[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

And if publishers won't listen to avid ebook readers who say, "give us stuff w/o DRM so that it works for us; we'd be willing to pay for that" or "give us formats that work on our readers" or "give us the option of buying an ebook for a friend," why would they listen when those readers say, "give us PDFs with tags and good fonts for a mobile device and bookmarks and good metadata?"

They're convinced that the ebook fanatics are the lunatic fringe, and they're going to ignore *everything* that comes out of places like Mobileread. They have a marketing department that tells them what the public really wants, and it's never "better metadata and linked TOCs!" Because "the public" doesn't know those things exist... they just know that they tried an ebook demo at a store, and they didn't like it.

Sorry, but the techie geeks never get listened to when it comes to devices that are aiming for main stream success as they are small fringe and make up too small a portion of the market.

If Apple listened to the techies, devices like the iPhone and iPod would be much more complicated and laden with features that most people don't need or understand and thus would sell so well. And the beauty of their devices, and the reason for their success, is that they just work. They are very intuitive and near idiot proof to use.

Good, mainstream tech devices are ones that do whatever they are supposed to do simply and efficiently. Not ones that have a ton of options and customization for the techies.

Sites like this exist to show techies how to find work arounds to do more of the things with devices than what is built into them. There will always be ways (mostly illegal as they require stripping DRM) to tweak margins, replace fonts, etc. regardless of the format used for ebooks and ereaders. It just won't be built in as most users--especially once ebooks go more mainstream--don't care to mess with that stuff and just want to buy a book and read right away.

Originally Posted by ahi

But this, along with the great likelihood (personally, I think virtual certainty, actually) of eBook reader device display size standardization, has been discussed at considerable length earlier in the thread.

- Ahi

Agreed, if ebooks, and especially magazines, newspapers etc., are ever going to be anywhere close to their paper counterparts there has to be some standardization of screen sizes. i.e. just at least a max size and ebooks stores list what size screen the magazine is optimized for etc.

Phones etc. could still read books--books of just text are no problem to reflow on any size screen--they already work well even with the current early formats and devices.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And why do you think someone else knows my needs/wants better then I do?

I think everyone gets why you and others want the flexibility. The larger point is that most people don't want to mess with that stuff, and just want to open a book and read.

So no matter how much you belabor the need for customization to other techies here, it's never going to happen. As ebooks become more mainstream, they will become more streamlined and easy to use and have les customization.

But I suspect they'll always have the ability to increase text sizes. But changing fonts, margins etc. will never be a feature built in to a mainstream reader from a major company or the software that comes with it. But there should always be options for tweaking them, be it ePub, Mobi, some other format or some new version of PDF that Adobe comes out with for ereaders that is more flexible. But those options will likely be illegal and require stripping DRM etc.--not that many care.

I am going to stop evangelizing though, because I see no chance whatsoever that PDF or a similarly rigid format will not eventually become the primary standard for eBook devices... no matter how much paper book quality eBooks offend many people's sensibilities.

Yep.

1. Most people, myself included, don't care much about typography quality etc. for most things. Especially just text.

2. Being able to increase font sizes is a big advantage of ebooks, and that requires easily reflowable formats. So while we won't see built in functions to change fonts, margins etc., I think we'll always be able to change the font size on ebooks, so it will never be a totally rigid format that wins in the mainstream.

Originally Posted by Ankh

It is just that I lived through hardware upgrade, there is no way in hell that I will ever buy a novel in PDF or DRM that can not be stripped off.

I do not trust even Sony or Amazon to survive in publishing business and to provide "guardianship" of my purchased content. I am the best guardian there is.

I'd say that I think there will always be DRM, but the fact that even Apple got rid of DRM on music files suggests otherwise. Digital media just more or less sucks for content providers since piracy is so easy.

With a physical book it may get sold once and bounced around to a few people (whether lent out, given away, sold to a used books store etc.) and take away some potential sales. But with an ebook without DRM one person can buy a copy, put it on a torrent site and hundreds or thousands of people download it, some of them put it on their own torrents etc. etc. and a great deal of potential sales can be lost.

So I see that, and I don't much mind DRM. I more or less just look at my purchase as a rental since I seldom ever re-read books. I'm paying the price to read the book, just like I pay $10 for a ticket to see a movie in the theater. Anything I want to see repeatedly I'll then by a paperbook for, just like I buy a Blu Ray or DVD of a movie I see in the theater (or from Netflix) and like enough to watch over and over.

DRM or no, I don't think ebooks, MP3s (I still buy CDs though I just rip them and mostly listen to MP3s), etc. are every going to be good for collecting purposes. For people who like to have whatever they buy around and accessible for good, there's just no substitute for a physical product.

Originally Posted by =X=

There is never one right way and people need to be flexible to different views and discussions like this help in doing so

Yep, again one of the problems with this site is that many people can't see or think about the ebook industry beyond what they personally need/want.

And that's problematic as this site is a niche with in a niche--avid readers who also tend to be techies. And neither of these niches will play a huge role in deciding the future of ebooks--especially the techies. The average Joe will determine where ebooks go in the future.