Will Kindle ever adopt an ePub format?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry, I didn't express myself very well. You're right - ADE does do all the rendering. What I meant was that you don't have to pay Adobe their large fee if all you want is ePub rendering, because ePub is very easy to render, being HTML-based. The reason that a company licences ADE from Adobe is to be able to use DRM-protected books, which (other than B&N) all use Adobe's encryption technology.

Actually, B&N's new DRM is also from Adobe. B&N managed to get Adobe to go along with this even though it's rather bad for business. It means that people will go over to B&N to purchase ePub and then find they don't work like they should. This is a bad idea and B&N needs to stop this or get out of eBooks.

[Alpha_Cluster]

Yeah different DRM schemes for epub is guna cause more issues for ebooks than different file formats. At least with different formats you could tell they were different but to most people they will just see look two epubs why don't they both work the same.

[Peter Sorotokin]

Originally Posted by Valloric

I saw it the first time, and couldn't believe you said it. Then I saw it the second time, and I still can't believe you said it.

Rendering HTML + CSS correctly is horribly difficult. Throw in SVG which the EPUB standard supports and now it's eyeball-gouging difficult. I mean geez, half the Webkit source tree is SVG, and the other half still makes for hundreds of thousands of lines of code. And Webkit is considered light.

So no, rendering EPUB files is not easy. It's far, far from easy. It's the reason why Adobe chose Webkit as the basis for their ADE renderer.

Adobe EPUB renderer currently does not use Webkit. But you are right that doing XHTML+CSS correctly is very difficult. This is the main reason why we still don't do everything correctly. (SVG is actually a bit easier once you have decent drawing library).

Still, doing EPUB renderer is significantly easier than doing a browser. One reason is that you don't need to implement interactivity and JavaScript integration. The other is that you don't need to match legacy HTML rendering.

[Peter Sorotokin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry, I didn't express myself very well. You're right - ADE does do all the rendering. What I meant was that you don't have to pay Adobe their large fee if all you want is ePub rendering, because ePub is very easy to render, being HTML-based. The reason that a company licences ADE from Adobe is to be able to use DRM-protected books, which (other than B&N) all use Adobe's encryption technology.

1. EPUB is nontrivial to render well. DRM is certainly much simpler than EPUB rendering.

2. Amazon already has a license for Reader Mobile SDK which they use to render PDF: http://www.teleread.org/2009/05/06/k...y-to-speak-up/

3. B&N uses Adobe DRM as well, just a newer, lighter revision of it. That technology is being made available to other Reader Mobile SDK customers, so B&N books will not be locked to B&N devices only.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, B&N's new DRM is also from Adobe. B&N managed to get Adobe to go along with this even though it's rather bad for business. It means that people will go over to B&N to purchase ePub and then find they don't work like they should. This is a bad idea and B&N needs to stop this or get out of eBooks.

Since the Adobe/B&N solution is both portable and multi-vendor, the above should read "everyone else needs to adopt the new ePub/social-DRM scheme or get out of e-books." This is the first thing to come along that stands a chance of delivering on promises of "any vendor/any device" without a phone-home dependency. I don't see the big deal.

[Peter Sorotokin]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

Since the Adobe/B&N solution is both portable and multi-vendor, the above should read "everyone else needs to adopt the new ePub/social-DRM scheme or get out of e-books." This is the first thing to come along that stands a chance of delivering on promises of "any vendor/any device" without a phone-home dependency. I don't see the big deal.

Actually, after working a bit with both server-sign-in-based and password-protected schemes, I disagree. When you have to sign into an account to activate, you can get away with remembering just one username/password pair (which you can update as time goes by). If you buy books from multiple vendors, you have to remember what is username and password used at each place. I am not saying that the existing AdobeID scheme is better (it has its drawbacks), but it has its advantages.

Phone-home is a different thing altogether, more about the app rather than format. You can have no DRM at all and phone home like crazy.

[kennyc]

It's my belief that eventually epub will be the standard and Amazon will adopt it when forced to but lost sales. With Sony and B&N going epub and numerous small sellers offering it I think we are moving towards consensus.

