Amazon says having their own format permits faster page turns

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

Ah! So that's why no other format is usable on those other platforms.

The important part of the sentence was the "we can develop applications," aspect. Because they own both the format and the DRM scheme they can do whatever they want with it without having to worry about getting approval from anyone else.

Because Sony's upcoming mobile app uses Adobe Adept DRM, they're going to have to stay within the limits of their deal with Adobe; it makes them less flexible.

Control helps.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They neither say nor imply that "no other format is usable on those other platforms".

No, they don't. They state:

Because we control our own standard, we can develop applications that let customers read Kindle books on the iPhone, Android tablet, iPad, BlackBerrys and PC.

We can develop applications...because we control.... At best, it's a misleading non sequitur, in that they could just as easily develop those applications if they didn't control their own standard--as others have using open standards.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

proprietary technology is the term used here. I think the author doesn't quite understand that AZW is not really proprietary technology but the same old with a new lock and key. if it wasn't for the DRM, AZW would be Mobipocket plain and simple. So really, it's not proprietary technology except for the DRM.

The word "proprietary" simply means "somebody's property". Amazon's property, in fact. They own and control the Mobipocket file format. To use the term "proprietary" to describe AZW/Mobi file formats is entirely correct.

[dallas]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...19,print.story

If you put that through Babel fish "Amazon PR department to English" you get...

Having our own format allows us to have our cake and eat it too

Who wants to pay $14 today for something that was $10 yesterday? duh.

Ice cream goes great with cake!

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

proprietary technology is the term used here. I think the author doesn't quite understand that AZW is not really proprietary technology but the same old with a new lock and key. if it wasn't for the DRM, AZW would be Mobipocket plain and simple. So really, it's not proprietary technology except for the DRM.

That was kind of what I was trying to get at: AZW is just MOBI by another name, as far as I know. If you put the DRM on top of that, then you've got proprietary issues, but without it, all that's standing between your epub reader and your Kindle book is a spin in Calibre. It's both the format and the DRM that are the issues with compatibility, and it's specifically the format that Amazon is referring to when it talks about faster page turns.

[DiapDealer]

That was kind of what I was trying to get at: AZW is just MOBI by another name, as far as I know.

And mobi is a proprietary format owned by Amazon. Proprietary because the specifications of the mobi format have never been officially published, documented or released (unlike epub). All information known about the format itself has been gleaned from different bits and pieces of different reverse-engineering efforts.

[dallas]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And mobi is a proprietary format owned by Amazon. Proprietary because the specifications of the mobi format have never been officially published, documented or released (unlike epub). All information known about the format itself has been gleaned from different bits and pieces of different reverse-engineering efforts.

Amazon can optimize thier platform (Kindle harware & firmware) to process compressed MOBI files using thier DRM scheme faster then other formats. Assuming the whole thing isn't just smoke and mirrors and that is what they are doing.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

proprietary technology is the term used here.

I think the real issue is that Amazon is saying that a file structure is responsable for what is essentially a hardware function.

It's almost certainly a lie.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And mobi is a proprietary format owned by Amazon. Proprietary because the specifications of the mobi format have never been officially published, documented or released (unlike epub). All information known about the format itself has been gleaned from different bits and pieces of different reverse-engineering efforts.

Precisely. The Mobipocket format is proprietary, and is owned by Amazon.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

I think the real issue is that Amazon is saying that a file structure is responsable for what is essentially a hardware function.

It's almost certainly a lie.

Is it? To correctly render an ePub file you have to hold the entire parse-tree in memory, which is not so with Mobipocket. Mobi is much easier to render than ePub, and hence is faster to display.

What precisely do you consider to be a "lie"?

[caleb72]

It all sounds quite reasonable in theory.

If you understand your own format really well you could probably code your reading application to handle it better in many ways - not just faster page turning. However, it just depends on how much page turning speed relies on those kind of factors.

But having your own proprietary format would certainly make it easier to create the various application of which Amazon are speaking. It would be far more viable for them from a cost perspective to develop and maintain applications on multiple platforms if they are intimately familiar with the format (which no doubt they are).

Regards
Caleb

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is it? To correctly render an ePub file you have to hold the entire parse-tree in memory, which is not so with Mobipocket. Mobi is much easier to render than ePub, and hence is faster to display.

This is something I did not know.

Thanks!

[ski_power]

Ignoring the poorly worded title, I can confirm this.

I have an ultra-slow Windows Mobile phone (200MHz Processor) that's easily 4-5 years old. Using Freda and ePub brings the device to a crawl when opening relatively large books like any of the Enders' saga.
For mobi format they have an ancient-relic reader called MobiPocket reader for Windows Mobile. When I use that, the page turns are literally instantaneous (as compared to Freda after disabling the page turn animations).

My take from this is that mobi is a slightly 'bigger' format where the file sizes are comparatively larger as compared to ePub, but for weaker hardware the .Mobi runs circles around .ePub which is what Amazon might have been meaning with their statement.

Does that mean the Kindle hardware cannot keep up with .ePub? I don't know.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And mobi is a proprietary format owned by Amazon. Proprietary because the specifications of the mobi format have never been officially published, documented or released (unlike epub). All information known about the format itself has been gleaned from different bits and pieces of different reverse-engineering efforts.

Okay. You're right. I was forgetting that Calibre had to reverse engineer the format to read it. But my point was that the DRM and the format issues are separate. It's perfectly reasonable for Amazon to be referring to the format without reference to the DRM, so it wasn't the DRM that Amazon was saying makes the page turns faster.

[ski_power]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Okay. You're right. I was forgetting that Calibre had to reverse engineer the format to read it. But my point was that the DRM and the format issues are separate. It's perfectly reasonable for Amazon to be referring to the format without reference to the DRM, so it wasn't the DRM that Amazon was saying makes the page turns faster.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I don't think the title was worded correctly