Is the Kindle right for me... @.@

[boswd]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Quote my post, please, and tell me where in my post I said "all" bookstores. I said: "All major USA online bookstores". You are quoting out of context. Yes, all major online bookstores like B&N and Amazon use DRM encryption. Everything else in USA are just a small fraction of available ebooks.

Oh please, horrible save. Nice backpeddling.

only BN and Amazon are the only Major online bookstores? Really?
I'm sure Kobo, Google, Fictionwise would disagree.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by boswd

I never claimed different in fact in other Posts I have agreed the books bought at BN are really no different than the books bought at Amazon. They are specific to it's own device.

But what I was disagreeing with the notion that bookstores, All online bookstores were using their own special DRM. and that part is false. It's DRM is ADE which is can be supported by anyone, Even Amazon could change their tune.
So it's not a locked DRM to a specific bookstore.

Our friend likes to imply places like Google, Kobo and the like do use their own specific DRM

That is not how I read his posts.

DRM is bad and all DRM is propritary. I don't care how many bookstores choose to use the same propritary DRM, it is still owned by someone who can change the rules.

And BN, for all the talk about how wonderful and open it is, choose its own DRM. And choose to use a format different then the dominant format in the US at that time and still dominant in the US market a year later.

Why does that matter? Because it shows that the silly DRM, format crap is all about business and making money. BN choose to not use Mobi because it feared Amazon. BN choose not to use the same DRM as the other EPub stores because it wanted to create its own market. BN acted like a business should.

So lets stop complaining about Amazons business decisions. Or if we are going to compalin about Amazons decisions, lets take a good hard look at BN and Kobo as well.

Even better, why not just realize that the various bookstores sell enough books to keep people happy and stop trying to make a big deal out of the format differences. We all know it doesn't matter. Anyone who makes their way to this site will very quickly figure out how to strip DRM and buy their books from where ever they want without any real problems.

[boswd]

and by the way here is another one of your false statments

"Yes, the Nook Color is locked in order to force people to buy from Barnes and Noble store."

Locked in to Force? Now am I quoting that out of context to? You are saying Barnes and Noble is Locking you in to Force you to buy only their books.

That is what your quote is saying.

and that is False.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ApK

In what way? Do you have any specifics?

I see a lot of people saying this, but I can't seem to find any specific justification. I don't feel like making the effort of reading and comparing both specs, I'm just hoping to find someone who knows.

I do know that ePub can encapsulate larger images, but other than that?

From a practical standpoint, I've converted dozens of books from ePub to Mobi and can't seem to find any difference.

ApK

ePub is a much "richer" format than Mobipocket. A few things you can do in ePub but not Mobipocket are:

- Use multiple fonts within a book, and embed your own fonts. Mobi books must all be in a single font.
- Scaleable vector graphics allow you to have images that scale nicely with the page size.
- Text can wrap around images.
- The table of contents can be multi-level.
- Drop-caps are supported.

There's lot more, but that'll do for a start.

Publishers, however, tend to go for the "lowest common denominator", so in practice, most books look the same in Mobi and ePub. ePub certainly has the potential for much more attractive typography, though, if fully utilized.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

That is not how I read his posts.

DRM is bad and all DRM is propritary. I don't care how many bookstores choose to use the same propritary DRM, it is still owned by someone who can change the rules.

And BN, for all the talk about how wonderful and open it is, choose its own DRM. And choose to use a format different then the dominant format in the US at that time and still dominant in the US market a year later.

Why does that matter? Because it shows that the silly DRM, format crap is all about business and making money. BN choose to not use Mobi because it feared Amazon. BN choose not to use the same DRM as the other EPub stores because it wanted to create its own market. BN acted like a business should.

So lets stop complaining about Amazons business decisions. Or if we are going to compalin about Amazons decisions, lets take a good hard look at BN and Kobo as well.

Even better, why not just realize that the various bookstores sell enough books to keep people happy and stop trying to make a big deal out of the format differences. We all know it doesn't matter. Anyone who makes their way to this site will very quickly figure out how to strip DRM and buy their books from where ever they want without any real problems.

I'm not complaining about Amazon's business decision, they are doing what they feel is working. Good for them

my whole basis is the claims a certain poster makes in order to confuse people.
DRM may be DRM but when that DRM (in this case ADOBE) is supported by the entire industry, then the whole DRM thing becomes almost passe.

I'm not doing a whole Amazon is bad because of no ePub, I'm just trying to correct some horrible misleading posts as to how other online bookstore use their formats.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by boswd

and by the way here is another one of your false statments

"Yes, the Nook Color is locked in order to force people to buy from Barnes and Noble store."

Locked in to Force? Now am I quoting that out of context to. You are saying Barnes and Noble is Locking you in to Force you to buy only their books.

That is what your quote is saying.

and that is False.

How is that any less false then the numerous times people say the same thing about the Kindle?

Lets call a spade a spade here.

The Kindle is supported by many bookstores outside of Amazon but there are plenty of folks who talk about how the Kindle is locked into a store.

