Those two items are almost exactly my setup ;)

I have a Kindle DX for reading PDFs, white papers and other large reading format items. This mostly stays at home on my desk.

I have a small Kindle 3 which I use mostly for fiction, philosophy, and basically small form reading. This is what I take everywhere with me.

And I have a spare small Kindle 3 which my girl uses mostly. We started sharing our books long before the lend functionality appeared, and as she is not earning (full time PhD student) I was paying for the Kindle books anyway... so she just uses my account on a spare Kindle. She buys her own books for her PhD and just uses the Kindle for lighter reading.

As for the iPad I purchased... it resides in the bathroom and flipbook is used on it. Occasionally someone will bring it into the front room, but after a day it naturally seems to be put back in the bathroom.

I found the iPad so extremely limiting that it just isn't used in the household. The flash thing turns out to be a big deal for us, and you can only play so much Angry Birds. There's nothing we need it for so it's reduced itself to being a constantly up to date magazine to dip in and out of, and that's why it ends up being read on the loo or in the bath.

Re: the unsanitariness comment below... the iPad is in a case and you know, it's perfectly possible to clean a glass screen with more than just a smear removing cloth. Besides... if you think this is bad, just think of iPads in hospitals and pause to wonder how they will be sterilised.

The rest of my setup looks more like Tim Bray's: http://tim.bray.usesthis.com/

You should almost certainly eat more fiber if you are sitting long enough to want something to read.

>2. His iPad lives in the bathroom and has replaced the magazine stack.

This is a big deal. For me the iPad is, above all, a space saver. Now I don't have to waste a couple of walls in my office for books (in progress) or a room in the closet for board games. The more things I can get on there the less physical space I need.

Maybe a bit unsanitary? I toss out old Economists after a few weeks, but an ipad is something that's just going to sit there.

I don't think that the iPad replaces every possible use of a stack of paper in a bathroom, just the reading part.

I actually find my ereader more sanitary than paper books since I can actually wash it however many times I want and it's really easy to clean.

I would be interested to know the typical use cases the HN crowd is finding for the iPad. I see it being used in the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room as a remote. I don't really see many people dropping their laptops in favor of their iPad outside the home however. Do you see the tablet becoming an 'around the house' appliance or something else?

For 1. I assume he has a family and they each have their own, though if so he should have been more clear about that.

Could be that he's bought multiple versions of the kindle - perhaps a v1, a DX, a v3 - and has no pressing reason to get rid of any.