Sony PRS-T3 leaks in various Internet stores / coming on Sep 19?

[TimW]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Amazon's business model is a closed one, and they share this strategy with all the other big players (Kobo, Sony, B&N).

Amazon has gone one step further by using their own proprietary format. To suggest that the decision to use .mobi (and not support .epub) is merely 'historical' and unrelated to proprietorial strategy is ridiculous. Amazon know exactly what they are doing. Sure you can convert with Calibre, but the average user can't do that.

All the big players want to lock users into their store and control the electronic book market. Amazon have just gone one step further to do it.

Amazon doesn't lock their customers away from other vendors. Not at all. As Prestidigitweeze correctly mentioned a few days ago, Amazon makes it "hellishly easy" to purchase from their own store. Therefore, most Kindle users purchase from Amazon.

Epub didn't exist when Amazon purchased Mobipocket. It was released in October 2007 and the first Kindle was launched a few weeks later. Sony added Epub support the following year and Amazon chose to remain with mobi. If Amazon had chosen to adopt Epub, they probably would NOT have adopted ADE. ADE would have cost Amazon millions of dollars a year and provided no benefit. If Amazon had Epub and their own DRM, it would be exactly the same as it is now. The proprietary format isn't the issue, it never was the issue. The DRM is the problem.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How do you know this? You have simply asserted this to be true without presenting one shred of evidence to support your claim.

How about you present some information other than the anecdotal sample of one you cite above? Seriously, you're comment is ridiculous. Go into Walmart or wherever and ask the people that buy Kindles. Honestly, I can't believe you're saying this stuff.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by TimW

Amazon doesn't lock their customers away from other vendors.

Epub didn't exist when Amazon purchased Mobipocket.

I never said they did. Don't put words in my mouth. I said they *discourage* users.

I think you make a fair point about mobi pre-dating epub. But Amazon doesn't offer epub downloads either. They could, but they choose not to, because they want to control the market.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Ridiculous. Go into Walmart or wherever and ask the people that buy Kindles.

I have a better suggestion for you. Go to the Calibre forum right here at MR and ask the people who actually use it if it's hard to use or not.

There's a major difference between stating that the majority of Kindle users don't use Calibre (which is of course true), and your assertion that the majority of Kindle owners are incapable of using it.

[dieterpops]

Rizla and Harry T, please stop. This thread has devolved into posturing.

[tubemonkey]

I don't know one person with an ereader who does format shifting or library organization.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I don't know one person with an ereader who does format shifting or library organization.

I use Calibre to organise my ebook library, I have around 4500 ebooks including hubby's, and by format shifting, if you mean converting from one format to another I do that a lot as I have 2 Kindles, a Nook HD and I've just bought a second hand Sony PRS 650. As I buy my ebooks from loads of small independent publishers none of them have DRM so changing formats is not an issue.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by TimW

Amazon doesn't lock their customers away from other vendors. Not at all. As Prestidigitweeze correctly mentioned a few days ago, Amazon makes it "hellishly easy" to purchase from their own store. Therefore, most Kindle users purchase from Amazon.

Epub didn't exist when Amazon purchased Mobipocket. It was released in October 2007 and the first Kindle was launched a few weeks later. Sony added Epub support the following year and Amazon chose to remain with mobi. If Amazon had chosen to adopt Epub, they probably would NOT have adopted ADE. ADE would have cost Amazon millions of dollars a year and provided no benefit. If Amazon had Epub and their own DRM, it would be exactly the same as it is now. The proprietary format isn't the issue, it never was the issue. The DRM is the problem.

If you recall when the original Kindle was released there was a "KindlePID" script created that would tell you what your PID was and allowed people to continue purchasing Mobipocket ebooks from vendors other then Amazon. MobileRead received a DMCA take down notice from Amazon at the time even though Mobipocket was owned by Amazon. I think their past actions speak pretty loudly about their intent on vendor lock in.

[speakingtohe]

Most people who want to are capable of using calibre. I have shown at least 10 and they have no real problems with it.

I am also pretty sure that not one of the 10 would have stumbled on it on their own or gone to the bother without help or prompting.

I found calibre within an hour of buying my first reader. I then proceeded to flail around in every direction but the right one for several weeks IIRC. Although I was a programmer for quite a few years and bought my first computer in the 70's I was doing things like appending the series names in the book titles, saving to disk and then deleting one bunch of books and starting on the next. I cringe in embarrassment when I think back on it. I talk to a lot of strangers with ereaders where I work, maybe 5- 10 a week, and not one has ever heard of calibre.

Then again I doubt very much whether the kindle owners I encounter, have ever heard of Baen or the other stores selling mobi books. Many are aware of PD sources like Gutenberg but not that happy with them.

I have asked people where they get their books. My overall impression is that kindle owners buy from Amazon, Kobo owners buy from Kobo, and Sony owners get the majority of their books from the library. Tablet owners buy from Kobo or Amazon. Never met a person who bought from Sony. Of course trying to be subtle I say, if you don't mind me asking, where did you get it (the book). I've only actually seen one Nook so no idea what they do, but my guess would be B&N.

