iPad Anyone else NOT like reading on their iPad?

[scottjl]

until accepted by a standards organization like the iso, there is no "standard" for electronics books.. amazon will never submit mobi and epub is too disorganized.

[kennyc]

I think you're being entirely too pessimistic about epub though I agree about mobi.

It's the closest thing we have to a standard and is already the winner of the format wars.

Drm is of course the issue, but that is what the publishers like about it.

[scottjl]

epub has been revised by too many different people resulting in some fragmentation and too many parts of it are marked "optional" that some publishers include and some don't. mostly people who made their own fork include their options and others don't. no one entity has stepped up with authority to try and consolidate into one version let alone put it forth to a standards body.

amazon certainly won't champion epub though they would have the force and money to. Sony has never cared for standards they didn't invent in house. apple is unlikely to do it. the independent publishers all squabble amongst themselves. b&n could, maybe, they are a large enough company, but it certainly isn't an area they've ever been in before.

my fear is google or Microsoft will release yet another format and cause further mess. so far google seems happy with epub, but we'll know more when their bookstore opens later this year. Microsoft has their format which never really took off, but it can't be too long before they try for a bigger slice of the ebookstore pie.

[pilotbob]

Frankly I think HTML 4 or 5 would be just as good of a format for ebooks as epub is. Since HTML 5 can be extended only a few exentions would be needed for metadata like Title, Author, Language, Pub date, ISBN, etc.

BOb

[scottjl]

it could be. but someone would have to start publishing in it.. only problem is there isn't any easy way to get DRM into it. well problem for the publishers. not for me!

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Frankly I think HTML 4 or 5 would be just as good of a format for ebooks as epub is. Since HTML 5 can be extended only a few exentions would be needed for metadata like Title, Author, Language, Pub date, ISBN, etc.

That is basically what ePub is.
The book itself is an (X)HTML file[1], together with extra files to give metadata, with DRM support, zipped up and renamed to .ePub.

[1] Actually due to the specification it is several files, split up so that low-memory readers can handle it.

[Bremen Cole]

@scottjl I too fear that someone like Google or MS will come up with yet another format. I was really surprised when I first learned that Apple would be using the ePub format. I almost assumed Apple would come up with some new format and try to lock everyone into it. But, they didn't (of course the DRM sucks, but everyone has that in one for or another) and I hope gave another push to ePub. Sony also of course went to ePub last year, and that too helped.

Amazon will eventually. As time goes on the marketplace will put pressure and they will let it go. As their sales fall (and there is no doubt the iPad has hurt their hardware sales) and people learn of other book sites other than the Kindle store, they will change. Of course, I am talking about a few years down the road....

At this point in the game I think even if a Google or MS did try a new format, it may be too late....

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

Very true. When the music industry got rid of DRM, the MP3 became pretty Much the standard.

iTunes doesn't use MP3 even though everywhere else does, and iTunes sells a lot more music than anywhere else. ePub/Amazon could work out the same way (i.e. ePub standard with Amazon still the dominant store not using the standard).

Any standard format will need to support animation, music, video, etc.

It's insane that we have to choose between devices that generally only work with books sold by a particular store. Even the advantage of a tablet with access to multiple stores has the drawback of an LCD screen (a deal breaker for some people) and multiple applications being needed by the various stores.

[Bremen Cole]

Originally Posted by djgreedo

iTunes doesn't use MP3 even though everywhere else does, and iTunes sells a lot more music than anywhere else. ePub/Amazon could work out the same way (i.e. ePub standard with Amazon still the dominant store not using the standard).

Any standard format will need to support animation, music, video, etc.

It's insane that we have to choose between devices that generally only work with books sold by a particular store. Even the advantage of a tablet with access to multiple stores has the drawback of an LCD screen (a deal breaker for some people) and multiple applications being needed by the various stores.

Having never bought a song from Apple I didn't know.... So, I just downloaded a song (free one of course ) and the extension is "m4a" What the fig is that? No wonder I don't buy music from them.....

[mores]

You mean m4a ... that's mpeg-4-audio, Apple calls it "Apple Lossless Audio".
It's sort of compressed without throwing out stuff like MP3 (that assumes you just don't ear certain parts of the audio).

Something like that. Does sound better - I used Nine Inch Nails' newest album called "The Slip" to compare:
http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup
Free download. Compare mp3 and cd-quality iTunes.

[kjk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is also the default or standard audio format for: Apple's iPhone, iPod, iPad, Nintendo DSi, iTunes, DivX Plus Web Player, Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's PlayStation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, phones from Sony Ericsson, the latest S40 and S60 models from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), and the MPEG-4 video standard.

I didn't realize their current DRM free format wasn't strictly AAC:

On May 29, 2007, Apple began selling songs and music videos free of DRM from participating record labels. These files mostly adhere to the AAC standard and are playable on many non-Apple products but they do include custom iTunes information such as album artwork and a purchase receipt, so as to identify the customer in case the file is leaked out onto peer-to-peer networks. It is possible, however, to remove these custom tags to restore interoperability with players that conform strictly to the AAC specification. As of January 6, 2009, nearly all music on the iTunes Store became DRM-free, with the remainder becoming DRM-free by the end of March 2009.[37]
iTunes supports a "Variable bit rate" (VBR) encoding option which encodes AAC tracks in an "Average bit rate" (ABR) scheme. As of September 2009, Apple has added support for HE-AAC (which is fully part of the MP4 standard) but iTunes still lacks support for true VBR encoding. The underlying QuickTime API does offer a true VBR encoding profile however.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by djgreedo

....

Any standard format will need to support animation, music, video, etc.

...

I disagree... ebooks are supposed to emulate the book reading experience not emulate the web. We already have pcs, ipads, netbooks that do that.

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I disagree... ebooks are supposed to emulate the book reading experience not emulate the web. We already have pcs, ipads, netbooks that do that.

But what is a book in the digital age? I think we'll start to see the edges between books, websites, magazines, multimedia experiences, etc. blur in the coming years.

There is a great Alice in Wonderland interactive book available on the iPad. My mind boggles at how good that book would be on a colour e-ink screen.

I think it's inevitable that soon we will see books with background music, animations, etc. As much as people like to read plain text, there are probably plenty of authors out there who find plain text limiting.

I'm not saying I necessarily agree that this is good, but I do think it's going to happen.

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by kjk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding



I didn't realize their current DRM free format wasn't strictly AAC:

I'm pretty sure the only difference between Apple's AAC and any other is a few custom tags, which don't actually change the file in any way (tags are designed to be customisable). I could add custom tags to an MP3 and it would still work on any MP3 player, so the same should be true for AAC.

AAC is pretty much a standard simply due to Apple having the biggest market share for digital music. My MP3 player plays iTunes music as do my computers, and I assure you I don't use any Apple hardware.

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by mores

You mean m4a ... that's mpeg-4-audio, Apple calls it "Apple Lossless Audio".
It's sort of compressed without throwing out stuff like MP3 (that assumes you just don't ear certain parts of the audio).

Something like that. Does sound better - I used Nine Inch Nails' newest album called "The Slip" to compare:
http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup
Free download. Compare mp3 and cd-quality iTunes.

.m4a is used for regular lossy iTunes music and Apple's lossless codec.
Does iTunes actually sell lossless music or is the lossless codec only used for ripping CDs?

The compressed music iTunes sells is basically a slightly better compression format than MP3.