hi everyone, im craig just purchased my ipad for mainly downloading books and using it as a ebook reader.. i`ve purchased the books from whsmiths ebooks site but when i go to download them it says..safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid....can anyone shed a little light on what the problem is.....thanks for your help

Hi, and welcome....

Download the books on your PC/Mac. Then start iTunes. In iTunes goto file/import file into library and point it to the downloaded book. If it is an ePub it will now show up in itunes in the book tab.

Then sync your iPad, and if your settings are correct it will be on there.

iBooks reads books in the ePub format. You can also use the Kindle app, Kobo app, Barnes and Noble app, and Goodreader app. The Kindle, Kobo ones you can buy and get the books directly from the ipad.....

Anyway, looks around the forum... you can learn a lot here!

Also Apple - Support - iPad is a great resource.

Also, I do not know anything about whsmiths ebooks. They may not work in ibooks because of DRM issues.... they might, I just don't know...

I just checked whsmith, and their ePubs and PDF's use Adobe DRM.

As far as I know there is not an app yet for reading books with that DRM on the iPad.

If you know how to remove DRM, then no problem, just remove it and do as my first post stated.... otherwise I know of no way it will work....

If a site is iPad friendly, they will generally say so, the ebook market is pretty hot on the iPad right now....

I have also used the WHSmith app on the iPad and have had a few problems. Spoke with their support and this is what I was told.
Their app includes access to their bookshop which is used to buy the books which are then immediately downloaded into the app.
Their app is also available on the iPod and iPhone and books bought on one device are also available on the others. They have had issues with customers complaining that the app crashes and think that in many cases this is a memory issue (see other forums about closing apps). Their latest version attempts to address this.
In my case this has resolved my problem although there are other improvements I would like to see included but can only hope for.
Hope this helps.