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Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

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Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#261

Post by Hitton »

whyoh wrote: post #202
maratc wrote: 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.

>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.

And if you are lucky, Amazon will even be able to convert them.

About week ago I wanted to test it, I tried it with bunch of epubs from various sources and only about half converted successfully.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#262

Post by SoftTalker »

phpisthebest wrote: post #239
maratc wrote: 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 don't even see what the Kobo value prop is. It is not amazon encumbered. That is a huge value to many

That's why I bought mine. I don't want to give Amazon any of my money.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#263

Post by arbitrage »

Lio wrote: post #208
maratc wrote: 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.

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 Dropb…

> Like a screen big enough to comfortably read PDFs. IMHO that makes the Kindle only really useful for fiction.

There is plenty of non-fiction that doesn't come in PDF form. It is quite readable on a Kindle.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#264

Post by nu11ptr »

Lio wrote: post #208
maratc wrote: 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.

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 Dropb…

To borrow from the library on Kindle, just use the Libby app. Very painless and easy. You can send to your kindle as the last click of checkout.

https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#265

Post by goosedragons »

adam12 wrote: post #250
goosedragons wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kobo's are like a stone's throw in price from Kindles. Depending on features/market they can be cheaper and they don't even sell lockscreen ads. The only cheaper Kindle is the awful 800x600 screen one which should have been put to bed years ago. They also have a huge library open to non-US people with non-US credit cards. Kobos are considerably better at formatting text with far more options and are even easier to tw…

Can I ever get a Kobo for $45?

I'm pretty sure at some point the Kobo mini was about that at some point...

It's not like $45 is the regular price of the Kindle either. Camelcamelcamel has the new base model having it's lowest at $70 and I've seen the Nia for $80 and they are pretty comparable.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#266

Post by bambax »

criddell wrote: post #244
bambax wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

I think we're nearing the end of Amazon not really caring about DRM. AFAIK, the DRM used by latest version of KFX files hasn't been thoroughly broken and it's a cat and mouse game now. There are some less than ideal workarounds (like downloading an older format), but you lose some of the typography improvements that Amazon only supports in KFX. Now that Amazon seems to be interested in strong DRM, I expect a legislat…

Downloading an older format really isn't a high price to pay for getting rid of DRM. But yes, in time, as older devices disappear, this could become a big problem.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#267

Post by Lio »

utucuro wrote: post #58
pseingatl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wasn't. The original eBook reader was the Rocket eBook reader. The books were html 3.3 files.

The Palm Pilot 1000 was launched in 1996, the Rocket, 2 years later in 1998.

I can remember reading Project Gutenberg books on a Psion Series 3[1] in the early 90s but not sure exactly when that was, '92 maybe.

I'll bet someone must have tried something similar, earlier, using one of the little Tandy portables.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_3

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#268

Post by frosted-flakes »

nu11ptr wrote: post #264
Lio wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Dropb…

To borrow from the library on Kindle, just use the Libby app. Very painless and easy. You can send to your kindle as the last click of checkout. https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby

It's not available in all countries.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#269

Post by GekkePrutser »

Hitton wrote: post #261
whyoh wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

And if you are lucky, Amazon will even be able to convert them. About week ago I wanted to test it, I tried it with bunch of epubs from various sources and only about half converted successfully.

Yeah I often have issues with "fancy quotes" not getting converted correctly if I email an ePub to Kindle. They get converted to HTML entities :(

With Calibre it works but it's an annoying extra step. I hope Amazon fix this issue before they officially start supporting ePub.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#270

Post by jdougan »

Lio wrote: post #208
maratc wrote: 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.

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 Dropb…

How does the screen on the Elipsa compare to the old Kindle DX screens? I'm babying my pair of old DXs, and it would be nice to have a replacements.
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