EPUB support is actually pretty thin on iOS
There have to be sound reasons, technologically – and more likely, financially – why this is so.
There are significant reasons for preferring for EPUB
Such as… ?
One thing that comes to my mind is that ebooks reflow on smaller screens, unlike PDFs.
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Yep. That being said I am fine with using Books as the app.
That’s what Apple wants you to believe. The books are actually on your disk (on the Mac, that is):
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251153381
Iirc, book metadata (like the association between title and UUID) are stored in an Sqlite database, so easily accessible, as well. Well, maybe not easily.
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LOL - Yeah, not quite easily 
I do not buy many epubs but i have a lot of them as references or other made available by the publisher (or even me as I can make them). Yes they are inside of Books in some mysterious location. But I also keep copies in the “Books” DEVONthink database along with all other formats should they be available. Works for me.
Reflowable text, ease of night mode (why anyone would read black text on a blinding white screen at night is beyond me), ease of navigation, ability to adjust font face and size, and small file size are all important considerations.
I was speaking of iOS and iPadOS.
I need to clarify this comment.
There are actually a number of apps that enable reading EPUB’s on iOS. I’ve tried most of them. Documents by Readdle even supports them.
But there is only one (Reader by Readwise) that allows searching across numerous books simultaneously. I’m pretty sure this is a fairly niche need, but I for one would find it extremely useful.
I have wondered about converting my ePub collection to PDF for search and archive, and then use the ePubs in another app, or even simply use the kindle app where they live for basic reading.
For research, it’s invaluable to have access to full text search, and I would find it very useful to read, make annotations, access full library search, and have my archive, all in one app.
This is the promise of Readwise Reader, and it is useful, but it seems the PDF libraries they use will mean they lag significantly behind DEVONthink on that front, especially as regards speed and smoothness.
This seems new…
Aren’t the the makers of pdf expert (which I thought used the same pdf editor). Does this mean pdf expert also supports open in place on iOS/iPadOS now?
Yes, I believe so.
Now, just to make sure I’m understanding, open in place allows you to navigate to a file in the files app or a different provider (like DTTG) and open it in the app, without making a new copy, correct?
If that’s open in place, Documents has it, at least for PDF’s, text files, and images. And yes, same company as PDF Expert. I just tested open in place with PDF Expert and it worked beautifully.
That’s my understanding of open in place. But I thought the issue was the highlights on pdf expert wouldn’t save correctly. (Please correct me to those who know more about this).
Either way I’m going to have to check this out. I’ve been using pdf viewer since it works well, but always had a preference for pdf expert.
I just tried it and the highlight did show up, as well as showing up under the “recently modified” filter.
That is correct. This has been a long-standing issue and with helpful cooperation between their developers and ours, things should be working now.
It works via the document provider in PDF Expert as well as the Share menu > PDF Expert in DEVONthink To Go.
Thanks. While this is pretty awesome, I’m actually having errors with pdf expert opening pdf (not with devonthink, but all pdf) and just tried on phone and iPad and both seem to be very slow and having issues). Looks like I’m staying with pdf viewer for now anyhow!
I saw a bit of that in PDF Expert when I was testing the 3.6.5 release.
Do you have a premium PDF Expert license? I don’t and wasn’t sure if it was related or not. Long shot, but asking anyways 
I had a previous pro, but haven’t transitioned to subscription. I believe that is the “I get the old pro features I had, but not new ones” plan which is what I thought it might be. But it is very finicky, like 50-50 if my iPad will even open the app.
/me nods
Did you report this to Readdle?
Yes I did this AM, haven’t heard back yet. They usually get back within a day or 2.