Lexcycle has been acquired by Amazon

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

That's Stanza Desktop, for transferring/conversion.

You can also read with Stanza. I've got Stanza on my Windows machine.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

You can also read with Stanza. I've got Stanza on my Windows machine.

You're right I forgot about that. I've not used it much since I got my Sony.

[Tattncat]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

My first thought was "Oh, Crap."

I really don't think Amazon needs any more influence on the eBook market.

Me too.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Stanza can be used to read books on the iPhone, a Windows PC, or a Mac. I don't have much doubt that with a little extra work, an app can be put out for Blackberry or the upcoming Palm Pre. The idea would be to get it working on as many platforms as possible so that Amazon could sell books.

Yeah, that makes sense to me. I have a Sony 505, but I'm on the verge of switching to the Kindle. Why?

Two reasons - one is that I have a Mac & the Sony Bookstore won't work with Mac. This has become an increasingly frustrating thing, because of things like updating firmware, authorizing my iPhone to read Adobe, and just generally limiting my access to ebooks.

But the larger reason is that I have an iPhone, and when you put Amazon's large library together with the sync between the iPhone K app & the Kindle, the convenience of being able to read on the Kindle at home or commuting, and then the same book at the same page while standing in line somewhere and then later at home becomes a very nice feature indeed.

So if Amazon gets an app on more mobile platforms, it might sell more Kindles to people like me. Not to mention more ebooks in general.

The most immediate effect of this will be that the Kindle can work seamlessly with Fictionwise. Longer term, it means that we could be in for a real format war, with both sides trying to a) be compatible with the most devices and b) have features the other one lacks.

I don't understand how this works. Why would Amazon want the Kindle to buy books from Fictionwise, a division of Barnes & Noble?

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Harmon

I don't understand how this works. Why would Amazon want the Kindle to buy books from Fictionwise, a division of Barnes & Noble?

First, because it puts the squeeze on Barnes & Noble's future ebook. Unless Barnes & Noble changes the format and/or the DRM scheme, the future Barnes & Noble device will have to compete with the Kindle in their own store (meaning that it would be harder to offer exclusive content for their device). If the Barnes & Noble device fails, Amazon is left in a stronger position.

As long as you buy a Kindle, Amazon can push their own wares to the forefront of the device. If you decide that Fictionwise has better books, and the Kindle doesn't support Fictionwise, then Amazon not only can't sell you the books, but they can't sell the Kindle. As long as they can at least sell you the Kindle, they've got a shot at selling you the books.

It's essentially the same as one store honoring another's coupons or gift certificates. They might not get the full benefit, but at least they get something out of it.

[billy fiddle]

Power and control of the Land of Books & Ebooks: That's all Amazon ever wanted when it grew up. It's just dream-fulfillment in action. World domination is apparently still hip.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Umm the mobipocket reader can be used to read books on a much wider selection of devices, and Amazon already owns it.

Stanza has the advantage of already working with the iPhone and iPod Touch (a not-small install base). And Stanza can already export to Mobipocket (allowing Stanza to support every device Mobipocket supports) so there's no reason at all to try to tweak Mobipocket to work with the iPhone or iPod Touch. Why bother with that, when you can get everything in one package, with no development time?

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Just look at the pace of development of the Mobipocket software. It's had maybe three minor updates in a year and a half and Amazon decided to change the file extension for .mobi files to .azw for no good reason.

The change from .mobi to .azw is a fairly trivial one, actually. The difference is with protected files. And there was a reason for that: The AZW format is more compressed than plain vanilla MOBI. (I have no way of knowing for sure, but I assume that's a consequence of Whispernet.) Unprotected azw files can be converted easily. In this regard, AZW format is no more diabolical than MOBI format itself. In fact, the personal files that Amazon converts into AZW, if you open them up like a ZIP file, have opf files inside them. If you've got Mobipocket Creator, you just right-click on the opf file, choose Open, and it loads the necessary files into the program to build the MOBI file. Quick and easy. (ManyBooks.net's AZW files appear to be different, as they're actually just sent to you as PRC files.)

