iPhone E-Books Can't Match Kindle's Catalog

E-book applications for the iPhone are a source of competition for dedicated reading gizmos like Amazon’s Kindle. After testing two popular e-book apps, Walt Mossberg finds that both have attractive features, but currently can’t match the 200,000-strong catalog of digital books—especially new bestsellers—available for the Kindle, he writes in the Wall Street Journal.

Shortcovers, by Indigo Books & Music, will launch in a few weeks and expects to have 200,000 “shortcovers”—single chapters or excerpts—online, with the full titles available for 50,000 of them. Scrollmotion’s Iceberg, by contrast, has only 14 books currently available, but boasts a spiffy interface: The original pagination is preserved, and users can make notes and search books. (More Kindle stories.)