A lot is being discussed about the future of dedicated ebook reading devices in wake of the iPhone’s stellar ebook reading capabilities thanks to some nifty apps like Stanza. Do ebook device manufacturers like Amazon really have something to worry about now that more and more people are taking to ebooks on the iPhone?

To answer that, one must first try to understand what the primary features of any modern ebook reading device should be:

1) High Resolution screen supporting colour.

2) Portable and light weight.

3) Decent battery life.

4) Affordable one time cost. User only needs to pay for books purchased in the future.

5) Should allow various configuration settings like text/background colour, landscape/portrait reading modes, choice of fonts, bookmarking, text search

6) Easy access to new titles (3G / EVDO / WIFI capable). The process of content search and discovery should be intuitive and fast. Think of what iTunes did for music.

7) Industry Partnerships. No point having a device which can’t open standard ebook formats or doesn’t have access to the latest commercial titles via contracts with leading publishers. Reading “out of copyright” classics is great but I do want to read the latest Michael Crichton novel on my device if I want.

Capacity to store hundreds of titles and allow categorisation by genre/author.

Now here’s the interesting part - The Amazon Kindle 1G and the iPhone 3G have all the features mentioned above. So which one do you go for? The Kindle costs $360 and it does just ONE thing. The iPhone 8GB costs $199 and does a host of things… calls, email, web, IM, games, books, business apps, camera, maps, GPS, music, movies, social networking, etc. The iPhone is an all-in-one device. A classic example of device convergence and convenience. All in a pocket sized, inconspicuous format.

I think a key point is being ignored in the debate between the iPhone and dedicated ebook readers… and that is YOU the reader. Do YOU always know in advance when you’ll get time to quickly flip a book and catch up on a chapter or two. Do YOU always plan in advance when you aim to curl up with a book and leave everything else aside? A decade ago, I used to have control over my schedules and I could actually set aside time to read. In today’s twitter/RSS feed/email/IM driven world, I never really know when I’ll get time to sit with a book. That’s when it pays to have the books “handy”. They’re always there on my iPhone and the iPhone is always there with me… in my pocket. Can’t imagine carrying around a kindle

In my next app review, I’ll review STANZA - a free ebook reader. I’ve been using it for a week now and its just super. The experience of reading on the iPhone is so much more slick when compared to reading ebooks on the Palm eons ago!