On a happier note (for iBooks fans), iBooks has adopted the Nook's hold-and-swipe highlighting feature, which was my favorite thing about the Nook app. Really, the only thing I liked. Definitely no reason to even try the Nook app now. Three years and counting until Barnes & Noble is bankrupt.

I'll try to keep this space updated with new features, but probably won't.]

Merry Christmas! Several thousand people at least will be unwrapping an iOS device today. Here’s a list of the major ereader apps, and their pros and cons. We’ll see you again on Tuesday, when we go back to regular programming.

iBooks: Perfect for iOS readers

Pros: Buying books through the app store. Great highlighting, syncing, dictionary, and a ton of layout options. Two-page layout on the iPad, and fewer glitches than any other app.

Cons: Doesn’t work on any non-iOS device. Not your Kindle, not your Nook, not any E-Ink ereader. If you want to use one of those devices, you’ll want to use a different app. There isn’t even a desktop version of iBooks, you can only use it on an iPhone or an iPad. There’s also no real iBooks website, and navigating through the Books section of iTunes is a proper pain, so you’ll need to come to the app with a title in mind.

The gist: iBooks is also the only app that will let you buy books through the app store and your iTunes account—that ability is turned off for all other ebook apps. But that ease-of-buying-books is not what makes iBooks the best ereader app; instead, it’s the fact that all the others have significant downsides. iBooks has all the core functions—note-taking, highlighting, search, dictionary, and layout options—and they all work. If your iPhone and/or iPad is your main ereader, look no further for your new favorite app.

OverDrive: A must-have for everybody

Pros: Library ebooks. From your couch. For free.

Cons: Layout and navigation is kludgy. There is no search, highlight, note-taking, etc.

The gist: The OverDrive app lacks a whole whole lot of polish, but it’s the only one of these with a USP: this is how you borrow library ebooks (and even audiobooks) and put them on your phone. If you’ve already got a library card, you’ve got everything you need. If not, why not?

Kindle: You are heartless, sir

Pros: Exclusive Kindle singles by great writers mean I’m probably never going to delete this app. Syncs to Kindle devices, so a must-have for that crowd. Also, the iPad app can now do Kindle Fire mags, but unless you have, for some reason, both a Kindle Fire and an iPad, that feature is pretty useless. They’ve finally started using page numbers, so that’s good. And the Kindle store has the widest selection, in my own, strictly unscientific, tests (for example, the Kindle store has the Hunger Games, and iBooks doesn’t).

Cons: Amazon makes me feel unclean. I still buy things from them, but I never enjoy it. Once you get Amazon books, you’re locked into Amazon forever. Also, they have a tendency to delete people’s accounts for no reason (“warmest regards!”). And they never give money to charity.

The gist: Basically, if you already own a Kindle, using this app during your commute is easier than lugging your Kindle around. If you don’t already own a Kindle, don’t go over to the dark side now. (On a strictly technical level, the Kindle app has a lot of polish—it’s right up there with iBooks. The major downside is the ick factor.)

Nook: The less competent major corporate bookseller

Pros: The most innovative highlighting system out there, a press-hold-swipe process that’s pretty cool. The table of contents in-book is also really well done, my favorite of any of these apps. A nifty second app called B&N Bookstore that collects reviews and info about books and puts it all in a mobile layout (but unfortunately doesn’t let you buy ebooks).

Cons: Syncing between devices often glitches out. In fact, almost everything about this app often glitches out. There’s a permanent overlay in my library that reads “no matches found.” B&N just can’t seem to get this stuff right.

The gist: Barnes & Noble had a moment there where it looked like it might be just as good, in a technical sense, as Amazon, and with none of the icky Amazon vibe. That moment is over. B&N’s software and firmware (with the exception of the Nook Simple Touch, which people seem to love) is fundamentally cruddy, plain and simple. Don’t bother with this app unless you already have a Simple Touch. In which case, remember where you left off when you switch devices, because the app won’t.

Kobo: Such promise, such disappointment

Pros: Some of the most innovative ereader functionality in the world. Reading Life is a fun summary of your activity, and Kobo Pulse is an awesome way to socialize reading. Also, Kobo lets you read your Kobo books on a wide variety of other, non-Kobo devices, so you’re never in danger of being locked in, the way you are with Amazon or Nook. The Kobo app also boasts an onboard Instapaper interface that automatically syncs with your account.

Cons: Astonishingly lacks basic functions. There’s no search function, the page-turn situation is horrible, there are no page numbers (!), the place-finder is maddening, and there’s no ability to get samples of ebooks. Basically the app is phenomenal for everything except actually reading books.

The gist: Reading Life and Pulse are such awesome innovations that I really wanted to like the Kobo app, but I just can’t. First of all, there’s no search capability, something I’ve come to rely on in ereader apps, not just as a book reviewer but as a reader (if you forget who a character is, for instance, you can search for the first time they’re mentioned).

You're 40% of the way through the scroll bar, but only 25% of the way through the book???