BN choose a different format then the dominate format in the US. BN could have selected Mobi and choosen to support Amazon books but didn't because it did not want to lose business to Amazon. Fair enough.

Yes, BN choose to allow people to download books from Sony when the Nook was released. Big whoop. Sony had fewer books and was more expensive then BN. So are you really choosing a "freeer" format when the only real competition you are allowing you know is weaker? Later, Kobo entered the market and the Nook could read Kobo books because of a decision made by Kobo. And the Kobo store is probably not as good as the BN store.

So BN choose to limit its customers ability to buy books from the largest store available by choosing EPub and tried to make it look pretty by saying "But you can buy whatever EPub books you like" from stores that they knew were inferior to theirs.

And then they release a tablet, and it is a tablet, but lock it so that it cannot connect to Google Apps, effectivly locking its users out of the Amazon market and Goggle market.

You can put all the shiny bows on the package and claim it looks pretty. The second I remove them I see that the package looks identical to Amazons.

Both company made business decisions to benefit themselves. That is what comapnies do. Please be honest in acknowledging that the "freedom" that the Nook offers is barely more then an illusion.

[HarryT]

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter whether a person goes for an ADE device or a Kindle; either way you get access to good bookstores and a wide range of books. I have both a Kindle and ADE devices. Both are good.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

How is that any less false then the numerous times people say the same thing about the Kindle?

Lets call a spade a spade here.

The Kindle is supported by many bookstores outside of Amazon but there are plenty of folks who talk about how the Kindle is locked into a store.

BN choose a different format then the dominate format in the US. BN could have selected Mobi and choosen to support Amazon books but didn't because it did not want to lose business to Amazon. Fair enough.

Yes, BN choose to allow people to download books from Sony when the Nook was released. Big whoop. Sony had fewer books and was more expensive then BN. So are you really choosing a "freeer" format when the only real competition you are allowing you know is weaker? Later, Kobo entered the market and the Nook could read Kobo books because of a decision made by Kobo. And the Kobo store is probably not as good as the BN store.

So BN choose to limit its customers ability to buy books from the largest store available by choosing EPub and tried to make it look pretty by saying "But you can buy whatever EPub books you like" from stores that they knew were inferior to theirs.

And then they release a tablet, and it is a tablet, but lock it so that it cannot connect to Google Apps, effectivly locking its users out of the Amazon market and Goggle market.

You can put all the shiny bows on the package and claim it looks pretty. The second I remove them I see that the package looks identical to Amazons.

Both company made business decisions to benefit themselves. That is what comapnies do. Please be honest in acknowledging that the "freedom" that the Nook offers is barely more then an illusion.

it's not locking it out of the Google market because you buy and download books in the same manner as you would as you would buying from any other online ebookstore, In fact Google ebooks uses the Nook along with the Sony as one of feature devices when buying their ebooks.

That's not a good example Prof.

As opposed to your other statements. I don't think you have a full grasp what it means to have support for ePub and support for Adobe Digital. This allows you to shop wherever you want. Not just Sony.

Now technically you are right with Amazon. they do support another open format called mobi. but Mobi has sign. a less online bookstores presence than ePub. In fact the Kindle can not read any mobi drm. It can only read non drm Mobi which is basically all the public domain out of copyright prints that everyone has acces to.

Now you say they released a Tablet, but yet they did not release a full fledge tablet. And they never claimed to. Saying it's locked down would mean they said we have an iPad competitor but then release a tablet that does have the market accesable to it's users. I would love for you to find a press release of them saying we have an Ipad killer or this is putting us into the Tablet battlefield.

They released an dedicated ereader tablet. Nothing more nothing less. Now if people bought one with the notion it was an Open Android Tablet then that is their fault for not doing their own research.

As I said in the past, I am not disagreeing with you or Joe or anyone when it comes to books bought through the Barnes and Noble bookstore. Now they do use their own special DRM. No arguement here.

But the biggest difference between the nooks model and Amazon model is the type of open format each one chose. Barnes and Noble chose to support ePub format with Adobe Digital support and non Adobe ePub.

Amazon chose and I think owns mobi. which is a much smaller presence in the market.

So I have the choice to buy from major online bookstores such as Google, Kobo, Sony, Borders etc. You as a Kindle owner do not (at least not without some "altering") because they use the format that my device supports. Along with every other device on the market with the exception of the Kindle.

You with a kindle can only shop at non drm mobi bookstores which are a much smaller selection of retailers and books selection as compared to the ePub bookstores.

And yes you can strip DRM, but not every knows how to do it, nor does everyone want to do it. It does have some ethical and possibly legal questions involved.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by HarryT

ePub certainly has the potential for much more attractive typography, though, if fully utilized.

Would existing readers support those features? That is, would all the nooks and sonys and kobos render the vector graphics and imbedded fonts correctly right now?

That is, I wonder if they are using "lowest common denominator" only in terms of keeping their mobi and epub editions similar (like, presumably, O'Reily does) or if they are using "lowest common denominator" in terms of reader capabilities.

