Kindle Firmware 5.12.5

[Richwood]

JSWolf;

Seeing as how all the Amazon Kindle ebook formats such as KF8, AZW and AZW3 are proprietary, Amazon dropping Mobi support would kill most independent USA ebook publishers and distributors as the Amazon proprietary formats are not available to them. I have enough ebooks from Smashwords and other sources that I would hate that. Amazon holds copyright or design patents on them so far as I know. Mobi is public domain apparently as also supported by Kobo, though poorly.

I could be wrong but I suspect that less than 5% of Kindle owners use Calibre or other format conversion software, or even know of it. Even less know of the ability for emailing a .epub file, renamed as a .png file, to a Kindle reader for conversion to a Kindle compatible file format. I strongly suspect that one of the things that killed Sony was the long time that their readers did not support WiFi and direct downloading of ebook files. They were tightly tied to a computer with USB that could run the Sony reader support desktop software. This was a major advantage of Kindle readers from the first model. User convenience won, and apparently not just in the USA seeing as how Sony ceased ebook reader production worldwide shortly after withdrawing from the USA market.

[Vmurph]

Originally Posted by Richwood

Even less know of the ability for emailing a .epub file, renamed as a .png file, to a Kindle reader for conversion to a Kindle compatible file format.

Whaaa?? How long was this a thing? All this time I’ve been wasting time converting my epubs to mobi first and then emailing them to my Kindle, to convert them to a Kindle formatted file, and all I had to do was change the extension to .png before emailing them?

I obviously haven’t been frequenting the forum enough.

[Richwood]

Originally Posted by Vmurph

Whaaa?? How long was this a thing? All this time I’ve been wasting time converting my epubs to mobi first and then emailing them to my Kindle, to convert them to Amazon format, and all I had to do was change the extension to .png before emailing them?

I obviously haven’t been frequenting the forum enough.

As I recall the email has to have "convert" without quotes as the email title.

[hius07]

Originally Posted by Richwood

As I recall the email has to have "convert" without quotes as the email title.

No, it hasn't for the unofficial png-trick.

[Vmurph]

Originally Posted by Richwood

As I recall the email has to have "convert" without quotes as the email title.

Yes, I knew about “convert”. That’s how mobi files are converted to Kindle format. What I didn’t know, is that we could email EPUB files to be converted, as well!

I‘m curious when that was discovered. I’ve been out of the loop for awhile.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

There is no reason at all to kill mobi. It works perfectly well. I have multiple e-readers including a Kindle 4, 2 Kindle PW4s, 2 Voyages and Oasis 2. I read mobi on all of them. I have hundreds of Fan Fiction word docs converted to mobi. It works. No need to dump a format that works perfectly well.

There are a number of formats now gone before things have moved forward. Mobi is one of those formats that needs to go so things can move forward.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Richwood

JSWolf;

Seeing as how all the Amazon Kindle ebook formats such as KF8, AZW and AZW3 are proprietary, Amazon dropping Mobi support would kill most independent USA ebook publishers and distributors as the Amazon proprietary formats are not available to them. I have enough ebooks from Smashwords and other sources that I would hate that. Amazon holds copyright or design patents on them so far as I know. Mobi is public domain apparently as also supported by Kobo, though poorly.

Tor's free eBooks come in ePub and dual-mobi. So if Tor can give out KF8, I see no reason other stores cannot sell dual-mobi.

I could be wrong but I suspect that less than 5% of Kindle owners use Calibre or other format conversion software, or even know of it. Even less know of the ability for emailing a .epub file, renamed as a .png file, to a Kindle reader for conversion to a Kindle compatible file format. I strongly suspect that one of the things that killed Sony was the long time that their readers did not support WiFi and direct downloading of ebook files. They were tightly tied to a computer with USB that could run the Sony reader support desktop software. This was a major advantage of Kindle readers from the first model. User convenience won, and apparently not just in the USA seeing as how Sony ceased ebook reader production worldwide shortly after withdrawing from the USA market.

Most Kindle owners can handle KF8 as it's available for the K3 on up. It's a minority that are still using old Kindles. I think there are a lot of pre-K3 Kindles sitting unused as they've been replaced with a newer Kindle. SO what I want to know is how many old Kindles are still in use that cannot be upgraded. Also, if Kindlegen is used, can it convert KF8 to dual-mobii?

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Vmurph

I‘m curious when that was discovered. I’ve been out of the loop for awhile.

Many years. So long ago that I don't remember when reading about it here on MR. At least five years. The extensions that work may have changed over time.

[PRS-T2]

Originally Posted by melksnor

interesting point you made then

Haha now I've got tea up my nose lol. Was just reading through all this stuff looking for the rare bits about the new FW but this one caught me by surprise

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Vmurph

Whaaa?? How long was this a thing? All this time I’ve been wasting time converting my epubs to mobi first and then emailing them to my Kindle, to convert them to a Kindle formatted file, and all I had to do was change the extension to .png before emailing them?

I obviously haven’t been frequenting the forum enough.

I've been seeing this for quite a white and every now and then I'll try it. Most of the time nothing happens. A couple of times I got a rejection notice.

I'm now convinced it's only true for fantasy novels, not real ones.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There are a number of formats now gone before things have moved forward. Mobi is one of those formats that needs to go so things can move forward.

I'm reading Ernest Poole's "His Family", the first novel to win a Pulitzer prize. It's written in 1916 while WW1 is going on and one of the characters praises the war because, even though it might be somewhat sad that so many are dying, it's clearing out old and outmoded things to make way for a better world. She says it'll help rid the world of such things as individualism and religion and lust for property so they can form new values based on loving each other and helping others.

So, 40 million dead was the cost of the brave new society after WW1. That's okay. If they hadn't died there might have been other wars.

As I was reading the echoes of this discussion rang strong and true.

Barry

[binaryhermit]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Tor's free eBooks come in ePub and dual-mobi. So if Tor can give out KF8, I see no reason other stores cannot sell dual-mobi.

I'd argue it's actually worse, I believe they're what kindlegen outputs, which has a copy of the epub in it too.

(And I believe most independent ebook sellers provide similar .mobi files)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

I'd argue it's actually worse, I believe they're what kindlegen outputs, which has a copy of the epub in it too.

(And I believe most independent ebook sellers provide similar .mobi files)

But what I was meaning is that the Mobi is a dual-Mobi that contains KF8. ANd if you are correct in that other eBook sellers convert using Kindlegen, then shops are selling KF8.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Richwood

Mobi is public domain apparently as also supported by Kobo, though poorly.

Mobi is not public domain. Mobi was and is a proprietary format. Originally based on a Palm Resource Code (PRC) container for OEB format ebooks, it was adopted by Mobipocket. Since Amazon purchased Mobipocket, they have made quite a few changes to the original format, none of which are documented.

The code used by the Kobo ereaders for .mobi files is based on the original prc/mobi format and does not play well with Amazon's modifications to that format. I did open a couple of ebooks I had for my old Palm and they were readable though I did miss some of the formatting that newer ebook formats allow. Much like comparing reading a mobi to a KF8/azw3 unless you really enjoy reading text only files.

[JSWolf]

Mobi belongs to Amazon just like KF8. So I see no reason stores that sell Mobi cannot sell KF8 unless the Mobi they are selling is actually dual-Mobi.