Quote:
Originally Posted by TimW
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.
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Mobipocket and Topaz are completely different file formats. They are really not related at all. Topaz isn't just Mobipocket with some extra glyphs.
I don't suggest that older Kindles will get new firmware, just that future models of Kindle will be able to render ePub format.
If a book that's only been submitted in ePub format is transferred to an older Kindle, I'd expect that Amazon would do an auto-conversion to Mobipocket. They already have the software to do that pretty well. The vast majority of customers don't copy files between Kindles, they just download again from the Amazon servers.