Quote:
Originally Posted by EatingPie
Well, yes and no. I'm a bit of a stickler in terms of lock-in.
The two largest book stores are lock-ins, with iTunes being another lock-in (don't know how they rate in book sales). While Adobe DRM is supported on the Nook, that's a one-way deal; can't read a B&N purchase on the Sony.
So the atmosphere is really really clouded when it comes to Device/Store capabilities. We need our devices to become DRM and Format Agnostic across the board. I would dearly love to buy books from Amazon, for example, but I have a Sony Reader. Yes, I could crack DRM, but I hate Calibre's ePub conversion... and let's face it, most people don't know how to deal with DRM; either a device reads the book or it doesn't.
If the Sony Reader had open Android, and you could install the Sony, Kindle and B&N apps on it, it would then be "format agnostic." Not the best way to do it (no DRM and one agreed-upon format is the best), but it would be the first Reader that truly has no lock-in limitation at all.
-Pie
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Barnes & Noble is not a very good example of DRM 'lock-in'.
Among currently shipping ereaders that support Adobe DRM, Sony's are virtually the only ones which are not able to read B&N ebooks. I think that's mostly because they've had relatively puny CPUs in the past, and the more recent Adobe RMSDKs (supporting B&N DRM) need a little more power, and they were unwilling to compromise on performance (at least that is the charitable explanation). Let's hope the T1 has updated the SDK to something newer so that Sony customers are no longer 'locked out' of the B&N store, which as you note, is one of the larger ones.
Also, "B&N DRM" happens to be the least inconvenient available, since it requires no Adobe authorization of the reading system (I'm about to get my 3rd Android tablet and have already run out of authorizations twice in two months—I do like to check out reading apps). Why don't other vendors switch? Don't they like their customers?
BTW Nook Touch can be easily semi-rooted, and you can run Kindle for Android on there reasonably well, it seems. Probably Sony for Android also and any number of other reading apps. It's probably the only e-ink device that will ever be able to do this talking dog trick.
That said, I'd gladly trade my Nook Touch for the T1 (assuming it is using a recent Adobe RMSDK).