I was looking for some sort of i-device that could allow whifi, directed to reading-downloading literature and be capable of talking - via ssh/scp - with my workstations on a local network (not necessarily wireless).
You are probably looking for something which also fits the hardware requirements of the Freedombox project. There's a wiki page of potential hardware here:
In addition to the list above, there's a legion of cheap Android-based mini-pcs available now, most of which can be made to run Debian / Ubuntu at least somehow. The up-to date specs seem to be two 1+ GHz cores, 1 GB memory and 2-8 GBs of flash storage, plus USB, Wifi and ethernet. The SOCs they are based are Allwinner A10/A20, Rockchip RK3066 and AML8726, and probably others. See here for a good selection: