I fairly regularly receive emails from people who have left Mobipocket.com because they've traded their Black Berry, Palm or other phone/reader for an IPhone. They just can't find a convenient way to buy my work for their new phone or read their current Mobipocket books on the IPhone.
With the upcoming release of Spinward Fringe Frontline a lot of people want to read it on their IPhone and not purchase their copy from Mobipocket at all. If you're a Mobipocket user and you're wondering what's going on with their promised OS-X (Mac), and IPhone reader, check this article out. It's the best report I've found that summerizes the reasearch I've done that adds up to one thing: Mobipocket has not officially announced the release of a reader for Mac or IPhone and are not interested in liscencing one (there's a freeware version ready, only the creator can't obtain permission to impliment DRM decoding capabilities from MobiPocket).
Sadly it looks like IPhone users won't be able to use Mobipocket which is too bad because I release all my work there first. There's good news for IPhone users, however.
In case you don't already know Amazon has released a Kindle app for the IPhone AND they've been improving it. Upon its first release you couldn't purchase and download amazon books directly to the IPhone, but that changed a little while ago as detailed quite well here. From what I've seen and heard the Kindle App is pretty good, one of the better EBook apps for the IPhone. I know a few people who will be purhcasing Spinward Fringe Frontline when it comes out and trying it.
As far as Shortcovers is concerned, I may not be using their service any time soon since they don't meet the industry standard reporting or usage levels for independent authors. They don't treat us very well over there and that's no surprise considering their parent company (Chapters/Indigo), has never treated me well on the business end either. Since Kindle provides a good reader (I'm talking about their app here, though their hardware is pretty good as I understand it), and all my books are already available I see no real reason to spend hours rebuilding all my EBooks for Shortcovers. Canadian company or not, they don't meet current industry standards for electronic publishing.
So it all comes down to the Kindle App for IPhone as the current choice for getting my work into your amazing little mobile device. I hope that helps some of you out there and I've answered most of your questions!
RL
Where is Spiwnard Fringe Frontline? It's with the Editor, and she's really enjoying it so far. The release of this novel is coming closer and closer.
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