I love Apple, and pretty much anything they come out with is amazing in my eyes, When some friends mentioned that they came out with a phone I was of course intrigued. I haven't been able to check out all of the specs of the new phone but I found this blog that was a response to someone's post as the iPhone as an eBook reader.
With the phone being able to be read at either orientation, you can switch to a horizontal view from the phones normal vertical orientation. In the horizontal position you have 3.5 inches of screen space, as some have noted, a perfect size for reading.
One of the other main points of this article was that no one really wants to buy one device to do one thing. People want one device to do as many things as possible, on top of being the best and portable at that. The iPhone does just that. I think that this is going to be a major selling point for this device. Although this device is nearing the $500 mark, I know that it will still be a good sell. With some iPods going for almost $350, I'm sure that some won't mind spend $150 more to get a device with internet access and of course phone service.
Another good point that this blog brings up is that Apple may have a few tricks up its sleeve. People typically look at Amazon and Google as big players for distributing electronic information but Apple has done quite a good job as well with iTunes. I think that right now Apple might not be a big player in the electronic information area but are soon going to be taking the world by surprise.
Check out the blog at: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/01/the_iphone_as_a.html