[leequick1]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's my belief that eventually epub will be the standard and Amazon will adopt it when forced to but lost sales. With Sony and B&N going epub and numerous small sellers offering it I think we are moving towards consensus.

I think you are wrong. I also think that the usual customer for the kindle wouldn't know an "epub" if it wore a placard and came up and introduced itself. In reality why should they, they are interested in getting an ebook easily anytime they want and reading it. Kindle and now the Nook do that just as easy as you please.

I know what it is and don't care if my Nook or my Bookeen plays nicely with it or plays badly with it. I am interested in only buying the ebooks of my choice and reading them over and over again if I please. I rather believe the average Kindle buyer does also, simply because that is the way it is marketed, look ma no computer needed, just appears like magic.

Thing is while on this site, I have discovered another world of people who want to put their own stuff on their readers and play with it once it is there. You do not know how strange I find this, not bad strange but strange. All these years I have treated a reader as simply a way to read published books on an electronic device instead of paper. All other stuff belonged on a computer.

If you all want to make sure readers do what you want in the future you have to put your money where the product is. Then tell the other contender why you purchased the opposition.

As for the kindle changing anytime soon, don't hold your breath, you are not the targeted market, they don't need you. They have aunt Sue and Bob's Mother and all those people who watch tv and don't really understand computers and don't want to. They have all of Opra's fans. That is a lot of people.
lee

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by leequick1

I rather believe the average Kindle buyer does also, simply because that is the way it is marketed, look ma no computer needed, just appears like magic.

the strange thing is that you do need an Amazon account in order to buy Kindle ebooks. as far as I know you can't set up an Amazon account from the kindle. If you could that would make it truly a "no computer needed" device.

Granted you could borrow one or use a kiosk to set up your initial Amazon account.

BOb

[tkingny]

Originally Posted by leequick1

I think you are wrong. I also think that the usual customer for the kindle wouldn't know an "epub" if it wore a placard and came up and introduced itself. In reality why should they, they are interested in getting an ebook easily anytime they want and reading it. Kindle and now the Nook do that just as easy as you please.

I know what it is and don't care if my Nook or my Bookeen plays nicely with it or plays badly with it. I am interested in only buying the ebooks of my choice and reading them over and over again if I please. I rather believe the average Kindle buyer does also, simply because that is the way it is marketed, look ma no computer needed, just appears like magic.

Thing is while on this site, I have discovered another world of people who want to put their own stuff on their readers and play with it once it is there. You do not know how strange I find this, not bad strange but strange. All these years I have treated a reader as simply a way to read published books on an electronic device instead of paper. All other stuff belonged on a computer.

If you all want to make sure readers do what you want in the future you have to put your money where the product is. Then tell the other contender why you purchased the opposition.

As for the kindle changing anytime soon, don't hold your breath, you are not the targeted market, they don't need you. They have aunt Sue and Bob's Mother and all those people who watch tv and don't really understand computers and don't want to. They have all of Opra's fans. That is a lot of people.
lee

I'm not sure who the 'usual' Amazon customer is, and I must admit I didn't (and still don't) fully understand the nuances of all of the different formats used by the various ereaders on the market. However, when I decided that I wanted a Kindle, I started doing research and found that other products had adopted ePub, which would offered the ability (i) to check out books from the Library and (ii) obtain books sources other than from where I bought my digital reader.

To me, both of those things are important. I typically buy most of my books (and I buy a lot of them), but I would like the ability to check books out from the library as well. Additionally, I don't want to be forced to purchase from only one source. Yet one other concern I have about multiple formats is that any books purchased on one reader would not necessarily be readable on a future digital reader unless I bought the exact same brand in the future.

I disagree with your view that people do not care and/or do not understand what they are buying. These are still relatively new gadgets, but the more mainstream they become (and the more friends people have who also own them), the more knowledgeable people will become about them. I'm hoping that this fact, and much increased competition in the digital reader space, will encourage them to revisit the single format scheme. Just my 2 cents.