Someone give me a push

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by tech_au

I guess people from the rest of the world have not seen the Kindle in action with Whispernet and it does seem to be the killer feature for the Kindle.
I wouldn't mind owning a Kindle-ony to get the best of both worlds but I guess Sony adding mobi support is about as likely as Amazon discovering the rest of the world.

I'm guessing that you were not able to purchase your Sony directly in Australia because the Sony is not officially avialble there (please correct me if I'm wrong). If that's the case, if you wait until this back order madness is over, you can purchase a Kindle from eBay. You won't be able to use Whispernet or the Amazon store but we all know there are other sources for content.

I'm sure if Amazon could, they would blitz the world with Kindles. They want your money. It's just not that easy. Amazon is content and hardware. It's rumored that getting all the telecom companies on board in each country for Whispernet is a problem as well as copyright concerns for the various Kindle stores that will need to be created.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. A couple of years ago, I was very interested in the services of a company that was only based in the U.K. When the rumors started saying that they were ready to come to the U.S. I started following closely and even met with the founder of the company while we both were in San Francisco. It took over a year after the first rumors started before they opened in the U.S. But the model was very different from the U.K. that nearly everyone lost interest. It was a very wimpy version of what I was hoping for. They were tied down by regulations that are different in the U.S. than the U.K.

I don't believe Amazon is trying to deny you just because they want to.

[charadeur]

Originally Posted by tech_au

I guess people from the rest of the world have not seen the Kindle in action with Whispernet and it does seem to be the killer feature for the Kindle.

To be honest the Whispernet thing is high on the cool factor but I really can't imagining it being a make or break feature for me. I can't think of a situation where I would need a book right now. Anything I read can wait until I get PC access. I carry my notebook PC with me all the time for business so even out of town I could get new books if I hear something that sounds good on NPR or CSPAN books. I do see how this feature would be great for some people.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by charadeur

To be honest the Whispernet thing is high on the cool factor but I really can't imagining it being a make or break feature for me. I can't think of a situation where I would need a book right now. Anything I read can wait until I get PC access. I carry my notebook PC with me all the time for business so even out of town I could get new books if I hear something that sounds good on NPR or CSPAN books. I do see how this feature would be great for some people.

It's lovely but it wasn't for me, either. The big things for me were the ability to search my documents, look up words and make notes. The wireless brought web and wikipedia search which is a nice addition, though.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by tech_au

Perhaps I should have said natively supported.
For the kindle it is mobi or txt and anything else is converted by emailing it and receiving the converted file back but with Sony everything listed is natively supported (no conversion neccessary). I can't understand why Amazon didn't provide the conversion program on a CD that you get when you buy the Kindle.
I wonder why no Ebook readers read DRM lit at present. Maybe Microsoft don't want any support ?
I guess it is not a big issue if you only buy from Amazon but having multiple formats available to you bring competition hence price reductions.

Actually HTML can be read natively as well. All you need to do is change the extension to TXT. If you download the Windows Mobipocket you will find that it is a perfect conversion program for content for Kindles. It converts about as well as the online service.

Microsoft doesn't seem to want their reader running on any OS that is not from Microsoft.

Dale

[tech_au]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I'm guessing that you were not able to purchase your Sony directly in Australia because the Sony is not officially avialble there (please correct me if I'm wrong). If that's the case, if you wait until this back order madness is over, you can purchase a Kindle from eBay. You won't be able to use Whispernet or the Amazon store but we all know there are other sources for content.

I'm sure if Amazon could, they would blitz the world with Kindles. They want your money. It's just not that easy. Amazon is content and hardware. It's rumored that getting all the telecom companies on board in each country for Whispernet is a problem as well as copyright concerns for the various Kindle stores that will need to be created.



I don't believe Amazon is trying to deny you just because they want to.

It is true that the Sony reader is not available in Oz officially but I did buy it from a local Sydney based ebay shop that was importing them. I am guessing late 2009 before it makes it to Oz given that Sony will be invading Europe in early 2009.
I love my Sony reader and don't think I would change it for the Kindle but I wouldn't mind being able to read mobi books in addition to pdf/epub on it as I got rapidly sick of format converting and only do it when absolutely neccessary (Snowball's chance in hell of my wish being granted )
The wireless delivery would be cool but I could probably wait until I got home to load them via USB as others have said.
I think Amazon might have a lot of problems trying to introduce it to other places in the world due to having to strike mobile(cellular) deals with all the different carriers in the world.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I'm not sure what is meant by "severely limited". Here are the formats for the Sony and the Kindle (I've removed the proprietary formats for both).

Sony (native support)
PDF, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, MP3, AAC

Kindle (native support)
PRC/MOBI (non DRM), TXT, MP3, AA, JPEG, GIF
(Amazon or self-conversion) DOC, HTML, PNG, BMP and PDF

IMO, there is only one additional format that is lacking... native pdf support. There are some documents that just work better as pdf's. Mobi seems to be the dominant format and ePub has not yet come into it's own, so I don't understand what else is needed.

