Iphone application from Sony ??

[Zevs]

Hi!

Is there any info around if Sony has any plans on releasing an iPhone application that makes it possible to download and read the Sony books on the iPhone instead of using one of their Readers ?

I have been a Sony Reader fan since the very beginning with their first Reader, and has a large Sony library of books. I have recently started buying and reading books though via the Kindle App on my iPhone and now realizes that this works surprisingly well even with the small screen. I think it would be a bad decision for Sony to not jump on this possibility also, if users could in a simple way connect to Reader bookstore via the iPhone, buy and download and read their Sony books also on that platform that would be fantastic.

Zevs

[MMascaro]

The United Reader app is a PFD and LRF reader. You can load the non-drm LRF files via Itunes to the IPad. Most of the books you get thru the Sony library link are LRX, DRM locked book. It is not a great LRF viewer. It does not remember your current page.

I realize this does not help with your purchased books but is usefulll for the LRF book downloaded from MR's LRF library

[Zevs]

Thanks for the reply Mmascaro!

Unfortunatetly it doesn't sound like a good solution, my library is all DRM books. I guess since Sony is in collaboration with Ericsson, perhaps they don't want to have (or allowed by Apple) to have a reader application on the iPhone. They would get a lot fo new customers though if they did, and I would guess they get a more money out of the books they sell compared to what they get from selling the physical Readers. So the future is in the books, not in the readers.

Zevs

[Bremen Cole]

Sony is a dying in the ebook industry. Amazon has readers for PC/Mac/Android/iDevices ...etc and has had for quite a while. Sony is stuck in a "buy our hardware" and we try to lock you in our books biz model.

Apple (unlike the others) has allowed all it's competitors in the eBook market to have apps on it's devices. B&N, Amazon, Kobo, Borders all have iDevice apps. Sony is just not very smart.

By the way, Txtr is an iPhone app (will work fine on iPad, just not very pretty) that will read your ADE protected ePubs from the Sony store. It is free in the app store.

Or, learn to strip DRM and read them when, where and on whatever you want.

[Zevs]

Thanks Bremen!

I am afraid you might be right about Sony, a pity though since they were the first one in "modern" times re-creating the e-book market with their first Reader. Also they seem to have consistently lower prices for their books than Amazon. I know there are way of getting rid of DRMs but still a hassle when on could via an iPhone App just directly download and buy books from the Sony store. Haven't tested the Txtr though, will see how that works.

Zevs

[Zevs]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

Sony is a dying in the ebook industry.

By the way, Txtr is an iPhone app (will work fine on iPad, just not very pretty) that will read your ADE protected ePubs from the Sony store. It is free in the app store.

Hi Bremen! Are you sure that Txtr can read Sony's epub books ? I tried it now and while it reads Adobe epub books it doesn't seem to be able to do anything with a recently downloaded Sony epub book.

Zevs

[scottjl]

sony has never been very smart.. memory sticks over the years.. ATRAC format.. minidisc.. they've tried and tried again.. failed and failed again with their proprietary formats.

the best thing about a sony reader is you can load up books from many other places. the worst part about sony is you can't load their books anywhere else.

you might want to search around for how to strip your sony files of their DRM. then they'll load up into iBooks just fine. can't discuss the details here. but google is a good friend.

[Zevs]

Thanks Scott! Very good points! I guess I might use Goggle now a bit

[Zevs]

Originally Posted by Zevs

Hi Bremen! Are you sure that Txtr can read Sony's epub books ? I tried it now and while it reads Adobe epub books it doesn't seem to be able to do anything with a recently downloaded Sony epub book.

Zevs

Hi again Bremen! You were right, it seems to work! I had some problems with accounts that made it not work for me the first time I( tried.

Thanks again for the help!!

Zevs

[Crowl]

Sony would never release an app for another format, they are not predominantly an ebook seller (only NA even has a Sony store, everywhere else just has local partnerships) and are simply using what was the industy-standard combination of epub and adobe drm until the likes of B&N and Apple decided to be idiots and fragment the opposition to Kindle in an effort to lock people into buying from them.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

Sony is a dying in the ebook industry. Amazon has readers for PC/Mac/Android/iDevices ...etc and has had for quite a while. Sony is stuck in a "buy our hardware" and we try to lock you in our books biz model.

