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Old 06-01-2009, 11:13 PM   #1
ldolse
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Posts: 1,337
Karma: 123455
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Malaysia
Device: PRS-650, iPhone
Feature Request: ipod touch/iphone kindle.app support

Note I didn't title this thread quite right, it should read:
Feature Request: Jailbroken ipod touch/iphone kindle.app support

Hi,

Ever since Amazon allowed iphones/ipod touch users to purchase ebooks I've been using them as my primary source of purchased ebooks. While I really dislike the draconian policies they have with drm and delivery of paid content, I've used them in general for years and their prices are good.

The real problem is that I read these on my Sony, which means I've got to jump through quite a few hoops to get the content there:
  1. Jailbreak the ipod/iphone (one time event)
  2. Acquire software which allows me to browse the device filessytem (one time event)
  3. Launch the above software
  4. find the buried location of kindle.app and it's ebook library
  5. Copy the code named prc files to my local disk
  6. Go through each file one by one until I figure out which one is the latest book I've purchased
  7. Get the serial number of the ipod touch and use it to get the mobipocket ID (one time event)
  8. Strip the DRM
  9. Load the book into Calibre
  10. Send it to the sony

Needless to say that's a bit complicated, and I'd love it if Calibre could uncomplicate it for me along the lines of something like this:
  1. Plug the jailbroken ipod/iphone in, Calibre recognizes it as a device
  2. Calibre allows me to browse whatever books are on the device and transfers them to my library

At that point they would still be DRM'd, but the fact that I could stick them into the library from the device intuitively would make all the difference in the world. Stripping the DRM and replacing the file in the calibre library is relatively trivial.

Of course it would be major bonus points if Calibre could strip the DRM in the process - but I understand the reasons behind not supporting it in the official release or explicitly on these forums. One could always link a plugin modification over on darkreverser's blog or some other location not affiliated with mobileread.


I'm thinking this FR should apply to quite a few people but not entirely certain, so looking for comments.

I also tried looking into downloading the files directly from amazon's site by capturing the ipod's traffic on my network, but amazon uses HTTPS with client certificate auth to download the books. I looked all through the kindle.app directory, but I couldn't find any keypair being used as a client cert, I can only assume that Amazon is embedding the keypair in the actual binary. If I could get the client cert I could actually decrypt the SSL traffic pretty easily with the tools I have to determine what the app is doing.

Last edited by ldolse; 06-02-2009 at 12:43 AM.
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