You did leave out one native format for the Sony. You left out BBeB. Lef is the DRM free version and LRX is with DRM. And if we have the same PRC/Mobi that the Kindle can handle, we can use mobi2lrf to easily convert it over so it can be read on the Sony. Samne with lit2lrf for DRM free MS Reader format. Also, eBook Library will take DOC and convert to RTF on the fly as long as the version of MS Office you have supports that version of DOC.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You did leave out one native format for the Sony. You left out BBeB. Lef is the DRM free version and LRX is with DRM. And if we have the same PRC/Mobi that the Kindle can handle, we can use mobi2lrf to easily convert it over so it can be read on the Sony. Samne with lit2lrf for DRM free MS Reader format. Also, eBook Library will take DOC and convert to RTF on the fly as long as the version of MS Office you have supports that version of DOC.

I thought BBeB was propriety, that's why I left it out. Who else can use it?

It still seems to stand with a few exceptions, that if you can find a book in a digital format, there is a way to get it onto your reader.

[charadeur]

I have had the Sony for 4 days now. I do like it a lot. I will sell the Kindle on ebay and decide if I need to reorder later. Truth is right now the Sony is doing everything I need it to do.

[tech_au]

If epub gathers support like I hope it does in 2009 it will come down to whether you want to read your ebooks in mobi or epub format and which ereader you prefer rather which one is "better".
Lets hope so anyway

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tech_au

If epub gathers support like I hope it does in 2009 it will come down to whether you want to read your ebooks in mobi or epub format and which ereader you prefer rather which one is "better".
Lets hope so anyway

ePub is very nice technically - it can provide much "richer" formatting that Mobipocket. Unfortunately if has, IMHO, a major flaw which is that the ePub standard allows anyone to add their own DRM system to it, and still call the resulting file "ePub".

We already have Adobe DRM on ePub in the form of "Adobe Digital Editions", and I'm sure you've seen the recent announcement that eReader are also going to start producing ePub files using their DRM scheme. Goodness known how many other different "ePub" files we'll have in a year or two's time.

The end result will inevitably be an even worse confusion for the novice end user than we have now. At least at the moment most people know what book formats they need for their own devices, but we're soon going to have the situation where, for example, the Sony Reader will read ADE-encrypted ePub files, but not eReader-encrypted ePub files, and vice versa for whatever devices will read eReader files.

It's a real mess.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

ePub is very nice technically - it can provide much "richer" formatting that Mobipocket. Unfortunately if has, IMHO, a major flaw which is that the ePub standard allows anyone to add their own DRM system to it, and still call the resulting file "ePub".

We already have Adobe DRM on ePub in the form of "Adobe Digital Editions", and I'm sure you've seen the recent announcement that eReader are also going to start producing ePub files using their DRM scheme. Goodness known how many other different "ePub" files we'll have in a year or two's time.

The end result will inevitably be an even worse confusion for the novice end user than we have now. At least at the moment most people know what book formats they need for their own devices, but we're soon going to have the situation where, for example, the Sony Reader will read ADE-encrypted ePub files, but not eReader-encrypted ePub files, and vice versa for whatever devices will read eReader files.

It's a real mess.

while that may be true (we'll see soon how things work out), the problem there is not epub, it's drm.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

while that may be true (we'll see soon how things work out), the problem there is not epub, it's drm.

No, the problem is that the ePub standard allows any DRM system to be added to the file, and the end result can still be called "ePub". The publishers who are doing this are fully conformant to the ePub standard - it's the standard which is at fault. It's a recipe for "eBabel" worse than what we're seeing at present.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, the problem is that the ePub standard allows any DRM system to be added to the file, and the end result can still be called "ePub". The publishers who are doing this are fully conformant to the ePub standard - it's the standard which is at fault. It's a recipe for "eBabel" worse than what we're seeing at present.

again, that's a problem of drm though, not epub. get rid of drm (which needs to happen for many reasons, including plenty totally independent of epub) and the entire problem disappears.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, the problem is that the ePub standard allows any DRM system to be added to the file, and the end result can still be called "ePub". The publishers who are doing this are fully conformant to the ePub standard - it's the standard which is at fault. It's a recipe for "eBabel" worse than what we're seeing at present.

It could be bad but does not have to be. The earlier publishing standard resulted in .lit, .imp, .mobi etc. There is no indication so far that the extension will be the same although if it is there could be problems. Hopefully they will get this right before releasing the eReader version of ePUB.

Dale

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

It could be bad but does not have to be. The earlier publishing standard resulted in .lit, .imp, .mobi etc. There is no indication so far that the extension will be the same although if it is there could be problems. Hopefully they will get this right before releasing the eReader version of ePUB.

Dale

My grave concern is that we're going to end up with a slew of differently-formatted files, all mutually incompatible, and all calling themselves "ePub". It could be a nightmare for the end user.