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Old 05-19-2011, 03:07 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by carld View Post
I don't think it means ePub conversion. If that report is right Kindle's will actually support the ePub format, but my guess is only with Amazon DRM, or with no DRM.
Either way I'll believe it when I see it. The Kindle is a nice device, actually. If it means I can use it to read books not bought at Amazon I might actually cave at some point.
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Old 05-19-2011, 03:09 AM   #17
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My guess is that this is mostly an attempt at quality control on Amazon's part, and an accommodation to 'facts on the ground,' not at all an indication they are moving to ePub. They'd rather start with high quality ePub and convert these with in house tools (which they can control, refine and improve) than to insist that publishers do an inferior conversion to mobi before submitting it. Poorly formatted mobi files (and there are a lot of them in Kindle Store) are one of the weak points of the platform, and they need to be proactive about improving quality.

For some reason, Amazon's market share alone has not motivated widespread interest in authoring quality mobi files, and Amazon has certainly not provided tools for doing so (apart from their InDesign plugin, which is not really sufficient). Meanwhile, tools for producing ePub continue to proliferate and improve. There's no Kindle equivalent of ePubCheck, for example. There are no open source projects like Sigil to author Kindle ebooks, nobody is writing extensions for LibreOffice or MSOffice to export Kindle ebooks.

On the KDP side of things, the Kindlegen utility used to build ebook files has accepted ePub input for at least a couple of versions now. While the best results can still only be had by learning the details and limitations of mobi HTML tagging, Kindlegen now also embeds the source that was inputted to Kindle gen, whether that was a vanilla HTML file, mobi source, or ePub source. This gives Amazon more information about how formatting problems arise so they can improve their conversion tools.

As others point out, ePub support alone doesn't mean much to consumers unless Adobe DRM is part of the picture, since it is that which confers portability among the many reading systems that license Adobe's DRM solution. However, using Adobe DRM means sharing revenue with Adobe, which is why Apple chose to use their own DRM for iBookstore, and why Amazon isn't going to do it either, at least when they are doing so well without it. Plus Kindle platform is not just about a different format and DRM, there is a lot of existing infrastructure built up around it that can't easily be mapped to ePub and Adobe's solution, even if they wanted to.

What I would hope to see at some point is the ability to send ePub files to the free conversion service and have them converted to Kindle format using Amazon's best conversion heuristics. Hopefully they'll improve Kindlegen as well, so it identifies problems at the source (a la ePubcheck).

Ultimately Amazon needs to improve mobi so it offers formatting options that are equivalent to, if not identical with, ePub. Further convergence is not likely to happen unless and until DRM goes away.
There is noting preventing amazon from selling ePub with adobe DRM (or no drm at all), for non kindle user.
Right now they are restricting themselves to selling books only to kindle users, too bad !
Last edited by EowynCarter; 05-19-2011 at 03:12 AM.
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Old 05-19-2011, 03:51 AM   #18
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ooh that's so good of amazon to allow us to read what we want on the device we purchased.

i'll stick to de-drm'ing my kobo books and converting to mobi's
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Old 05-19-2011, 04:54 AM   #19
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How, and more importantly why, would you embed an epub in mobi?
The how is easy. You just add it in a record of the Kindle file (which is basically a mobipocket file, which is basically a palm database file) near the end.

Why is another question. It may just be a way of Amazon doing some future-proofing, in case they do ever decide to move to rendering ePubs. E.g. how about : Kindle+ format. On the new Kindle 4, Kindle+ format ebooks will look much better, but can still be read on all previous Kindles. (Kindle 4 also reads DRM-free ePubs.)
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Old 05-19-2011, 06:31 AM   #20
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Oh god, I'm so excited, if only for one reason: DROPCAPS.

Yes, this kind of thing is very important to me
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Old 05-19-2011, 06:36 AM   #21
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Right now they are restricting themselves to selling books only to kindle users, too bad !
Yeah, sure ...