As far as "no good reason" goes, that's in the eye of the beholder, I guess. There seem to be some minor differences between the file types, so I wouldn't say it's for "no" reason.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

With respect, I suggest you go read up a little bit on the history of ebook formats. Amazon took over mobipocket, whihc was selling books to a wide variety of devices. They then simply changed the file extension to .azw keeping the DRM technology exactly the same and decided to sell their books only for the Kindle. The wild success of the iPhone got them scared so they decided to belatedly port the Mobipocket reader to the iPhone and then buy Stanza which was the most threatening iPhone based competitor.

They never "ported Mobipocket to the iPhone". Mobipocket doesn't run on the iPhone. The Kindle iPhone app is only related to Mobipocket in the sense that they both handle MOBI format e-books (although Mobipocket doesn't handle AZW-flavored ones, obviously). If it was, it wouldn't have taken this long to get the app out. (The iPhone/iPod app doesn't let you buy from Amazon, after all. It's strictly for reading.)

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

No, they didn't do that because they knew the negative press would have killed the Kindle.

What's negative press got to do with anything? It's not like they got wonderful press by buying Lexcycle. Generally speaking, Amazon does what it wants and lets the chips fall where they may. Kind of the way Apple works.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Again, they already had the technology to sell their books on other devices if they wanted to.

Buying Stanza gives them a leg up on it, though. Now they've got two readers on the iPhone, without having to break much of a sweat. What's more, they've got access to other computer platforms (Mac and Linux, and iPhone/iPod Touch) that they didn't have before with Mobipocket.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

They never "ported Mobipocket to the iPhone". Mobipocket doesn't run on the iPhone. The Kindle iPhone app is only related to Mobipocket in the sense that they both handle MOBI format e-books (although Mobipocket doesn't handle AZW-flavored ones, obviously). If it was, it wouldn't have taken this long to get the app out. (The iPhone/iPod app doesn't let you buy from Amazon, after all. It's strictly for reading.)

I'm fairly certain that's not true. The Kindle* uses Mobipocket's Java 1.0 code base (so does the Cybook, Iliad). For all intents and purposes it is a Mobipocket device.

*Curiously enough, the K2 and the original Kindle use different generations of the code. That's why the K2 supports tables and the original Kindle does not.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Stanza has the advantage of already working with the iPhone and iPod Touch (a not-small install base). And Stanza can already export to Mobipocket (allowing Stanza to support every device Mobipocket supports) so there's no reason at all to try to tweak Mobipocket to work with the iPhone or iPod Touch. Why bother with that, when you can get everything in one package, with no development time?

As Nate has already pointed out, the Amazon iPhone app is based on Mobipocket code, making the acquisition of Stanza irrelevant as far as having a reader on the iPhone is concerned.

The change from .mobi to .azw is a fairly trivial one, actually. The difference is with protected files. And there was a reason for that: The AZW format is more compressed than plain vanilla MOBI. (I have no way of knowing for sure, but I assume that's a consequence of Whispernet.)

Having reverse enginnered both formats, I on the other hand know for sure that AZW and MOBI are identical. They both support the same 3 levels of compression. My point was that by simply renaming mobi to azw Amazon indicated their intention of not further developing the MOBI format. In other words, they smothered Mobipocket, the ebook company they took over before Stanza.

What's negative press got to do with anything? It's not like they got wonderful press by buying Lexcycle. Generally speaking, Amazon does what it wants and lets the chips fall where they may. Kind of the way Apple works.

Since neither of us can look into the minds of Amazon's decision makers, arguiing about their motivation is futile. I just think that given their evident desire to achieve ebook monopoly, it is far more probable that they allowed the Kindle to read non DRMed formats from their fear of negative consumer reaction, had they not.

Or are you claiming that Amazon does not care at all about the consumer experience of people using their products?

Buying Stanza gives them a leg up on it, though. Now they've got two readers on the iPhone, without having to break much of a sweat. What's more, they've got access to other computer platforms (Mac and Linux, and iPhone/iPod Touch) that they didn't have before with Mobipocket.

