Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
minor players like Sony ? like amazon.com ? like BooksOnBoard ? Lexcycle ? Hachette ? Harlequin ? HarperCollins ? Irex ? Merriam-Webster ? Mobipocket ? Oxford University Press USA ? Which major players are you waiting for ?
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Well I do not see Amazon embracing epub for now - or Mobipocket which is their subsidiary. I do not see Sony selling epubs though it's nice that they support them but as part of their collaboration with Adobe.
Ereader is still there and got a big lifeline from FW and the iPhone/Touch appl.
MsLit is still there.
Talk is cheap but for now epub is just a drop in the bucket in the ebook world and while I am all for standards, I just do not see it displacing the major proprietary formats like Mobi, Lit, Ereader soon
Same with devices and conversion applications, let's wait a little before we jump on the epub bandwagon.
And from my experience with epub on the 700, it's a nice looking format, comparable with a pdf, but then a reflowable pdf would do instead too since the smaller size of the epub is getting irrelevant in the world of faster processors and increasing available memory.
I am all for standards, but as with music, you do not really need a "unique" one as long as there are free and fast conversion tools between formats. Mp3 and Apple format coexist happily as well as the Microsoft music formats or the Real music formats.
The issue here is drm and epub does not advance the drm-free world in any way, and while on the face of it it does not regress it either, being pushed by Adobe the big drm cheerleader does not give me confidence...