If it's the latter, that somewhat negates most of ePubs potential advantages, even if a publisher wanted to exploit them.
If it's only the former, you'd think powerful epub sellers like B&N would demand their books feature the enhanced capabilities to show some superiority over Amazon.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by HarryT

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter whether a person goes for an ADE device or a Kindle; either way you get access to good bookstores and a wide range of books. I have both a Kindle and ADE devices. Both are good.

They are both good, but it DOES matter for most people in making a decision.

If you like shopping at Amazon (and a lot of people do) the Kindle makes that REALLY easy and there is value there.

If you expect to be getting most of your content as ePubs (and I'm sure lots of folks do) then devices designed for that do indeed make that easier in an officially supported way.

There are other factors in choosing a reader device too, which may or may not overwhelm that consideration, but those are legitimate differentiators.

There are work-arounds on both sides, but why bother, all else being equal?

ApK

[ApK]

Originally Posted by boswd

Amazon chose and I think owns mobi. which is a much smaller presence in the market.

I'd guess that because it is Amazon, it is the single largest presence in the market. If you have numbers to show otherwise, I'll concede the point, and with the rise of iPad and others, I would not be too surprised, but last I heard, Amazon's marketshare was so huge that even if NO place else dealt in mobi, it would STILL be the biggest presence.

ApK

[ProfCrash]

And BN, Google, and Kobo all came out after Amazon was in the game using Mobi. All three could have selected to use Mobi if they wanted and all three chose EPub.

You can argue that EPub is a better format for all the technical reasons but I don't believe for a second that is why any of them choose EPub.

They choose EPub so that they would not have to compete directly with Amazons ebooks. It was a business decision. Maybe it was a good one but none of them choose EPub because they were nice guys and wanted people to be able to shop at stores other then theirs.

BN choose EPub, put its own DRM on books, and allowed Nook users to shop at inferior stores with higher prices.

Kobo choose EPub with the Adobe DRM probably hoping that it would sell more ereaders because people could shop at other stores, pretty much Sony, and knowing that Nook users would be able to shop at their store.

Nook, Sony, Kobo would all be silly to use any form of Mobi. They know that Amazon could allow their DRM read on the Kindle if Amazon wanted to. More importantly they know that chosing Mobi and allowing people to read Amazon ebooks on their devices would screw their ebook business.

Why is it that I see people happy that they rooted their Nook Colors so they could shp at Amazon? If the Epub book market was as good as Amazons store, there would be no need for a rooted Nook downloading the Kindle Android App.

Again, these were business decisions. They give people the illusion of freedom when in reality the businesses know that they would struggle to compete with Amazon. Conviently, they can now go "Look you can shop where you want and you can't do that with a Kindle" while Kindle owners shrug their shoulders and go "So? You don't sell anything that we can't already find at the same price." and occassionally go to the same indie bookstores to find other books.

Just because you cannot see the fence there does not mean that it is not. EPub users have as much freedom as Amazon users. Except that Amazon users have a larger bookselection.

[boswd]

inferior site with Higher prices? LOL pleeazze come on Prof. Apple ruined Amazon's price advantage about year ago.

Prices and selection between BN and Amazon are basically non existant. That's an old and quite frankly a tiring argument.

Barnes and Noble has caught up in a huge way in both price and selection. in a short period of time. Amzon may have more technical books or specialized books but beyond that. Sorry it's just not there anymore.

So what was Google's business decision to use ePub instead of mobi? And also the kobo ebookstore existed a lot longer then their own device, so why didn't they use mobi.
also why did the Library with Overdrive support ePub, when it could have chosen mobi.?

the industry chose ePub when it could have chosen mobi. sort of like the movie industry supporting blu ray instead of hd dvd.

Mobi is now a small player as where ePub is now the major player. Sounds like they all made sound business decisions.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by ApK

They are both good, but it DOES matter for most people in making a decision.

If you like shopping at Amazon (and a lot of people do) the Kindle makes that REALLY easy and there is value there.

If you expect to be getting most of your content as ePubs (and I'm sure lots of folks do) then devices designed for that do indeed make that easier in an officially supported way.

There are other factors in choosing a reader device too, which may or may not overwhelm that consideration, but those are legitimate differentiators.

There are work-arounds on both sides, but why bother, all else being equal?

ApK

To me the biggest advantage of having an epub supported device besides the obvious of checking out books from the library, is taking advantage of specials, coupons, promotions from other ebook stores.
Kobo is just my favorite hands down, they are always shooting out coupons via email. Saves alot of money.

[ProfCrash]

"BN choose EPub, put its own DRM on books, and allowed Nook users to shop at inferior stores with higher prices."


I was referncing Sony. When the Nook came out Sony has an inferior site with higher prices. I think it is safe to say That Sony's bookstore is still inferior, I have no idea about the prices. Kobo wasn't even around at the time.

And while BN is closing the gap, Amazon is still the better bookstore. Which is why some Nook Color users are rooting their Nook Colors and downloading the Kindle for Android app and buying some of their books from Amazon.