>>   Using the iPad I go on the web to PG.  I see a ePub book I like there.

>you mean that you see a _book_ you like there.

No, I mean I see an ePub book there because Steve Jobs among other people at Apple claims that the iPad supports ePub, and it doesn’t really.  If you read the APIs you will find that actually it is a PDF-centric machine which also has some HTML url APIs.

>a _book_ that is offered in a _number_ of different formats,
including .html (which can be read in the web-browser) and
as a plain-vanilla .txt file, which can be read in many apps...

And they all generally disappear on the iPad as soon as you lose the wifi connection (see more later)

>your problem is that you want to insist on a certain file-format.

No my problem is that I insist on a certain reader experience that is not important to you or Michael presumably because your eyestate is different than my eyestate, and in general you have lower expectations about what a “book” is than I have, and you have lower expectations for a user’s experience than I have. ePub and MOBI are simply two real “ebook” file formats that support that user experience.  Other less common file formats the support a real “ebook experience” include: azw, topaz, tr2, tr3, aeh, fb2, lit, pdb, lrf, lrx

Here’s a few things I expect for my “reader experience” based on my previous experience with many many different reader machines which are either designed for reading, or which truly are “general purpose machines.”

I expect to be able to see a book on the internet and actually get that book onto my machine to read it -- from where I see it on the internet.

I expect to be able to read a book in either full screen portrait mode or full screen landscape mode.  I DO NOT, for instance expect to be forced to read a book in “two up” mode if I switch to landscape mode.

I expect to be able to change font sizes, fonts, and margins.

I expect reflow when these things happen.

I expect to be able to keep a “library” of at least a couple hundred books on my machine in differing formats and in differing states of being read.

I expect that “library” will show me spine information such as Author and Title without having to read the book.

I expect that once I put a book on my machine it will be there again the next time I try to read the book whether or not I have an internet connection. AKA “airplane mode.”

I expect the reader machine will understand what it means to change a page and will not go off scrolling wacko in three dimensions when I just try to change a page.

I expect that when I own a book and I  own a desktop computer, and I own a portable computer, then I can move that book which I own to and from those two computers that I own without having to ask Steve Jobs or his Company Store’s permission every time I want to move that book file from one computer to the other.  What in God’s Name gives Steve Jobs the right to say I’ve got to run MY files through his Company Store every time I want to make a file transfer between MY computers???

>but don't try to pretend that because you cannot get an .epub,
you can't get "an e-book", because i don't play nonsense games.

Here’s what one CAN do with an iPad, because I just went back to the Apple “Bricks and Mortor” store again.  You can open Safari. You can go to the PG website.  You can say “Show me all the PDF books”  -- of the 30,000 books on PG exactly 483 are available in PDF format.  You can say “Save this webpage to the Desktop”.  You can do this with a second book.  Now you can go into “beach mode” aka “airplane mode” by turning off the wifi.  You try to open the first book and you find that it has magically disappeared.  It appears to be on the desktop, but when you open it nothing is there.  Now you open the second book and you find that it IS still there.   So the Safari web browser has the ability to store ONE book on the desktop.  So you can get ONE book at a time off the internet from a location you choose without having a wifi connection IF that book is available in PDF format.  If you try to read two books at once you either need a wifi connection so that the iPad can keep reloading those books over the internet over and over and over again, or you can confine yourself to only reading one book at a time cover to cover and then throw the first book away before you read the second book – which will require you to find a wifi connection to reload it again.

You can also “buy” where “buy” may be free if Steve Jobs says so a limited selection of books from the Apple Company Store using their Apple-hardwired puppy calls “iBooks”.  iBooks does store more than one book.  You will have to sign up with iTunes and give them a valid credit card before you can even download “free” books from the Apple Company Store. And you will have to content yourself with Jobs’ choice of what you get to read – a choice that may change for the better or worse a year from now.

You can also do these same things through the Amazon Company Store in the form of Kindle for iPad downloaded to your iPad.

>what book -- what _book_, not some particular file-format --
what _book_ is it that you claim the ipad is refusing to display?

Two such books come readily to mind: 

PG #32085

(well I guess I can read #32085 in pgtxt70 mode but I refuse to read “books” in pgtxt70 mode – life is too short! Also I guess I can read it in HTML mode as long as I have the wifi connection up and running – just not in “airplane mode.”Also as long as it’s the ONLY book I want to currently read.

And the book that I am currently working on for submission to PG.

Look its pretty simple: iPad is actually a PDF machine NOT an ePub machine in spite of Job’s claims to the contrary. If you and Michael actually want to support iPad rather than claim it can do things that it can not do -- THEN SUPPORT IT!

What this would take is firstly provide all the PG books in PDF format.  BB has I think been working on this idea for text files.  Use half page format as BB was trying previously.  I spent literally a minute and as a test converted a PG HTML book file to PDF format using an Adobe tool.  I put that PDF file up at http://www.freekindlebooks.org/Dev/Rainbow.pdf if you want to play with it using iPad and Safari – or if you want to look at it in any other general purpose machine – even a Kindle will display it if you get it from this location!  Now Safari is actually a pretty sucky browser for reading books – but at least you CAN read it.  And you CAN store ONE book from PG on the iPad desktop and then read that ONE book on the beach or on an airplane.

Secondly one of you or someone else at PG would need to write an iPad PDF/HTML browser program which would have its own “sand box” area which could download and store more than one book.  Unlike ePub iPad DOES have APIs for reading, storing, displaying PDF, and for accessing the internet using HTML url protocols.  So this app would be RELATIVELY easy thing to do.

Would this make *me* happy?  Not really, because I like reflow and PDF doesn’t reflow.  But then at least you guys COULD legitimately claim then that one CAN read PG “ebooks” on the iPad!  No Steve Jobs and no Company Store involved!