Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Unless they eliminate the Adobe renderer I really don't see what the fuss is about. "Kobefying" books is a hack (and I mean that in a positive way, I am using it myself). They want to offer something special for those who buy their books rather than just buy their readers, what is wrong with that? They don't make money on the hardware.
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You are turning it around, imo. Kobo wants to offer something extra to readers that use Kobo hardware (and Kobo software apps).
To offer additional features there is no need for an other (proprietary) ebook format (in this case Kobos kepub) because the trigger to "unlock" additional features is hardware (Kobo readers) based.
There are many other ebook manufacturers around (at least in Europe, which may or not be available in North America. Or vice versa.) who offer different or similar features that Kobo reader offer but they've implemented them without the need for a new ebook format (kepub) because the devices "unlocks" or overrides the styles of a particular ebook.
Every renderer (Access, Adobes RM) has at least a bookmark, note, dictionary feature (natively or through a plugin) that work fine.
Take the recently discovered
kepub-book.css. On opening a kepub or rendering a book page it searches for kepub-book.css and if present it is cascaded/merged with the existing stylesheets of the kepub but kepub-book.css defined styles override or have a higher importance than the stylesheet in the book.
This is a good example to override the existing stylesheets to enable device specific features (fontsettings, margins, etc.) on the side of the device instead on the software (kepub) side.
In the real world it is probably a little more complicated to achieve this but if other ereader manufacturers can do it, why can't Kobo?