With the release of Apple's new iPhone at Macworld less than a week ago there has been nonstop buzz about it in the news. The phone mixes the capabilities of a phone, iPod video, and a PDA all in one. You can browse the Internet, run certain programs, among many other things. The gadget has a huge 3.5-inch wide color touch screen. With a screen this big and it essentially running a "mini" operating system the question: "Can the iPhone help the e-book industry?" becomes a very viable question.
The phone will presumably be able to open and display PDFs, so e-book reading wouldn't be an issue. Most e-book readers out there now only can do one thing, which is read e-books. People don't want to have to carry a laptop, a phone, an e-book reader, etc around with them, so the iPhone is a great all-in-one gadget. Plus, the cost of e-book readers is expensive (the Sony e-book reader is $349), so one could buy one of these iPhones for not that much more with so much more capabilities to do other things.
The phone has a technology built in that automatically switches the orientation of the content you are looking at from the vertical to horizontal view. This gives you a much wider screen to view the content you are currently displaying. Being able to read long bunches of text becomes very practical.
However, there are probably going to be problems, like there are with most first generation technologies. From what I've read the battery life isn't all that great, while devices solely dedicated to e-books have a very long battery life and can simulate actual ink on paper. So, "Can the iPhone help the e-book industry?" Only time will tell, but there is one there for sure, it certainly will not hurt it.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/01/09/apple.macworld.ap/index.html
http://www.apple.com/iphone/