is the winner? Read on to find out.

John Udell has a PowerBook and lots of PDF's to read. Sounds like a natural fit to me, but John wasn't happy with having to read his PDF's on the PowerBook's widescreen. What's a geek to do?

Why, use Preview to view your PDF's fullscreen and turn your PowerBook on its side. In a few seconds flat you have created yourself a very expensive eBook reader.

[via Make]