I do ask because I am curious and it is an easy way to interact with a customer which generally results in a bigger tip. And I often suggest MR and calibre to them.

The people I see are approximately 60% US citizens, 30% Canadian, and 10% European with maybe 1% Asian, Australian combined. Most who I see with ereaders are retired people making the big trek north.

The books they are reading, if they are not lying to me, are Dan Brown's, Inferno, various James Patterson, Game of Thrones, Sookie Stackhouse, and a couple of little old dolls admitted in hushed tones to be reading 50 Shades of Grey, but not sure they liked it. Closest I came to classics or older works was one Shogun and a Louis L'amour. They are al reading the same thing.

I don't think that Amazon is doing anything wrong or controlling by only selling kindle formats, any more than Kobo is doing wrong by only selling epub/kepub. Butchers farmer's do not necessarily sell fish although they can if they want to.

At this stage in the game it might result in claims of trying to corner the market if Amazon started selling epub, and if the other major ebook retailers started selling epub, then possibly Amazon would start selling mobi al least. No law against it, but the last thing the other retailers want I am sure.

My opinion (and it is only an opinion) is that Amazon and Kobo are sitting comfortably and Sony is maintaining a market position in case they decide to actively pursue the ebook/reader market and more power to them if they do.

But my overall impression is that people buy ereaders for convenience and if they don't find it easier than going to the corner drugstore to buy a book they won't bother.

Removing DRM or hunting down small book retailers in the vague hope that they will have the latest bestsellers is not on their list of preferred things to do.

Helen

[Prestidigitweeze]

I said this:

Locking in the casual user who can't be arsed is what virtually every major player wants.

because the idea of using Calibre implies unnecessary effort to a number of the e-reader owners I know personally -- some of whom are more tech-savvy than I.

Vendors who produce e-book hardware are aware of UWCBA (Users Who Can't Be Arsed), which is why they make buying from their stores "hellishly easy," as I said before. The lock-in is voluntary unless it's subliminal (in the case of the chronically unobservant). It doesn't need to be enforced because -- ironically -- laziness gets the job done.

You can't blame vendors for factoring in the apathy/inattentiveness of certain users.

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

You can't blame vendors for factoring in the apathy/inattentiveness of certain users.

I would probably call it "desire for convenience".

I use Calibre, and organizing my e-books is part of the reading hobby for me, but that puts me in the geek category. It's "tinkering". Having to use not only a third party program, but also needing an external device (a computer), to manage one's books, isn't really intuitive to the average reader.

They want to use their e-reader as their independent bookshelf, without having to mess around with files, extra software, DRM disinfects, needing to connect the device to the computer, and so forth. My geek and gadget tendencies aside, I do think their expectations are more "normal" than how many of us here approach e-books.

Amazon "exploits" that desire for convenience, and they succeed because they do it better than others. I don't feel Amazon is beneficial for the market, I dislike semi-monopolist structures, and I'm not buying my books there, but they unquestionably benefit from the incompetence of their competitors. Amazon understood the value of "community" long before others, and even now you have to deal with a lot of tedium if you buy your e-books or devices elsewhere.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Mivo

I would probably call it "desire for convenience".

I use Calibre, and organizing my e-books is part of the reading hobby for me, but that puts me in the geek category. It's "tinkering". Having to use not only a third party program, but also needing an external device (a computer), to manage one's books, isn't really intuitive to the average reader

I never considered myself a 'geek' until I got an ereader and discovered the perfection that is calibre. Until I found out I could change title names, add in new book covers, convert as I please.

I work in IT, but only in the admin side, but even to techies I am considered strange

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Another PRS-T3 hands-on video, this time courtesy of lesen.net (German):

That's a great looking reader! As someone else said, if this was 2011 Sony would have a major hit on their hands. Unfortunately it's two years later and the only real reason to choose it over the other models is if you MUST have physical page turn buttons.

[Iskariot]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I don't know one person with an ereader who does format shifting or library organization.

I believe you are right. The average ereader user is not interested in those things... does not even know how to do them.

For me personally it is a different story.
Although I own a reader (Onyx Firefly) that can read virtually every format you throw at it I still convert every mobi to epub without exception. I prefer the epub format because in my experience it is faster in general and it is easier and more flexible to edit.
I also invest a lot of time in organizing my library, improving my books etc.

I never buy books with DRM by the way. I bought more than 50 ebooks last year. None of them had DRM. So if necessary editing them, giving them better covers etc. is easy.

[Iskariot]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

That's a great looking reader! As someone else said, if this was 2011 Sony would have a major hit on their hands. Unfortunately it's two years later and the only real reason to choose it over the other models is if you MUST have physical page turn buttons.

I definitely would have bought this device if it had build-in front light. A bit more internal memory (min. 4GB) would have been even better.

Oh well... Perhaps next year Sony will catch up with what competitors were doing last year.

Good luck to you, Sony.