iPad's book-like touches may appeal to traditional readers
Apple's first tablet is bigger, more colorful and engages viewers in ways the Kindle doesn't

By Carolyn Kellogg in the LA Times, April 12, 2010

When Apple's iPad debuted on April 3, it was greeted in some quarters of the tech world by a chorus of critiques. With no phone, no camera and no multitasking, how could it be revolutionary? And yet, when it comes to the iPad's e-reader, revolutionary is exactly what it might be.

It's not just that the iPad is beautiful. Nor is it just that the touch-screen interface is more intuitive than the controls on the plastic shell of the Kindle -- which up to now has been the dominant e-reader.

So what is it? Simply this: Books on the iPad are electronic without losing their essential bookness, in a way that e-books haven't been before.

Of course, the Kindle -- which Amazon.com launched to great success in 2007 -- has avid fans who love its nonreflective screen, which makes it easy to read in sunlight; its huge selection of e-books for sale and download; and its very light weight.
But the Kindle already looks and feels outdated: Its black and gray screen brings to mind a black-and-white TV. Its controls can generously be described as clumsy.

The full-color iPad screen is almost twice as big as the Kindle's. This makes a tremendous difference: If the Kindle screen is roughly the size of a single paperback page, the iPad, turned sideways, presents two pages side by side. Both enable readers to customize font size, but there will always be more words on the iPad page, more content to digest. The reading experience more closely resembles that of reading a physical book.
Of course, e-books are not physical books. On a Kindle, they aren't even calibrated in terms of pages; rather, each screen of text is called a "location," and a 300-page novel will have thousands of them, which makes it hard to keep track of where you left off.

The iPad, on the other hand, sticks with the more traditional designation and also indicates how many pages remain in whatever chapter is on the screen.
The full piece at LA Times.