Ebooks and Text Adventures Come to the iPhone

One thing often overlooked amidst all the iPhone buzz is that screen. No, we don't mean those dead strips. We're talking about the crazy-sharp 160ppi resolution which puts it firmly in ebook territory. Whether publisher HarperCollins realizes this, or whether the company is just cashing in on the iHype we don't know, but as of now you can browse, download and read ebooks on the iPhone with the new Browse Inside service.

The first 10 pages are free, and then you start paying. Being an iPhone-less European, I can't test the interface, but HarperCollins claims that

Browse Inside digitally replicates the experience of browsing the pages of a book prior to purchasing.

A geekier, but perhaps more appropriate use of the iPhone's textual abilities is the text adventure. First popular when Douglas Adams was still making Hypercard Stacks, interactive fiction brought the choose-your-own-adventure book to the computer.

Programmer "spathiwa" has ported the Z-Machine to the iPhone, an application to run these low-tech games, and one of the first available is, appropriately enough, the Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (Adams was a big – in both ways – Apple fan).

While this is great news, Wired News Senior Technology Editor Dylan Tweney made a good point via email:

I'm especially psyched about the Hitchhiker's Guide on the iPhone. Sadly it's just a text adventure. If I could get the *actual* Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in interactive searchable form, on my iPhone, I could die happy.

Indeed.

Browse Inside on Your iPhone [HarperCollins]

Interactive fiction on the iPhone [TUAW]

Thanks Bryan!