I use the “Books” app that comes with iPhone. All books are downloaded in .ePub format (.mobi if on Kindle I believe).

epubs enable full text search, highlighting, bookmarking, ToC, automatic annotations, and dynamic scaling of page-numbers respective to font size.

As for turning pages, I really prefer the continuous scroll as opposed to the sideswipe. Maybe try that?

Reading a pdf can be a pain in the ass though, especially if it’s multi-columned. Although I gripe about that even with a monitor. My preference is to print in that case.

It’s not as comfortable as a tablet or e reader by far, but it’s good for random downtime that you can’t predict if you ask me.