The iPhone is getting to be a popular book reading platform, perhaps by accident, according to Forbes on Thursday. The popular book reading app, Stanza, already has 395,000 downloads and is gaining at 5,000 per day. That’s more than the 380,000 Kindles expected to sell in all of 2008.

The Stanza numbers were reported by the three person startup, Lexcycle, in Portland, Oregon that developed the Stanza app.

The two devices, however, are not quite on equal footing. The Kindle uses E-ink which is easier on the eyes and consumes less battery power. However, it is slow to refresh. On the other hand, some users find the backlit iPhone strains their eyes after a long time.

Another difference sis that Stanza’s free book collection is public domain, older books without copyright. The Kindle offers more than 180,000 titles, including new releases, and best sellers are priced at about US$10. Of course, while Stanza started off free, the intention is to strike deals that will also allow them to also sell new releases starting early in 2009. That will equalize things.

"Once we’ve got that kind of deal done," said Marc Prud’hommeaux, Lexcycle’s CEO. "You’ll be able to do everything on the iPhone that you can now do on the Kindle: browse, purchase, download and read a book without interacting with your computer in any way."

At one time, Steve Jobs pooh-poohed the Kindle, saying that people don’t read anymore. At the time, he may not have had a notion that not only do people actually read a lot, but they would end up preferring the iPhone over the Kindle.