There's a few reasons I love my Kindle. The first is the form factor: the iPad is just heavy enough not to be able to hold it in one hand. That makes it just a bit uncomfortable in certain situations that are far more comfortable than a Kindle (most notably: reading while brushing my teeth and while lying on my side in bed). I'm also a fan of the screen - it feels more like a book, and less in-your-face than other (backlit) screens. Staring a backlit screen, I think, is starting to really mess with my ability to concentrate. I think the simplicity of the device helps me just disconnect and focus on reading, instead of being tempted back and forth by other things. The other thing I really like about it, above and beyond its similarity to real books, is the fact that I actually find myself interacting more with the book. I'm always highlighting paragraphs that catch my eye, or to help me remember the main points of the book. I also scribble reactions, thoughts, notes and summaries in the margin of the book. I no longer have to worry about ruining a book (in fact, the only books I've ever written in consistently is the Harry Potter books, but I own several copies of each book, and I have a very special relationship with those books) (I have a cousin who insists that writing in a book is sacrilegious). This fact of impermanence is important - I know I can get rid of any random note or highlight that I decide is uninteresting or no longer important. It changes the feel of the way I interact with the book - it just "feels" more interactive. I think I do this way more with the Kindle because it's keyboard is just so damn SUGGESTIVE. Not just that I COULD do this, but that I actually SHOULD do this. The Kindle definitely makes this 'normal' and easy. As a side note, I'm very happy with this, because I think it improves my memory. I believe this sort of "externalization" of thinking actually improves your quality of thought and retention. It's also great because I can follow my own narrative and pick books up and down more easily. I worry that as we integrate more and more closely with digital technologies, we loose a lot of this interaction and externalization - it's very hard to mark up a web page, and it's not easy to draw diagrams or scribble notes in a digital space at the moment. I think losing this ability to think a second and third time about the information we're consuming, rather than just consuming it straight up, is a sad skill for us to loose. My only complaint about the Kindle, one that I'm not sure the Kindle app for iPad has solved either, is that it's really difficult to flip through and scan a book quickly. There's a very natural way to skim a book and to also do iterative searches in a book at more targeted levels just by flipping the pages. I flip through the whole book to find the general area of what I'm looking for, then I flip through again to find the chapter, then the couple pages, and finally the passage itself. This is all effortless, and done without thought - something that isn't yet mimicked on the Kindle.