Will Kindle become the ereader orphan?

[eschwartz]

Well, maybe the Kobo tablets, which are considerably less popular than the Kindle Fire...
The Fire has a broad appeal independent of ebooks, and has actually hit it off. I have heard very little about the Kobo Android tablets.

It stands to reason that if the Fire is popular, it will also be one of the tablets people who read books on tablets will use. Whereas the Kobo ones are just obscure and unpopular.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The Fire has a broad appeal independent of ebooks, and has actually hit it off. I have heard very little about the Kobo Android tablets.

Maybe because they stopped making them 2 or so years ago?

[eschwartz]

I figured as much likely because it was after all unpopular and never really hit it off.

Point being that it isn't really a solution to the problem -- not that it would be anyway, since anyone willing to use a tablet can find plenty of generic tablets without resorting to a Kobo- or Amazon-branded one.

[barryem]

Kobos and Kindles et al could add all sorts of features to make themselves more generally useful but as long as they're being made by book sellers they'll be tied to those book stores. I'd like to see them had serious Dropbox access and access to other stores. That won't happen. I don't think I'd want Google Play on an ereader.

Barry

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DMB

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

For once, this isn't a copyright problem. Instead it's a contracts problem. A publisher must have a contract with an author to be able to publish the author's book. For historical and commercial reasons, that contract often specifies the region(s) in which the publisher is allowed to publish the author's book. And so one publisher might have the US and European rights, and another publisher might have UK rights. If only one of them publishes the book as an ebook we have problems.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

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.

I'm sorry, yes, I meant "here" as in "here, in the Netherlands, with Dutch language books".

Originally Posted by eschwartz

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.

That's why I said, connect directly to the Google store, like you can connect to the Kobo store. People buy Kindles because they don't need a PC to put books on their ereaders. But if I were to buy books from Google, I need to install something from Adobe, download something from that link I got, which isn't a book, open that with that Adobe application and only then will I be able to download the book. No idea how to get it on my Kobo after that, actually (I don't have ADE installed on my PC, so can't really say how it goes...)

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.

Actually, most epubs are sold by kobo/bol.com, not any own epub platform.

[tnforpaul45]

A Kindle with epub support would kill Kobo overnight

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by tnforpaul45

A Kindle with epub support would kill Kobo overnight

Yes, better not. Amazon needs a good competitor.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by tnforpaul45

A Kindle with epub support would kill Kobo overnight

I rather doubt that, myself. Most people really don't care about the file format.

[roger64]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I rather doubt that, myself. Most people really don't care about the file format.

Yes, they don't care too for hyphenation. They don't care for anything... Their problem.

I enjoy very much my PW3 with Koreader. 90% of my books are in EPUB format, the rest are six-inch PDF but I read them with the PDF reader on Koreader which is vastly superior to the Kindle's.

I read one azw3 since last October, it was my first and last (as a try just before jailbreaking).

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by tnforpaul45

A Kindle with epub support would kill Kobo overnight

No, because the software is the reason I don't want a kindle. Less layout options with a kindle, no matter the format of the book.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

No, because the software is the reason I don't want a kindle. Less layout options with a kindle, no matter the format of the book.

I can just about handle "Time items or less" at the supermarket, but not "Less layout options".

[HarryT]

Given that the majority of native English speakers don't know the difference between the words "less" and "fewer", it seems slightly unreasonable to criticise someone posting in a foreign language for making the same mistake .

[JSWolf]

It could if Microsoft doesn't fix Windows 10.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It could if Microsoft doesn't fix Windows 10.

But see, for the VAST majority of Kindle users, it would never be an issue, because they don't plug their Kindle into their computer. They buy from Amazon and download direct to their device.

Most won't even know that this issue exists.

Shari