Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
No-one needs a Whispersync licence. Loads of protocols will work over Mobile or 3G and cope with interrupted transfers or connections, or even reconnecting on WiFi the next day after the Mobile failed. A solved problem years before Amazon bought Mobipocket or did a Kindle.
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We're talking ebooks, okay?
So, how long was Kindle was the only ereader that didn't need a PC to feed it?
Or even WiFi? They had celluar wireless from day one. 2007. Still do.
It's *still* practically the only one that doesn't need a PC or wifi.
https://www.amazon.com/PQ948KJ/dp/B0...82565820&psc=1
Anybody else?
Also, don't forget Whispersync isn't just about wireless delivery. There's the reading synchonization across platforms, reader-specific email for file delivery (and conversion), the free could for user documents. All that is part of whispersync. How many readers do that out if box, with no special owner configuration. Kidle all that from day one, when (as I said) it *most* mattered.
Just because generic ereaders have wireless delivery *now* doesn't mean they did when the market was taking shape in 2010-14.
Sony was one that went several years hyping premium metal construction, touch screens, lighting, anything *but* wireless.
Nook at least matched Kindle in delivery, at least, from day one so it wasn't impossible back in those days. That was part of Nook's international appeal and missed opportunity.
So yes, the protocols existed; readers *using* them didn't, other than Kindle and Nook. By the time generic ADEPT readers could be fed directly, *without* a PC, Kindle had a dominant position that Amazon hasn't lost.
Timing matters and so does the installed base from those days, when Kindles sold by the millions and competitors by tens of thousands. (Sony and Pocketbook managed 100,000 each while Amazon did as many as 4 Million Kindle 3 a yeat.)
The past casts a long shadow over mindshare and mindshare over sales share.