The page number situation is horrible, in that page numbers don’t exist. You get page numbers within chapters (4/24 in ch. 3), and a percentage of the whole book read, but you never know what page you’re on in a traditional way, i.e. a single, global page number (125). That means that if you lose your place, good luck finding it. The place-finder at the bottom is unusable. It scrolls through the entire book, but with some invisible, greater space given over to the chapter you’re in.

So that bottom blue scrolling bar (pictured above left) maps out like this:

[p 1-52] [c u r r e n t c h a p t e r] [pp. 75-346]

However, they show you no navigational markings, so attempting to skip back three pages can easily send you back three chapters instead. Infuriating.

Worst of all, the Kobo store gives you no book preview option, so you can’t read excerpts of books before you buy. Previews are perhaps my favorite feature of the ebook revolution–they’ve become an integral part of my reading experience. Even if they fixed many of these other flaws, I need previews, and I’m not going to keep a whole different app just for that.

It’s a ridiculous example of an app that entirely eschews traditional functionality and strives to be unique. Where B&N is merely incompetent, Kobo has made active decisions that make their app unusable. It’s mind-blowing, but true.

DC joins Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, Boom, and nearly 30 other publishers who’ve used Comixology to make a smooth entry into the e-comics field. In fact, DC was the last of the major publishers to sign up, and so the news was followed by a flood of “digital comics have finally arrived” reports, no matter that Marvel, Boom!, and others had done the same thing months before.

But the arrival of DC in the digital market won’t mean much if comics don’t translate well to the new medium. So what kind of reading experience do the DC and Marvel apps (they’re identical, except for the content offered) provide?

The Comixology reader is only one part of the comixology.com hub, a social networking site where comic readers can create profiles, manage “pull lists” of books they’re planning to purchase, rate and review them, read columns, and download podcasts. The reader, currently available for the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad, allows the user to then purchase digital content directly from the publisher for $1.99 an issue.

I downloaded the Marvel and DC apps for iPod touch, and found the reader itself to be quite simple and elegant. Each page is broken into its component panels—or sometimes separate sections of a larger panel—and rendered in reading order by touching the right or left side of the screen to move forward or backward. Often this is panel by panel movement, but occasionally a splash page, or dialogue heavy panel, is broken up into separate moments, creating a clear path through a barrage of information.

Touching two fingers to the screen and opening or closing allows the reader to zoom in on and move around the panel, revealing details in the artwork that might’ve gone unnoticed, given the size disparity between the 3.5” diagonal iPhone screen and the standard 6 5/8” x 10 1/4” comic book page. Widescreen panels can be viewed in the proper aspect by turning the device on its side, though repeated flipping is distracting.

I think the need to turn the reader highlights the drawback of both the Marvel and DC apps. A substantial library of both classic and contemporary releases from each company are available for download, but none of it was written, drawn, inked, colored, or lettered to be read one panel at a time on a small screen. It’s not entirely surprising that the Silver Age comics currently available on Marvel’s reader work best in the digital format. Jack Kirby’s design work and penciling on 1962’s Incredible Hulk #1 are genius, but the page layouts are rather straightforward sequences of similarly sized boxes.

But due to the influence of innovators like Kirby, Jim Steranko, Will Eisner, and others, graphic storytelling today is more complex and involved, and in most cases the page is crafted to be irreducible. Consider DC’s digital offering of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman #1. Quitely is probably the most gifted illustrator working in mainstream comics, and his layouts for Morrison’s scripts routinely break the six or nine panel grid in favor of a more kinetic approach that relies on the reader’s awareness of how the components of the page relate to each other. When broken down the story loses some of its emotional impact, and the reading becomes rote.

I recognize that the iPod’s screen size might bear responsibility for some of my reservations. I haven’t used Comixology on an iPad, but given that its size more closely resembles a traditional comic page it’s reasonable to assume that some of any given book’s nuances will be preserved. When original digital content eventually takes off (as it must), I wouldn’t be surprised if the Comixology reader for the iPad is considered the standard on which creators base their work. And I think there’s potential for incredible growth in simpler, short-form storytelling on the iPod and iPhone. But, for that to happen, creators will have to understand how the iPod-sized reader works and explore its storytelling possibilities, rather than retrofitting existing print texts for a new format.

Last week Marvel released Invincible Iron Man Annual #1 simultaneously in print and digital formats, and I can’t think of any reason to favor the download, except price. Aside from the smattering of free full-issues, most digital comics sell for $1.99, one to two dollars cheaper than a print copy. The low cost, plus the immediate lack of serial issues available online, suggests that Marvel and DC are still treating their apps as gateways to print comics, rather than a new frontier.

I suppose that makes sense from a business standpoint, but I want digital comics to succeed as a venue for breakthroughs in storytelling, particularly as mainstream print comics are in a bit of a creative lull (notable exceptions excepted). The Comixology reader could even be the solution to decades-worth of continuity and convoluted plotting that keeps new readers at bay. It could be a way to tell short, effective stories that might recall the infectious joy of the Silver Age, or the social awareness of the Bronze Age, or something else entirely. But until creators and publishers begin conceiving of content designed specifically for an ereader, comics on the iPhone will be little more than a waiting room diversion.