* Kindle for Mac
* Kindle for PC
* Kindle for iPad/iPhone
* Kindle for BlackBerry
* Kindle for Android
* Kindle for Windows Phone

Please accept the fact that eInk reading devices natively supporting ePub are still but a small fraction of the overall devices on which eBooks can be (and are) read worldwide.

Amazon still has no need whatsoever to either include or switch to ePub.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:04 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by K-Thom View Post
Yeah, sure ...

* Kindle for PC
Kindle for Windows, really. And no, that's not the same thing.

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Amazon still has no need whatsoever to either include or switch to ePub.
Of course not! Neither do I have any need to buy from them.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:13 AM   #23
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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian View Post
Kindle for Windows, really. And no, that's not the same thing.
Amazon calls it Kindle for PC

I think that any attempt to keep "PC" as a term for any kind of Personal Computer is futile. It has long since come to only be used for a Microsoft Windows based Personal Computer.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:14 AM   #24
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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian View Post
And no, that's not the same thing.
I second that.

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Of course not! Neither do I have any need to buy from them.
I second that, too.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:16 AM   #25
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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian View Post
Kindle for Windows, really. And no, that's not the same thing.
No, it's only like 98% the same thing. Or something along those lines.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:19 AM   #26
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I think that any attempt to keep "PC" as a term for any kind of Personal Computer is futile. It has long since come to only be used for a Microsoft Windows based Personal Computer.
What world do you live in? There is a huge growing galaxy of Linux users (and some FreeBSD and OpenSolaris users) that use "PCs".

One of the main things I dislike about Windows is the closed-mindedness of Windows users who become frustrated when there is more than one way of doing anything--when there is any freedom to choose.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:32 AM   #27
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What world do you live in? There is a huge growing galaxy of Linux users (and some FreeBSD and OpenSolaris users) that use "PCs".
That galaxy has been huge and growing for the past couple of decades, and it's still sitting at only a few percent of total PC users. For all intents and purposes, a PC is a Windows computer, regardless of what a few enthusiasts think.

For the record, I run Windows Vista, Windows 95, OS X Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 11 on the four computers in my house.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:35 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by pdurrant View Post
Well, yes. My "... , really" reply shows that I don't agree with that name. I thins it's (deliberately) misleading.

Quote:
I think that any attempt to keep "PC" as a term for any kind of Personal Computer is futile.
"PC" refers to the hardware and architecture. Sure, Windows is the most popular OS, but it's not the only one. My workstation here is built on standard PC hardware. (If you think that I must be one of those condescending UNIX users, you'd be almost correct.)

Quote:
It has long since come to only be used for a Microsoft Windows based Personal Computer.
So what am I supposed to call my Linux based home machine? Is it not a "Personal Computer?" I do all of my personal computing on it, just so you know. (I'll be silent of the FreeBSD based machine in the basement).

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Originally Posted by Astrakan View Post
For the record, I run Windows Vista, Windows 95, OS X Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 11 on the four computers in my house.
So that makes, what, 2 PCs, 1 Mac and one ... what now?
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:43 AM   #29
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So what am I supposed to call my Linux based home machine?
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So that makes, what, 2 PCs, 1 Mac and one ... what now?
I call mine a Linux box, but feel free to call yours a PC. Just realize that most people will think you're talking about a Windows computer.

Fact is, to the vast majority of people, referring to a Linux computer as a PC in general conversation is misleading, even if you are technically correct.
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Old 05-19-2011, 07:52 AM   #30
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So that makes, what, 2 PCs, 1 Mac and one ... what now?
Oh for gods sake, call it whatever you want. Semantics are so petty. For the overwhelming majority of the unwashed masses out there, pdurrant (and Astrakan) is right... PC does mean Windows. Own it. It's not demeaning in any way to the alternative OS enthusiasts out there (of which I'm one), so why make such a stink? If I have to call them anything, I call them "machines", "boxes" or simply "computer." Sheesh.
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