Will Kindle become the ereader orphan?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

I should probably apologize for stirring up a dormant debate from 2010. As someone who who didn't even have ebooks and readers on my radar until last year, I just thought it was an interesting glimpse into how the industry has shaken out in the last 5+ years...

He who does not know the past is condemned to repeat it!
- someone...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by GoversAU

I just don't see how Amazon can hold the line on this. There must come a time, and soon, when they provide Epub capability on Kindles.

Five years and counting....

Unless you count Amazon's introduction of KF8 - a new format with pretty much all the formatting goodness of ePub. Which happened less than a year after this thread started.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

I should probably apologize for stirring up a dormant debate from 2010. As someone who who didn't even have ebooks and readers on my radar until last year, I just thought it was an interesting glimpse into how the industry has shaken out in the last 5+ years...

No need to apologize. You revived the thread for the purpose of contrasting past and present views of the market... a perfectly valid thing to do.

It is not necroposting, which is the only thing that matters.

...

Personally, I find the whole thing fascinating.

[jgaiser]

And as Paul says above, the point is becoming moot. KF8 provides most of the formatting niceties of epub. And with the available tools, format shifting is a breeze.

[jhowell]

KF8 superseded, but did not completely replace, the old MOBI format. The same type of transition is now in progress with KFX. That is now the primary format in use for Amazon-purchased books on newer devices. Things at Amazon are moving back to being more proprietary again.

ETA: Of course, just as MOBI is still supported, Amazon is unlikely to ever remove support for rendering KF8 format. But I believe it is likely that it will be frozen at its current state, with new e-book features coming only to KFX.

[Sweetpea]

I was thinking...

History could have been a lot different. What if... Google Books were made available for all epub readers? Right now, you cannot read Google Books on your Kobo for instance. But what if you could have? Just like you can connect to the Kobo store, you could connect to the Google Books store?

I do know that the Kindle here is a lot less interesting to people than the Kobo's (and other epub readers), simply because the selection of Kindle books is not even close to the selection of epubs (and even that is only a fraction of the selection of paper books...).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

[...] the selection of Kindle books is not even close to the selection of epubs [...]

I think you are factually wrong - would you care to cite your sources?

(There are over 4.8 million ebooks available at Amazon UK.)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think you are factually wrong - would you care to cite your sources?

(There are over 4.8 million ebooks available at Amazon UK.)

Yes, my reaction as well.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I do know that the Kindle here is a lot less interesting to people than the Kobo's (and other epub readers), simply because the selection of Kindle books is not even close to the selection of epubs (and even that is only a fraction of the selection of paper books...).

Ah - I think I must have misunderstood you. I thought you were using "here" to mean MobileRead, but perhaps you meant your location - Krewerd, in the Netherlands.

Looking at Amazon.nl, I see that there are only 31,341 Amazon books in Dutch. Wow, that's low.

[darryl]

I can't see Amazon giving a great deal of priority to those EEC countries where it is not already present at the moment. EEC regulators seem to be intent on preserving the Status Quo and, at least IMHO, placing readers last. Amazon can compete in the EEC with its superior infrastructure, customer service, and I think increasingly exclusive content. It will no doubt get to all of these countries eventually, but I suspect there are many more attractive markets with more sensible regulation and the chance to dominate.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I was thinking...

History could have been a lot different. What if... Google Books were made available for all epub readers? Right now, you cannot read Google Books on your Kobo for instance. But what if you could have? Just like you can connect to the Kobo store, you could connect to the Google Books store?

Um, you do know that you can download Google Books purchases for Adobe Digital Editions and sideload to any ADE-compatible EPUB ereader, right? And despite that advantage, Amazon is still in a superior position to Kobo, worldwide.

I do know that the Kindle here is a lot less interesting to people than the Kobo's (and other epub readers), simply because the selection of Kindle books is not even close to the selection of epubs (and even that is only a fraction of the selection of paper books...).

I assume "here" is somewhere where a non-English language predominates... such places typically have a lower ebook penetration on general principle, and entrenched interests which do produce ebooks are AFAIK mostly selling through their own EPUB platforms, not through Amazon or Kobo.

[soulfuldog]

I think Sweetpea is in the Netherlands, so that would explain the availability of epubs being higher than Kindle format? The Google Play books comment threw me too. I'd guess its because you can't browse directly from your Kobo to the Google Play store? However, that is true of many ereaders isn't it? I.e. Kobo store via the ereader is linked to Kobobooks, Tolino uses thalia.de I think, and of course, Kindle & Amazon. It obviously doesn't stop you buying and downloading the books from different stores like Google Play and loading them onto your epub reader though.

[DMB]

I recently introduced a Dutch friend to kindle, but as she was resident in Switzerland it was initially difficult for her to get Dutch books. She is now doing so via a Netherlands account. I would have similar difficulties in Switzerland if I didn't have an Amazon UK account.

I think the the obstacles aren't so much Amazon's fault as the fault of the different EU countries and their copyright regimes.

[eschwartz]

Exactly!

As I said above,

Originally Posted by eschwartz

[...] entrenched interests which do produce ebooks are AFAIK mostly selling through their own EPUB platforms, not through Amazon or Kobo.

[crane3]

Couldn't the "latest" Kobo OS allow the install of 3-4 Google modules for Play Store? The 5.x version for the Fire HDX made it very easy to install 4 Google apps so I am able to browse Play Store & get ebooks, etc; even if the Amazon & Google IDs are different.