Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
As an end-user, non-programmer and non-publisher, I don't see any substantial difference due to format. If there is some "technical" advantage to epub, I'm not seeing it as even remotely relevant to my decisions as a consumer.
Sony, in the midst of sliding into irrelevance, switched to ePub and in theory this allows for a more open platform. This might be good for Sony users but it doesn't seem to have provided much, if any, tangible results for Sony.
As to MOBI, Amazon's ebooks are available on almost any platform that can support Whispernet; for better and for worse, they have zero interest in selling you an ebook that isn't hooked into their database(s). And yes, shock and gasp, they really want you to buy their ebooks instead of buying them from Apple or B&N. As such, unless Sony or B&N decides to implement Amazon's ebook protocols, switching to ePub would not produce the results you'd necessarily expect.
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The way the story goes is this...
Sony wanted to add Mobipocket. Mobipocket said no because Sony also didn't want to give up LRX format (LRF with DRM). And so, Sony was unable to add Mobipocket. Sony then was able to go to Adobe and add ADE. So that made Sony compatible with ePub. And because of that, ePub started to take off.
Now, ePub would not be so popular if Mobipocket had not been so stupid and said no to Sony. If Sony had gotten Mobipocket, other reader makers would have followed suit and Mobipocket would now be the dominant eBook format regardless of which is actually technically better.