[Russic]

I can only go off what the guys on the macbreak weekly podcast said about the ipad. True, it's a mac based podcast so it would be understandable that they would side with the ipad, but 3 things to consider: they do tend to call out apple when they suck, they are massive kindle fans and they got to actually use it.

Their mini reviews were very positive for the ereader aspect of the device. The two that got to use it said they are putting away their kindles as soon as the ipad comes out (this seems big to me as they talk about their kindles all the time).

I can't confirm but I have to think the ipad will display any epub file. That would be like an iPod playing mp3's from iTunes but nowhere else. Apple is lockdown happy but not that bad (I hope). Even if iBooks isn't available at launch (and I doubt it will be) there are plenty of epub books out there ... I can't vouch for them being legal, but there are a ton out there.

Oddly enough i haven't heard anything about PDF support. I suppose it could read them the same way the iPhone does.