09-13-2007, 08:49 AM | #1 |
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Why Adobe may be good for the new ePub standard e-book format
As recently announced, ePub is the newly approved IDPF e-book standard for publishers and consumers. It includes a zip-based container format for all the relevant files (probably most important for publishers), and it includes a reflowable XHTML format for the actual book contents.
One of the questions that needs to be asked is what the presence of Adobe and Digital Editions will mean to the standard. Is Adobe likely to support it in a manner that adds value, or will we see it consistently subvert the standard? Fortunately, all signs seem to point to Adobe being a solid supporter. They have been a team member with the IDPF, and comments on Bill McCoy's blog have generally given the impression that Bill is not only an advocate of a common reflowable standard, but that he wants this one to succeed. (By the way, Bill McCoy is General Manager, ePublishing Business, Adobe Systems Incorporated, so his opinions do matter.) But we have seen a lot of rhetoric from companies about how they support open standards who don't really end up helping the standard at all. There are other companies, content related companies especially, who even shun standards. Remember the way digital Sony music players wouldn't even support MP3 until recently? They pushed the more expensive Memory Stick on us, when everyone else was using SD or CF. But it's hard to completely shun standards and win customers at the same time. Recently, we see them becoming much more of a good community member with support for things like MP3 and SD cards in the Sony Reader, for example. Apple may be going the opposite direction. We hear constantly about anti-competitive moves and moves against interoperability, yet they seem to get a free pass. Microsoft has a reputation for adopting and then extending/distorting and then destroying standards. But if you think about it, Adobe is one of the few significant players in the content game that has actually "walked the walk". Look how widespread and the PDF format is, and how Adobe seems to not sabotage others who want to use it or create tools for it without an Adobe partnership. And look at what a huge benefit it has been for non-reflowable page layout type content. They manage to make money with it, but everyone wins and you see all kinds of PDF tools and content everywhere. I don't want to minimize the contribution of other players in the potential success of the ePub standard, but one cannot help but focus on Adobe right now early in the game. EPub is aiming to be a popular standard on both the e-book publishing and consuming sides, and with Adobe's Digital Edition and other support, ePub might just have a real shot. Adobe appears to be willing to support the standard without trying to kill it, and so while everyone else is talking about being good for standards and the general community, we have seen Adobe actually live it. Let us know what you think. Is this a naive look at Adobe and ePub, or is ePub a big step forward for reflowable content with a true Adobe supporter? |
09-13-2007, 09:36 AM | #2 |
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I guess every company has two sides in this game. I respect Adobe for standing behind this new standard, on the other hand, even Adobe is not a "good company" if you look at the DRM version of PDF. Currently only Adobe's Reader supports opening those DRM protected files - as far as I know...
The same is probably true for other companies. Microsoft does include open standards as well, but as you said, often mixes them with their own ideas to produce incompatibility. Apple as well: They base almost everything on open standards (MP4, PDF display engine, ...) but have added some incompatibilities (e.g. their own DRM on top of MP4). The main reason for this to happen is, that the standardisation group is usually slow on expanding the standard. So if a company want's to differentiate its products from others they will end up adding stuff to the standard in a non-compatible way. in some cases those ideas go back to the original standard, but of course it might be a lengthy process until every party is happy with the extension... |
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09-13-2007, 10:49 AM | #3 |
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Well, Adobe just hired Nick Bogaty, who was the executive director of the IDPF. Mr. Bogaty will head up digital publishing business development for Adobe going forward:
http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=7019 I would say this event makes it likely that Adobe will continue to be a champion of the IDPF. |
09-13-2007, 10:50 AM | #4 |
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Adobe are probably good news because their business is primarily about selling tools for content producers. They have an incentive to ensure that their readers are ubiquitous and that content providers only need to author content once. Adobe promoted the hell out of pdf because they made a ton of money out of Acrobat Professional. No other reason.
But people shouldn't be under any illusions, the DRM will be proprietary, so Adobe's Eigital Editions will only open certain content and not others (and visa-versa). And the attack on Apple is pretty gratuitous really. The music industry wanted an effective DRM system that safeguarded their content before they would allow a legal download service. Apple gave them what they wanted and managed to build a successful legal download service. But they are equally happy selling EMI DRM-free tracks. Apple have a pretty good record for supporting standrads - much better than Microsoft (OK I know not saying much). The most standards-compliant browser is Apple's Safari. |
09-13-2007, 11:05 AM | #5 | ||
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Apple is like any other hardware manufacturer: they want to drive customers to their product line. Quote:
______ Dennis |
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09-13-2007, 12:12 PM | #6 |
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Safari was the first to pass the ACID 2 test. Yes others have caught up since then. I'm not sure what the next step is after you pass that test.
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09-13-2007, 01:22 PM | #7 |
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Apple has very nice Unicode support, as well. It's why I returned to the Mac platform after an extended lapse -- I needed to be able to type in Chinese.
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09-14-2007, 01:29 AM | #8 |
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well i would say apple and adobe have terrible unicode support!
chinese may work for you, but indic script support is basically non-existant unless youre using windows with uniscribe rendering engine... i argue that microsoft better supports unicode and opentype, as well as other standards that are standardized. like someone else pointed out... it takes to time for these groups to actually agree and standardize on things. in the mean time you gotta make up for whats not there somehow. |
09-19-2007, 01:41 PM | #9 | ||
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Apple may be considering even more extreme moves with the iPhone.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ve-bricks.html Quote:
But in Apple's defense, everyone seems to be in agreement that the real obstacle to progress and consumer joy is the oppressive policies and control of the carriers. Apple may only be doing what ATT is requiring of them. Or... it might just be that Apple wants their cut of carrier service subscriptions. Quote:
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09-19-2007, 04:20 PM | #10 |
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09-20-2007, 01:09 AM | #11 |
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The problem is the iphone unlocked only works on AT&T's service. This gives them a Monoploy. Illegal in the USA.
Unlocking the iphone 100% legal in the USA. Get lost APPLE. |
09-20-2007, 02:31 AM | #12 | |
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Or are you saying that the iPhone is so far beyond everyone else's smartphone that it is in a class by itself- and therefore constitutes a monopoly? This is hardly Apple's fault- they can't be blamed for Palm and Microsoft's incompetence- these companies have had smartphones out for years. Why didn't we seen the iPhone released by one of them? Palm in particular has been working on the smartphone for a decade now. |
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09-20-2007, 05:05 AM | #13 | |
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Maybe Apple should be selling unlocked phones at full price but I wonder how many people would buy them |
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09-20-2007, 10:19 AM | #14 |
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09-25-2007, 09:11 AM | #15 |
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Also the price is high for a subsidized device. Locking phones is all about control, same as any system that limits what you can do with something you paid for.
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