Quote:
Originally Posted by daffy4u
Isn't DE all ePub or am I confused?
|
It also handles PDF files ... I think it may be aimed at replacing the Adobe Reader, but it may fill a different enough niche that the to will co-exist. I don't recall if it handles other file types than those two.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daffy4u
So, what happened [with Amazon and e-books] and when was this?
|
I don't have the precise dates, unfortunately, but it was some years back, about the time the acquired Mobipocket. Up until that point they'd been selling several formats of e-books. One day they stopped selling them, but you could still re-download what you'd previously bought. About a year later you couldn't do that any longer.
I'm sure there are others who can provide more detail on it, but my primary point is that there aren't really any players in the e-book game that have spotless records ... not if they've been in it any time at all: they've all done
something obnoxious at one point or another.
That's also the main reason I'm pumped about epub getting traction. PDF made a pretty good play at becoming a de-facto e-book standard (almost without Adobe even noticing, to all apperances), despite the fact that it's really not well suited to the purpose, simply because Adobe is so ubiquitous. Everyone has access to the Adobe Reader app, and most folks can make PDFs these days.
Now we have a format, epub, that is not only suited to the purpose of e-books, but has also been put forward by an trans-industry group as a standard, and an open one at that. Plus, this time Adobe is not only noticing, it's gotten behind and pushed pretty stoutly. It wouldn't surprise me if in ten years time e-Babel was all but a memory. (I'm not predicting that, mind, only saying it wouldn't surprise me at this point)