Hi, I have been debating back and forth as to whether the kindle reader works for the things I would like to publish or an IPad.

I have a kindle and I have published several reference like books thru Amazon that I have been very happy with.

On the other hand I have a huge interest with the IPad for several reasons but I keep hearing that to use an IPad in any way you first need a Mac possibly to load apps?

I am a windows only operator and I am looking to shed some light on this confusion.

Anyone know and Thanks in advance

You do know there is a Kindle app for the iPad, right?

No I did not. I actually am doing this research for my company and we are just beginning the process and its just a thought. And my knowledge is very limited on the IPad.

What I am trying to do is reach the largest community with our books and the kindle is limited for us becasue we need to produce very large table heavy driven data files and it appears the IPad can handle large pdfs and we like the screen size of the Ipad but we work in a windows environment.

We are trying to decide whether our focus should be Ipad or continue with the kindle

If a Kindle can handle your document, then the iPad should be able to handle it just as easily. As things stand, I don't see any reason to move away from Amazon. Since there is a Kindle app, your audience now includes people who can read your material on a Kindle device, on their computer and now on an iPad.

With iBooks, however, material must be purchased and read only on an "iDevice" (iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad). As of today, material can not be purchased or read on a PC and to me, that is a severe limitation since the only consumers of your material will be people with Apple devices.

I mean we're great people and all, but why limit yourself?

yes, you are very helpful. In the situation for me the Kindle is limited becasue the files I need to publish are not from desktop publishing programs. The are very heavy table driven data files created from software called Xyvision. Unlike destop pub. programs where you point and click xyvision users create files with many codes and macros so the only way I can see to get these files in a format which can be read thru another device is thru pdf which kindle can not handle. My only concern is that we are windows people and not mac and I wa told that I couldn't use one unless I had a mac which didn't make any sense to me so I came on this forum to see.
I really appeciate you taking the time for advice

Aside from that, I have my own laptop but in doing this research today, I want a new toy!

Hello autumn,

There are two articles on my web site that might help you. One is about ebook readers for iPad. The other is about the ePub and PDF formats that are commonly used for ebooks.

- Review of iPad eReaderApps
- How To Add ePub and PDF Books to iBooks on iPad

I hope this helps.