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Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

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201–210 of 433 posts

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#201
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What walled garden are you talking about? I never even connected my ~8 year old kindle to the internet, only send files that I own via USB.

good luck transferring files if you forget cable, see my other lengthy post here

As long as they have Wi-Fi, Calibre has a nice web server for this.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#202
post #132

I very consciously did not buy a Kindle when choosing an Ereader about a year ago. The Kobo H2O is incredible and has served me very well. The format support is wonderful, and the stock OS does more than I need (though there is a whole community of custom OSes that also look cool). Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is.

The Kindle is inexpensive, has great support, has a huge library (open to non-US people with non-US credit cards), and you could just email a MOBI to it (which is great if the Kindle owner is your parent). It's only disadvantage was that it did not support ePub and so one had to go through Calibre. Now that Kindle is supporting ePUB and no Calibre-tion is needed, I don't even see what the Kobo value prop is.

>Now that Kindle is supporting ePUB...

Kindles do not support ePUB. But you can send ePUBs through the Amazon online conversion service now, which wasn't possible in the past.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short of a software update, I don't imagine older Kindles would magically be able to read ePub files. It sounds like sideloading a .mobi file will still work.

My paperwhite did an update a month or so ago around the time I started getting emails about this. It’s been nice not converting to .mobi before transferring (sorry Calibre, I don’t need you anymore) but there are still a few glitches reading the format, especially with special characters. Nothing too annoying.

My 4th generation Kindle from 2011 didn't get a software update.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#204
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Do you think companies giving you 10% in exchange for signing up for their newsletter shouldn't be able to do so too? It's the same thing - you get a discount for signing up to their ads campaign.

Well they already got profits on their bookstore, why would they need to make a version where you got ads on top of that. I guess if we follow your logic they could build phones, consoles and TVs with ads too. I can understand free books with ads but not the hardware/software that reads it.

Again, if Amazon just said "hey you get £10 off your Kindle purchase if you subscribe to our newsletter", would that be any better?

>>why would they need to make a version where you got ads on top of that

Gee, to make a device cheaper for you.

>>I guess if we follow your logic they could build phones, consoles and TVs with ads too

I mean....yes. I'm just surprised this hasn't happened already.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#205
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, right? Poorer people should just suck it up instead of having the option to get it cheaper. Wait another month to buy it and don’t offend my aesthetics.

Or maybe they could make it cheaper in the first place? They got a lot of profit from the ebooks already.

That's a different argument to the one you were making. And frankly the "why isn't this cheaper, hasn't the company profited enough" argument is never a very compelling one. Amazon isn't a charity.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#206

I very consciously did not buy a Kindle when choosing an Ereader about a year ago. The Kobo H2O is incredible and has served me very well. The format support is wonderful, and the stock OS does more than I need (though there is a whole community of custom OSes that also look cool). Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is.

>I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is

The device itself seems pretty good (hardware). I don't own one, but I'm looking at the Kindle Paperwhite now and I can't find anything better for the same price. If you do, please let me know.

Yes, the lack of ePUB support sucks, but you can convert to Amazon's format pretty easily from what I've read.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#207
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, right? Poorer people should just suck it up instead of having the option to get it cheaper. Wait another month to buy it and don’t offend my aesthetics.

Can you at least upgrade or you get stuck with ads until the end?

You can pay the difference between the ad-supported and ads-free model to get rid of the ads at any point, yet.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#208
post #132

I very consciously did not buy a Kindle when choosing an Ereader about a year ago. The Kobo H2O is incredible and has served me very well. The format support is wonderful, and the stock OS does more than I need (though there is a whole community of custom OSes that also look cool). Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is.

The Kindle is inexpensive, has great support, has a huge library (open to non-US people with non-US credit cards), and you could just email a MOBI to it (which is great if the Kindle owner is your parent). It's only disadvantage was that it did not support ePub and so one had to go through Calibre. Now that Kindle is supporting ePUB and no Calibre-tion is needed, I don't even see what the Kobo value prop is.

That's not Kindle's only disadvantage. Kobo had distinct features I wanted that no Kindle offered at the time I last purchased.

Like a screen big enough to comfortably read PDFs. 10.3" on Kobo Elipsa vs 7" on Kindle. IMHO that makes the Kindle only really useful for fiction.

There's also Pocket support for reading offline web articles.

Overdrive support so I can borrow books from my local library for free.

Free Dropbox syncing without having to email everything when I buy a book from someone that isn't Amazon e.g PragProg, Packt, etc. (Dropbox does support email though if you do want that).

In theory I could also use the pen and take written notes on my Elipsa too but it's not a feature I was looking for.

The other stuff you mentioned, like Kindle having a large purchasable library, is also true for Kobo right from the homescreen. They're also priced similarly if you match specs and available for same day delivery from Argos in the UK.

Finally, I know I could hack my last Kindle but Kobo make that really easy out of the box. Installing Koreader, Plato or anything else is simple even if it's not required for everyday use.

So for me it's the other way around. Amazon offers nothing I want that Kobo doesn't have.

Different people have different usecases but I don't think I'll go back to a Kindle now I've switched. Kobos are very easy to live with.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#209
post #193
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kindle is inexpensive, has great support, has a huge library (open to non-US people with non-US credit cards), and you could just email a MOBI to it (which is great if the Kindle owner is your parent). It's only disadvantage was that it did not support ePub and so one had to go through Calibre. Now that Kindle is supporting ePUB and no Calibre-tion is needed, I don't even see what the Kobo value prop is.

I used a Kobo for a long time and I just bought a Kindle, because it was so hard to get articles on the Kobo. They stopped supporting direct file transfers from Mac, so I was left with Pocket, and Pocket didn't think a lot of what I tried to save was "articles." So far I find that for my purposes, the Kindle is way easier to get content onto, and there's quite a bit of content I want that I can just buy there, but co…

[deleted]

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#210

I very consciously did not buy a Kindle when choosing an Ereader about a year ago. The Kobo H2O is incredible and has served me very well. The format support is wonderful, and the stock OS does more than I need (though there is a whole community of custom OSes that also look cool). Combined with Calibre, I don't even see what the Kindle value prop is.

Amazon gave me a Kindle Oasis (the prize for being a finalist in last year's 'Amazon Storytelling' contest). I would never have bought it myself since it costs €249 (!) but I have to say it's a fantastic device.

It's super-legible, has enormous memory, is water resistant, and has buttons for page-turning.

Other than Kindle books that arrive directly after buying, I send books to it via email through Calibre, which removes DRM in the process. Calibre also did the mobi conversion, and now this step is not even necessary anymore.

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