So I gave into weakness when I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago, because goodness knows when they're actually going to launch them in Canada now. A couple apps that haven't been mentioned in this thread:

* Instapaper: You can sync web articles (or email text) to this service, and they will sync to the Instapaper app so you can read them later. Great for queuing up articles to read over lunch, or on public transit, etc. The Instapaper site itself can also export to Kindle or ePub format, or give you “printable” versions. And, if you share an Instapaper account with some trusted friends/co-workers/other colleagues, it's a great way to share stuff you're reading with each other.

* Air Video: This is a great app for streaming video in a variety of formats from another computer. That computer needs a little server app installed, and you simply tell it what directories to stream to your iPad. If it's in an iPad native format, it will play as-is. If it's not, the Air Video Server app on your computer (Windows or OS X) will convert it on the fly and stream it over. This is awesome for those of us that rip all our TV shows and movies onto a media server — the iPad is truly on-demand video anywhere in my house, with no need to sync stuff via iTunes or encode video into an iTunes-friendly format. (It can stream over the internet, too, but I've yet to test this.)

* Blokus: This board game is just plain awesome. I had been holding off on buying the analog version of the game, but the $5 spent on the digital version has made the real version an essential purchase before my next board-gaming night.

* Marvel Comics: This app makes reading comics just gorgeous and is so intuitive and well-thought out. I look forward to DC Comics coming out with a similar app!

collywolly said:

A book won't run out of batteries.

Anecdotally, I have never had my Sony PRS505 run out of battery life at an inconvenient time. It's advertised as giving 7,500 page turns per full battery charge, and charges easily via USB.

I haven't used an ereader that includes a page turn effect (are there any, currently?) — but I've read some books using the Kindle software on my iPod touch, and I actually find the “swipe to turn pages” gesture and the page turning effect very annoying. Part of this is you simply can't cram that much text on an iPod touch screen, so I feel like I'm swiping (or tapping) all the time! And the page turning effect itself, well … I don't want my ereader to try and emulate print books. I want it to do what an ereader can do well! :)

Oh, I'm biased too — I'm in publishing and I think technology that makes reading more accessible is a victory. But, much as I love books, I don't see myself as strictly in _book_ publishing … they're just one tool for reading and for distributing info.

I feel much more threatened by people who can't read than by people who read on an ereader. ;-)

I have a Sony PRS505 (It's red! It's kinda nice lookin'!) and I love it. Since getting it (fall 2008) I've been reading more for leisure, both using it and reading paper books — it gives me more opportunities for reading as I can always keep it in my jacket pocket — and it has me back in the habit of reading, too.

I do use it a lot for reading manuscripts for my day job; I like being able to copy manuscripts directly onto it and read them without the ability to edit. I take notes as I read, instead. Less time fiddling, more big picture stuff.

It has not reduced the amount of books I buy; it's increased it. I've promised myself that until I polish off all the non-reference print books I bought in 2009, I won't upgrade to a Kindle (which wasn't available in Canada until recently), but I do want to upgrade to the Kindle for the whispernet downloads and the better store … although with recent events, we'll see how that goes.

I don't find the experience of reading on it to be much different from reading a printed book. The time it takes for the screen to refresh is pretty close to the time it takes to flip a page in a printed book, and it lies flat and always remembers the page I last read. ;-)

Aside from the selection and prices being not awesome on the Sony store, I consider it a total win.

The stretched screen is simply due to the wide images that have been posted in this thread. :)

This is a delicious little hack to add faux column rules using a second text box and paragraph rules: https://indiscripts.com/post/2009/09/introducing-indesign-column-rules

Do you have the full version of Acrobat? Depending on the complexity of the PDF file, I find that saving it to RTF is the way to go: I'm then free to either place the RTF and clean up within InDesign, or clean up the RTF and place it.