Safari Books Online announced Monday Safari Bookbag, an iPhone client app that allows users to download chapters and books in PDF form from the company's online digital library. Safari Books Online's library includes book from O'Reilly Media, Pearson Education and other technical book publishers.

The client's main purpose is to sync downloads from the company's library on your computer to your iPhone. Users will be able to download individual chapters or entire books from their downloaded books for reading on their iPhone.

The company said that it chose iPhone as its first mobile platform for the Bookbag after 50% of respondents in a company survey said that the iPhone or iPod touch was their mobile device of choice.

Safari Bookbag in Coverflow mode.

"The Safari Bookbag project represented an exciting programming challenge," Erica Sadun, lead developer on Safari Bookbag and author, said in a statement. "The iPhone mixes Internet-connectivity with the realities of palm-top access. We succeeded in making Safari Books Online's Bookbag intuitively accessible. Between the simple Coverflow-based book selection screen to the tap-to-download chapters list and the friendly network access screens, Bookbag brings Safari Books Online into a native reader that takes Apple's design philosophy to heart."

You can download Safari Bookbag to your iPhone or iPod touch through the App Store on iTunes. The client is free, while book pricing is handled through the company's subscription account plans. You can find more information about the Bookbag at Safari Books Online's Web site.