Has Sony lost the e-book battle against Amazon?

[llasram]

Originally Posted by Chuckwade87

What has Sony done?

Partnered with Adobe to (a) have the best PDF support of any of the 6" devices and (b) have the best EPUB support of any device on the market. PDF support is important because most business and technical documents are not designed with reflowability in mind, making PDF the only viable display format for such documents. EPUB is important because we're going to see it become the e-book format of the next slice of e-book history.[*]

[*] That might be a tad grandiose, but I'm fairly confident.

[TadW]

Originally Posted by llasram

Partnered with Adobe to (a) have the best PDF support of any of the 6" devices and (b) have the best EPUB support of any device on the market. PDF support is important because most business and technical documents are not designed with reflowability in mind, making PDF the only viable display format for such documents. EPUB is important because we're going to see it become the e-book format of the next slice of e-book history.[*]

Yes, but... does Jon Doe care about this today?

[llasram]

Originally Posted by TadW

Yes, but... does Jon Doe care about this today?

I think "Jon Doe" does care about the PDF support. For the whole time I've had it, I've used my Reader as a replacement for printing. Work documents, long e-mails, Web pages, etc I'd just put on the Reader. I had to use a combination of calibre, pdf2lrf, and a few custom scripts of my own to get that working, but with the firmware update the 505's PDF support is good enough that I can just use PDF without all the extra technical fuss. If Sony bundled a psuedo-print-driver with their software that when you printed to it created a PDF and dumped it directly on the Reader, then I think they'd have it made.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I know what would satisfy a lot of people.... Take the 505, add in the wifi, give it a detachable keyboard, and add in AZW/Mobipocket support to what we already have and you've got a winner that should satisfy 505 lovers and Kindle lovers. So we'd have a device that supports BBeB, ePub, PDF, Mobipocket (no-DRM), & AZW.

This device is already available from 100s of vendors. It's called, among other things, a laptop computer.

[mazzeltjes]

Originally Posted by rhadin

This device is already available from 100s of vendors. It's called, among other things, a laptop computer.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by rhadin

This device is already available from 100s of vendors. It's called, among other things, a laptop computer.

Not quite. What Jon is describing would be a slate or tablet device and smaller and considerably lighter than the typical notebook PCs and the detchable keyboard will be important (most of the time, you won't need or want one). I want one of these - now!!!

[JayCeeEll]

Except that my laptop doesn't have an e-ink screen or a detachable keyboard and is too heavy to cart around for casual reading.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I know what would satisfy a lot of people....

Take the 505, add in the wifi, give it a detachable keyboard, and add in AZW/Mobipocket support to what we already have and you've got a winner that should satisfy 505 lovers and Kindle lovers. So we'd have a device that supports BBeB, ePub, PDF, Mobipocket (no-DRM), & AZW.

I thought that AZW was Amazon's proprietary DRMed format and you couldn't even purchase books with this format from Amazon without a Kindle. Am I mistaken?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by slayda

I thought that AZW was Amazon's proprietary DRMed format and you couldn't even purchase books with this format from Amazon without a Kindle. Am I mistaken?

Yes, he was listing a hypothetical!

BOb

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by grimo1re

Has anybody used the U-word yet? No Kindle vs. Sony thread is complete without the Kinde-is-butt-ugly argument.

- grim (fanning the flames)

Yes, it's been used. For what it's worth, the Kindle is the victim of moronic promoters in that respect... they don't know how to take a good picture. Not only have I seen a good picture of the Kindle, but I've seen it up-close, and it's not nearly as fugly as it seems in Amazon's promotional material. Take a look at the pic below.

And despite that, and the fact that there was no store to see one before you bought one, its promotion has kicked Sony's a$$.

[astrodad]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

And despite that, and the fact that there was no store to see one before you bought one, its promotion has kicked Sony's a$$.

Yes, Amazon did put a small fortune into the marketing of the thing. That of course doesn't make it a better product.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by jplumey

Yes, Amazon did put a small fortune into the marketing of the thing. That of course doesn't make it a better product.

Well, this is how OS/2 lost to Windows and Betamax lost to VHS... so marketing is important... it doesn't really matter which is the better product now does it? Sony learned it's lesson which is why Blu-Ray beat HD-DVD, right?

BOb

[=X=]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Well, this is how OS/2 lost to Windows and Betamax lost to VHS... so marketing is important... it doesn't really matter which is the better product now does it? Sony learned it's lesson which is why Blu-Ray beat HD-DVD, right?

BOb

So BOb I have a theory on that. My hypothesis is that the technically superior product/standard always loses. (Unless it's given out for free).

=X=

[MerLock]

Originally Posted by Chuckwade87

Amazon has already added options to its website so that Kindle users can request a book be made available in Kindle format. What has Sony done?

I've noticed a long time ago that you can also do the same on the Sony ebook store. I think it was in the support section, there was an option to request books for the store. I've used it and some of the books I've requested has made itself to the store. I'm not sure if Sony actually pays attention to this or perhaps it was just a coincidence, but Sony did have that option early on.

I noticed a long time ago that the Sony store offered incomplete series which was one of my biggest gripes. Why would I want to purchase the 2nd book of a series when I can't find the first or the third one? So most of my requests were for the to complete the series. I'm not sure how Sony is doing on series now since I've not visited the store in awhile but I hope they improved on that.

I also understand a large part of the problem was what the publishers have released in electronic format. I requested that Sony add Tom Clancy to their store and found out that none of his works is offered for sale digitally

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Take a look at the pic below.

Yup, still ugly. Ugly white wedge with ugly keys. I hope they do better in v2.

Perhaps the Kindle users will be the type that want to press a button, get a book over EVDO, and see the automatic charges on your credit card. No muss, no fuss.

While the tinker-type who would normally have settled on the Iliad but found the price prohibitive opted for the Sony. I know I fall into that category, and given the healthy hacking efforts I see on here, so have many others. I don't mind tinkering a little, fudging about with format converters, see what works and what doesn't. In fact, I love that stuff.

So it may well be that there is a market for both and more besides.