DRM, DeDRM, and ebook formats

[Frogm4n]

TIL about that one-off device. Thanks.

There are a couple archives for it on the usual Amazon device source code page.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by issybird

We have different thresholds for what constitutes an insult. For me, being offered a deep discount on the latest device because I own an ancient one doesn't constitute an insult. Insult me again, Amazon! Also noting that the "replacement" device was 6.8", significantly larger than 6" although obviously smaller than the DXG. It would be better to get the facts right, I note again.

The only 6.8" Kindle is the Paperwhite 5 and that isn't what they offered me. The offer was a discount on a new Kindle. The offer may have included PW5 or Oasis 3 but I didn't care. I'd already jumped ship to Kobo, and Aura One existed. The only use I had for a new Kindle at the time is a placeholder for D&T and DRM stripping. For that I would have wanted the cheapest model availble which would have been a 6" model. Except that I already had a second-hand PW3 for that purpose.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Frogm4n

The gulf between the Kindle OS and Fire OS remains quite enormous, despite Amazon adding MTP to the Kindles for USB storage.

Yes, it does, and that's a problem. Maintaining two separate code bases requires roughly twice the person-hours to develop and maintain compared to one unified code base. Unifying Kindle OS and Fire OS is a sensible thing to do now that the ARM SOCs on Kindles are more than powerful enough to run a full Android stack with good performance.

[slm]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Unifying Kindle OS and Fire OS is a sensible thing to do now that the ARM SOCs on Kindles are more than powerful enough to run a full Android stack with good performance.

the SOCs may run Android fine but no Android-based ereader has the battery life of a Kindle (or a Kobo or a Pocketbook for that matter).

I find the battery life diffference to be the main reason I used a dedicated ereader. I often read a book straight-through for 5 or 6 hours. None of my android-based readers last comfortable through that, but all of the linux-ish ones do.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by slm

the SOCs may run Android fine but no Android-based ereader has the battery life of a Kindle (or a Kobo or a Pocketbook for that matter).

Nook always ran on an Android foundation. Yes, I'm aware of the GlowLight 4e's terrible battery life, but it's because B&N cut huge corners to make it cheap to manufacture. Battery capacity and power efficiency suffered. They addressed these problems in the 4 Plus.

Also, PocketBook are running full Android on their InkPad line though that's not necessarily a fair comparison because it's a big 10" screen with a digitizer layer. These are going to need much more power than a relatively simple 6" or 7" reader.

But regardless of specific devices, it's been demonstrated that Android can be a reasonably efficient software stack for ereaders so I don't see why Amazon couldn't do the same.

[Quoth]

You need a bigger battery for same run time, which adds expense.

Also the entire ebook eco-system at Amazon is now "money down the back of sofa" / "Lemonade stall" sized. They likely spend more on the web / server development than the Linux ereaders or Android tablet (Fire). It's only the application on each that's much effort and non-display parts might be very similar. The Fire is likely using close to what is the Android App. Probably the iOS app is more effort.

Also most readers of Kindle ebooks use an App (Android/Fire or iOS).

Stock Android UI is poor on eink, so Android eink would save them little in total cost of the Kindle eco-system development.

Switching to MTP for Kindle eink is likely more about having more than 32 G Flash and not having FAT32 and extra security, not about having code in common with the Amazon Fire (an Android tablet).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You need a bigger battery for same run time, which adds expense.

Also the entire ebook eco-system at Amazon is now "money down the back of sofa" / "Lemonade stall" sized. They likely spend more on the web / server development than the Linux ereaders or Android tablet (Fire). It's only the application on each that's much effort and non-display parts might be very similar. The Fire is likely using close to what is the Android App. Probably the iOS app is more effort.

Also most readers of Kindle ebooks use an App (Android/Fire or iOS).

Stock Android UI is poor on eink, so Android eink would save them little in total cost of the Kindle eco-system development.

Switching to MTP for Kindle eink is likely more about having more than 32 G Flash and not having FAT32 and extra security, not about having code in common with the Amazon Fire (an Android tablet).

How would the battery life of an Android Reader be if you disabled all the useless/unneeded tasks/programs that run by default?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

How would the battery life of an Android Reader be if you disabled all the useless/unneeded tasks/programs that run by default?

Well, some eink models do have ability to turn off "Google Framework", then some apps fail. The Boyue Likebook Mars (7.8″) is much better then, but still not as good as as Sage (no BT, no WiFi, No light). OTOH, "Sleep" battery life is hugely better than a Kindle PW3. It has a real "power off", but that's not needed if used once a week.

The Mars has a far better GUI than stock Android and the included/built in reader is better than KO Reader for PDFs and epubs once you figure the serttings (though KOReader is better for "broken" epubs). Sadly Pocketbook doesn't work (runs). Lichess and K9 mail work, but no solitaire I've tried. Bolinda Borrow box stopped working.

Basically eink needs a different Launcher and many apps that run, render poorly, even with a load of eink refresh settings per app.

Sony's T1 and T2 (used both) and short lived T3 used Android, but basically a custom GUI similar to PRS-350 / PRs-650. The T2 is OK, but I took the T1 back as it had the freezing when dictionary accessed bug. I can't think why Sony changed from Linux to Android (less than V4 as it's Mass Storage, not MTP) as the T1 and T2 didn't have Playstore (IMO the only reason for Android) no obvious extra functionality. I suspect a Management/Political decision, not Engineering and Sony ditched ereaders that year. The DPT eink a completely different market and seemed to be crippled by Sony SW.

