Quote:
Originally Posted by dclauzel
The publishing industry is going to the direction of a unique standardised format: ePub3. They probably learn their lesson watching over the fiasco of the musical industry: incompatible formats for the player, non-standard metadata, etc.
For me, the kepub format is a regression. The metadata concerning the user reading are no part of the file format, but must be kept separately. Amazon is forcing a walled environment for the Kindle for locking-in the user, but complains are growing (at least in Europe) over the consumer's rights of interoperability and sharing. |
I'd find myself disagreeing with you. While the remainder of the ebook publishing industry is moving in the direction of epub3, I think that Amazon is going to continue their proprietary ebook format. Otherwise, oh horrors, I could obtain an ebook from Amazon and read it on a non-Kindle ereader.
As for your comment about a regression, I'm not sure what you were trying to say. User metadata (annotations, reading position, etc) for .kepub.epub ebooks are not stored as part of the ebook file but are stored separately in the database (.epub uses both the database and an .xml file for ADE support). If you purchase .kepub.epub ebooks from Kobo, the annotations, reading position, etc. will be synced across multiple devices running Kobo software. Otherwise, that information remains where it belongs on your device.
Regards,
David