Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
Amazon already support two formats. And have already silently converted books from one format to another.
They could easily start supporting ePub rendering on new Kindles, while still supporting their two existing formats.
For 99% of Amazon's customers, their ebooks aren't Mobipokcet format, but Kindle format. If the Kindle format suddenly becomes Topaz, Mobipocket or ePub instead of (as at present) Topaz or Mobipocket, they simply won't notice.
And over a few years, most new books will be ePub format, with automatic conversion to Mobipocket for the dwindling proportion of older Kindles that can only render Mobipocket/Topaz.
Not really a problem at all.
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Mobi and AZW are essentially the same format. AZW1 or Topaz is occasionally used when glyphs are needed to render a book with special symbols (eg math equations). They are related formats. Considering the original Kindle isn't able to even read PDF documents natively, you're suggesting that R&D to enable all existing Kindles to read a completely new format would be a wise use of resources? I think the fallacy is in assuming that there will be only one format of ebook. Is there only one digital music format? Is there only one digital movie format? Will there ever be? Probably not.