Sony were never as eager about the ebook industry as Amazon, they want to sell some hardware and the north american ebookstore was simply one way to do that, if you look at their approach in the rest of the world it involved partnerships with local bookstores like Waterstones instead.

Also, in the past Sony has gone for the lock you in approach, but to try and attach that label to them this time with their switch to epub, it isn't like they are the ones that decided to go with a different drm scheme to every other epub seller online like certain companies after all.

[The Alternative]

Originally Posted by scottjl

sony has never been very smart.. memory sticks over the years.. ATRAC format.. minidisc.. they've tried and tried again.. failed and failed again with their proprietary formats.

the best thing about a sony reader is you can load up books from many other places. the worst part about sony is you can't load their books anywhere else.

you might want to search around for how to strip your sony files of their DRM. then they'll load up into iBooks just fine. can't discuss the details here. but google is a good friend.

Not to totally disagree with you but Sony has many more proven reliable products then the short list of failures you mentioned. I personally love my Sony Readers and the Sony Walkman was, for all intents and purposes, the first real portable music player. As for Apple, need I remind anyone of the Lisa, Pippin, or Cyberdog? Most large electronic companies have had their fair share of failures. It's the succesful products that intrique me.

[Bremen Cole]

@Crowl, I would assume you are kidding, as Apple iDevices are way more open than Sony.... Yes Sony finally went to ePub, but ADE is hardly the standard DRM. Amazon, B&N, eReader, Fixtionwisem iBooks all use other DRM schemes. IBooks is ePub format (I have never bought an iBook, but from what I have seen they are ePub) and reads any non DRM ePub book. Apple allows all their competiors in the eBook world to have reading apps on all the mobile iDevices. They are the ONLY eBook company that does. Last time I checked you can't read a Kindle book on a PRS 300, play a Xbox game on a PS3, or a NDS game on a PS Portable.....

In the late 80's and through the 90's, Sony was king. They gave the portable music industry to Apple, and gave the eBook industry to Amazon. IMHO Sony SHOULD have been innovative and came up with the iPod, and should have taken eBooks to the level that Amazon has. They didn't and in 3 years or less they will pull out of the ebook world....

I was a huge Sony fan .... Instead of an iPod, I had a Walkman minidisk..... Of course I got a clue and moved on.....

[Bremen Cole]

Originally Posted by Zevs;

Hi again Bremen! You were right, it seems to work! I had some problems with accounts that made it not work for me the first time I( tried.

Thanks again for the help!!

Zevs

Glad it worked for you

Perhaps Txtr will update to the iPad.... Even though there is not much incentive since so few use the ADE DRM format. just Sony, Borders and Kobo.... And of course you can read Borders and Kobo with their own iPad apps.....

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by The Alternative

Not to totally disagree with you but Sony has many more proven reliable products then the short list of failures you mentioned. I personally love my Sony Readers and the Sony Walkman was, for all intents and purposes, the first real portable music player. As for Apple, need I remind anyone of the Lisa, Pippin, or Cyberdog? Most large electronic companies have had their fair share of failures. It's the succesful products that intrique me.

please re-read what i wrote. i never said sony wasn't reliable. i said sony has a history if inventing their own scheme for things that go against market trends. minidiscs when everyone was on cd's (not that sony didn't have their own cd players). ATRAC format when everyone was using MP3 files. memory sticks when everyone else was on CF and SD. UMD? it's these incompatibilities with more common formats that hurt sony's adoption in the market place.

if sony had built digital players that used the mp3 format when apple started first cranking out ipods they could have owned, or at least shared the market. instead they pumped out players using sony's proprietary ATRAC format, with a horrible conversion program that ran on windows only and only supported sony memory sticks. UMD movie discs were yet another format that retailers had to stock on shelves. Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo anyone? or any of the other half dozen models with tongue-twister names?

sony is great at 2 things: 1. copying others designs and 2. miniaturization. they really should stick to those and let others invent new formats.