I do wish you'd bother to do a little research before posting.
Stanza doesn't run on linux. Mobipocket does run on the iPhone (which runs OS X) and that means it runs on OS X. Indeed, given that it is written in Java, porting it to another platform is relatively trivial.

And if you believe that having multiple instances of reader software on the same platform is some sort of advantage, I have a few Nigerian stocks I'd like to sell you.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I'm fairly certain that's not true. The Kindle* uses Mobipocket's Java 1.0 code base (so does the Cybook, Iliad). For all intents and purposes it is a Mobipocket device.

Hi, Nate.

"For all intents and purposes" can be interpreted pretty broadly. The app that Amazon released for the iPhone has several important differences from the Mobipocket app:

1) You can't read DRM'ed MOBI content (non-AZW, I mean) on it.
2) You can't read non-DRM'ed MOBI content on it (without jailbreaking).
3) There's no desktop component for reading outside of the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Yes, it lets you read AZW files on the iPhone, which is the MOBI format (with a tweak or two). And yes, it shares code with Mobipocket (otherwise it wouldn't be able to read the AZW format), but for all practical purposes, thet two apps are about as alike as Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.

Mobipocket is rumored to have been working on (or even sitting on) a version of the reader for the iPhone. The Kindle iPhone app isn't it.

The iPhone can't run Java unless it's jailbroken, so the Kindle app isn't using Java, either. (You don't need to jailbreak your iPhone to use the Kindle app.) They may be using equivalent code, but that's not the same thing. Going from Java to Objective C requires some reworking.

If Amazon had wanted to actually release Mobipocket for the iPhone, they could've done that much more quickly than they released the Kindle app.

The proof that the Kindle app isn't the Mobipocket client for the iPhone is that Amazon bought Lexcycle. There's no good reason for them to have done that, if not to get a good ereader for the iPhone (that they couldn't achieve with what they had). Stanza is a much more mature, feature-rich product, that can work (on a desktop level) places where Mobipocket can't.

As for the Kindle app, I think the current version is a stop-gap measure until they can get Stanza up and running the way they want it. After that, they switch over the Kindle app to Stanza.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

My point was that by simply renaming mobi to azw Amazon indicated their intention of not further developing the MOBI format. In other words, they smothered Mobipocket, the ebook company they took over before Stanza.

I think that was to give them the possibility to have a format that only works on the Kindle. If they had said it was the MobiPocket format they could not introduce enhancements on the Kindle without making sure that the format also works in old MobiPocket readers.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

The proof that the Kindle app isn't the Mobipocket client for the iPhone is that Amazon bought Lexcycle. There's no good reason for them to have done that, if not to get a good ereader for the iPhone (that they couldn't achieve with what they had). Stanza is a much more mature, feature-rich product, that can work (on a desktop level) places where Mobipocket can't.

This seems like circular reasoning. Kovid gave a good reason and then you try to say this is wrong and the reason is X since X is the only good reason to buy Lexcycle.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by tompe

I think that was to give them the possibility to have a format that only works on the Kindle. If they had said it was the MobiPocket format they could not introduce enhancements on the Kindle without making sure that the format also works in old MobiPocket readers.

But they haven't introduced any incompatible changes, and they're going to face the same legacy problems if they do so now.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

But they haven't introduced any incompatible changes, and they're going to face the same legacy problems if they do so now.

Image size is one change.

Since they can update their own reader over the air the problem is solvable for changes they do know. Also they can use specific behaviours in the current reader that is not standardized behavior for all readers.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by tompe

Image size is one change.

Since they can update their own reader over the air the problem is solvable for changes they do know. Also they can use specific behaviours in the current reader that is not standardized behavior for all readers.

Image size compatibility varies a lot even in the various editions of the Mobipocket reader I believe.

I certainly hope they don't introduce additional incompatible changes, I for one never switch on the wireless on my Kindle (don't want Amazon to know what I read). And I know several people that live in areas with no wireless connectivity that have Kindles (I know because they usually send me donations for calibre).