Borders is the latest company to enter the eBook space, and Borders is doing it in a pretty big way. The company launched a web-based storefront today. And after introducing a new iOS app a few weeks ago, Borders today launched mobile apps for Android and BlackBerry devices.

I’d probably be a lot more excited about all of this though, if it weren’t for the fact that the web store is powered by Kobo… which has already been offering mobile apps for iOS and Android since mid-June.

The good news is that Kobo has more than 1.5 million titles in its library with thousands of free eBooks among them. The Borders mobile apps are virtually identical to the Kobo apps. The biggest difference is that the Borders versions have the Borders logo. But like the Kobo app for Android which I checked out last month, the Borders app lets you browse for books by lists or genre, search for books, and of course read books. The apps also synchronize with your account, which means you can put down one Kobo device and pick up reading an eBook where you left off on another device.

As an added bonus, one of the lists available for your browsing pleasure is “Can’t Get These in iBooks,” a list of books that are not available through Apple’s new eBook store.

Borders has entered the battle for dominance of the iPhone eBook market. Well sort of. Today Borders launched an official eBook app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. But it’s basically just a rebranded version of the Kobo app which has been available since last week.

Kobo and Borders are partners in the eBook space, with Kobo powering the Borders eBook store. Kobo also sells a physical eBook reader with an E Ink display that competes with the Amazon Kindle, and which has access to the Borders eBook store.

Anyway, the fact that the Borders and Kobo apps are virtually identical isn’t necessarily a bad thing — because they’re both pretty good apps. The main difference is that the Borders version has a predominantly red color scheme, while the Kobo version uses a light blue color.

Both apps let you browse the online bookstore, download free books or pay to purchase titles. You can also download previews of some works. When I first launched the app, it even recognized some of the books I’d already downloaded with the Kobo app — which would be kind of a nice feature if it weren’t for the fact that there’s really no good reason for anyone to keep both apps installed at the same time.

When you’re reading a book you can easily add bookmarks, change fonts, adjust the display brightness or lock the screen orientation. One kind of useless but charming feature is that when you exit a book to return to your bookshelf, a digital bookmark descends as if you were saving the page with a ribbon. It’s the little things that get me.

You can download both the Borders and the Kobo apps for free from the App Store. The Kobo app is also available for Android, although there’s no official Borders app for Android yet.

I was pleased to note that the Kobo app for iPhone was also much more responsive than iBooks on my iPod touch. Transitions from one screen to the next were very smooth, as was rotating from portrait to landscape mode.

There are more screenshots after the break.

via TeleRead, thanks KT!

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While we’re waiting for Amazon and Barnes & Noble to launch eBook reader applications for Google Android, it turns out that there’s already a pretty decent option available for anyone looking to download and read eBooks on and Android device. Kobo offers a decent selection of free and paid content, including a number of titles from the New York Times Bestseller list. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Kobo is working in partnership with book retailer Borders.

Scan to download

I downloaded the Kobo Android app today and took it for a spin, and while you might not find every book you’re looking for, the selection is pretty good and the prices aren’t bad either. When you download or purchase books they’re added to your library in a matter of seconds, and the Kobo app will keep track of the last read page on each book.

Your data is synced with the Kobo web site, which means you can also pick up another device and keep reading where you left off.Kobo offers a physical eBook reader as well as a a desktop app for PC and Mac (which is currently only available when you buy a Kobo Reader device, but which should be available for download this summer). There are also apps for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and WebOS.

There are a few quirks with the Android app. For one thing, I found deleting eBooks from my library to be a big hassle. There doesn’t appear to be any way to do this from my phone. Instead, I had to login to the Kobo web site, visit my library, and delete books from the web interface. Next time I launched the Kobo Android app those books were gone. But this seems like a clunky solution.

Also, while the Kobo Android FAQ says that you can create bookmarks by pressing the menu button in any book, I didn’t see any option to create a bookmark. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future release.

While I find the free Aldiko eBook reader a bit more intuitive to use, Kobo has one huge advantage over Aldiko, and that’s the excellent selection of paid content.

You can find more screenshots after the break.

via jkOnTheRun

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Borders is getting into digital books in a big way. Today the company announced that it would start selling the Kobo eReader for $149.99. Pre-orders start today, but the electronic book reader won’t be available until June 17th. But the bigger news is that Borders is launching apps that will let you read eBooks on smartphones and computers. You’ll also be able to download eBooks from the Borders store and read them on other eBook readers such as the Sony Reader.

There aren’t a lot of details about the new apps, but Borders does promise to offer the apps as free downloads for Mac, PC, BlackBerry, Android, iPhone, and iPad.

While the eBook readers are free, Borders will follow Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and other companies into the eBook realm by offering a million eBooks for download. While I’m guessing there are a fair number of free, public domain works in that number, you’ll also be able to purchase eBooks from the Borders store.

I’m all for choice, and think it’s great that you’ll soon be able to comparison shop between the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Apple eBook stores on your mobile device. I just wish there was a way to do that without having to launch 4 separate eBook apps to read your books. Because each book you download will be tied the store from which you purchased it. And that means you’ll have to remember if the book you wanted to read came from Amazon or Borders before you can fire up the appropriate app.