Sony HW was generally crippled by their media politics (CD root kit fiasco, though you safe if you didn't have Autorun, Minidisc PC SW, removing Linux from PS/2 etc).

[JSWolf]

I found the Sony PRS-T1 to have good battery life. I did not encounter the dictionary bug. However, I was using a modified reading app that supported custom fonts and had an onscreen clock.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You need a bigger battery for same run time, which adds expense.

Of course. But does the cost per unit in bulk for adding a few hundred mAh offset the cost of paying programmers' salaries? I expect the answer is "yes" but I don't have data to back this up.

Stock Android UI is poor on eink, so Android eink would save them little in total cost of the Kindle eco-system development.

None of the Android-based ereaders I've seen use a stock Launcher. They use a Launcher app tuned for e-Ink. The savings comes from unifying the OS and reader: one OS and one reader app that work across all devices instead of Kindle and Fire having entirely separate code trees.

Switching to MTP for Kindle eink is likely more about having more than 32 G Flash and not having FAT32 and extra security, not about having code in common with the Amazon Fire (an Android tablet).

Could be. Two notes though:

First is that FAT32 works just fine on larger devices. It's Microsoft's tools which are hard-coded to say "no" if you try to put FAT32 on larger devices -- likely an effort to "encourage" vendors to license exFAT. mkfs.vfat will happily format any device up to I believe 2TB. I can't recall doing this myself but I do have 256GB and 512GB microSD cards formatted FAT32 for my Switch and for one of my (currently disused) music players and they work perfectly well.

Second is that the security is an Android thing. Android's application security model is one app = unique UID/GID so that one app cannot "see" another app's data. This does not work on FAT32 or exFAT so Google got rid of them entirely in favor of ext4. Google removed external storage as part of this conversion because this security is easily bypassed with a USB card reader. Google then removed USB Mass Storage from Android because Windows and Macintosh cannot mount ext4 filesystems.

If Amazon aren't looking to migrate Kindle OS to an Android-based stack then I think the move to MTP and the elimination of D&T is simply a consequence of using a Linux native filesystem internally.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ratinox

If Amazon aren't looking to migrate Kindle OS to an Android-based stack then I think the move to MTP and the elimination of D&T is simply a consequence of using a Linux native filesystem internally.

The move to MTP may be a consequence of using a Linux native file system for the externally exposed storage. The jump to saying that the elimination of D&T is for the same reason when you can still copy files to a 2024 Kindle over MTP is a non sequitur. You download the file from Amazon with encryption based on the device serial number and copy it to the Kindle. Where does using MTP make any change in that process?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The move to MTP may be a consequence of using a Linux native file system for the externally exposed storage. The jump to saying that the elimination of D&T is for the same reason when you can still copy files to a 2024 Kindle over MTP is a non sequitur. You download the file from Amazon with encryption based on the device serial number and copy it to the Kindle. Where does using MTP make any change in that process?

I think MTP (or PTP) is just a consequence of dumbing down for the average users skills. I still find it hard to fathom that so many users after 40 years of desktop PC's still have trouble with basic (common) keystrokes
ctrl-end, ctrl-home. I know my region dumped a ton of $ to teach 'computers' in schools. Come on, Press F1

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by theducks

I think MTP (or PTP) is just a consequence of dumbing down for the average users skills. I still find it hard to fathom that so many users after 40 years of desktop PC's still have trouble with basic (common) keystrokes
ctrl-end, ctrl-home. I know my region dumped a ton of $ to teach 'computers' in schools. Come on, Press F1

This is a possibility. Also, MTP is slow and it's finicky under the best conditions.
Also-also, it does protect the OS files from being accidentially deleted.

Originally Posted by DNSB

The move to MTP may be a consequence of using a Linux native file system for the externally exposed storage. The jump to saying that the elimination of D&T is for the same reason when you can still copy files to a 2024 Kindle over MTP is a non sequitur. You download the file from Amazon with encryption based on the device serial number and copy it to the Kindle. Where does using MTP make any change in that process?

Maybe I misunderstand the assertions that D&T is gone. Can you actually do what you describe? Download a Kindle book and transfer it via USB cable? Or can you only download via WiFi? If the former then it's no change at all (modulo problems inherent with MTP/PTP) and D&T hasn't actually gone away. It's only USB Mass Storage that's gone.

If the latter then it's filesystem permissions. The MTP process does not have access to the directories used by the Kindle application(s) due to different UIDs/GIDs. Just like Android.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Maybe I misunderstand the assertions that D&T is gone. Can you actually do what you describe? Download a Kindle book and transfer it via USB cable?

My understanding is that the newest Kindle models use MTP and also do not allow D&T. The 2022 Kindle Scribe also uses MTP but does allow D&T.

My assumption is that MTP was introduced to prevent problems that occur when a user disconnects the USB cable without properly ejecting the device first. And that D&T was eliminated as part of an ongoing effort to remove it completely.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by jhowell

My understanding is that the newest Kindle models use MTP and also do not allow D&T. The 2022 Kindle Scribe also uses MTP but does allow D&T.

Which tells me these changes are intentional and not lazy mistakes.

My assumption is that MTP was introduced to prevent problems that occur when a user disconnects the USB cable without properly ejecting the device first. And that D&T was eliminated as part of an ongoing effort to remove it completely.

Then file under what @theducks previously wrote. I had not fully considered user error as a reason beyond accidentally deleting the OS but this is a good one. Especially as storage capacities expand.