Apple and Amazon - the big guns in the eBook war

Apple has reportedly filled up its upcoming iBook Store for iPad with a wide variety of free ebook titles curated by Project Gutenberg, heading off any attempts by third parties to profiteer on literature in the public domain.

AppAdvice.com says Apple has already listed more than 30,000 free books from Project Gutenberg into its new ebook store for the upcoming iPad (as pictured below). The Gutenberg library of free digital books is supported by volunteer efforts, which maintains a huge collection of literature in the public domain.

While Apple has already announced that the iPad's iBooks application would be compatible with the ePub format, this latest news shows that it will be even easier for users to access public domain books directly through the iBook Store. Apple is not preinstalling the iBooks app on the iPad, but it will be available for free from the App Store, allowing competing ereader apps such as Amazon's Kindle App for iPhone an equal footing. FULL STORY