[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by STML

@zelda_pinwheel - Thanks. I have chipped in before, and will some more, but always nice to be welcomed!

great, i'm looking forward to discussing with you.

@JSWolf - we're very aware that ebooks should be cross-platform, and vocal in our support for epub and against DRM.

In the long run, we'd definitely like these titles to be cross-platform, but at the moment the iPhone is the only device that offers the technology to make our particular vision possible (we also think convergence devices have a better future than single-use devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader).

yeah !!! thanks for that link !! it's so great to see publishers with their priorities straight !! brilliant news, really !!! i'm for epub all the way and i get a bit overexcited when i hear publishers defending open formats, inter-operability, and no drm, so please excuse the enthusiasm.

personally, i actually do strongly favour "single use" or at least "few uses" devices ; i can't see combining my cellphone with a liseuse (reading device) because i don't want a huge telephone or a tiny screen for reading, i don't want to combine it with a netbook-type device because i don't want a backlit screen for reading but e-ink is too slow and limited for other web-type activities for the moment, and more importantly i want to read on the lightest and most compact device i can get (even my sony 700 is slightly on the heavy side, i find, for carrying around, so forget cuddling up in bed with a netbook or even worse a notebook !) but i know that for some people it's much more practical or desirable to have a multi-use device, and in fact i'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't think a single-purpose device just for reading would be a justifiable purchase (it is for me). i hope that both forms will survive, although i do think we'll start to see more and more somewhat hybrid devices soon.

I'd be really surprised if anyone boycotted this book - or any other - because one particular edition is available on only one platform. In any case - this book is available as an epub on all platforms and as a separate audiobook - we've just combined the two, lowered the price, and added some iPhone-specific enhancements...

i won't boycott you, i just can't buy any of your enhanced editions for logistical reasons. i do understand though why for the moment it's technically not possible to make them compatible with dedicated devices. however, since (as i'm sure you know) the epub *format* can already handle multi-media content (if you're willing to read the file on your pc, where all those multi-media files are supported), do you have any plans to sell "enhanced epubs" outside of the iphone app store ? that way, i suppose for the really rabid fan (have i mentioned i love nick cave ?) we could read the text on the device of our choice (e-ink liseuse ftw, baby ! ...for me, anyway ), play the multi-media files on the pc, and when the technology catches up (which i have confidence it will) put the whole thing on our full-colour, non-backlit, hyper high-definition, multi-media capable reading device of our choice (or keep it on an iphone / mac tablette for those who prefer). just a thought.