Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format • Hacker News Board

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#211

Post by goosedragons » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:07 AM UTC

maratc wrote: post #132

Thorentis wrote: post #25

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.

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 tweak. I literally could not find a font size I liked when I had a Kindle because the smallest was too small and every other one too big.

And Kindle STILL does not support ePub. All Amazon has done is started letting people email epubs to their Kindle and their backend will convert it to an Amazon format. This has conversion warts, means you lose cover support too. You still can't copy an ePub over USB.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#212

Post by physicsguy » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:10 AM UTC

sanjayts wrote: post #150

physicsguy wrote: post #117

Is this just trying to frustrate people pirating e-books and e-mailing themselves them via AWS servers?

Why would someone do this? Isn't it basically asking to get the account deactivated due to piracy concerns esp given that now Amazon has the whole trail of things you have pirated?

People do it because documents that go through the e-mail thing sync across devices like Amazon purchased books.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#213

Post by ilamont » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:15 AM UTC

innocenat wrote: post #35

Barrin92 wrote: post #18

I'm extremely confused about this. I have an older Kindle Paperwhite (PW 3/ 7th gen I think?) and when I used the 'email sent' feature I got that mail about dropping mobi support in favor of epub, but when sending an actual epub I got an error for sending a wrong file, ostensibly because the Kindle only supports mobi. Are they going to ship a software update? Would be a shame if that service doesn't work any more in…

Probably because the EPUB file has some problem. Amazon is very strict about EPUB validity.

Not in my experience. Amazon will accept ePubs that Apple Books rejects because of validation errors.

Example: https://twitter.com/leanmediaorg/status/1547292135963168775

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#214

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:17 AM UTC

maratc wrote: post #132

Thorentis wrote: post #25

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.

Note if you email MOBI it might get its formatting randomly messed up.

https://standardebooks.org/help/how-to-use-our-ebooks#kindle...

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#215

Post by goosedragons » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:23 AM UTC

jonathanstrange wrote: post #134

andrepd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the Kobo does have a built-in store. And it does support WiFi sync. I don't see any way how a Kobo is harder to use for a non technical user than Kindle. No trade-off there x)

Well, there is also price and features. I've got a Kobo Elipsa, it was an impulse buy at a book store and I regret it because for just a little bit more you can get a Remarkable 2. The Remarkable is lighter, less bulky, faster, and has this fantastic warm backlight. The Elipsa felt like outdated, heavy tech from the start, isn't waterproof, and its notetaking functions are unusable (it's just too slow). The OS is rar…

The Remarkable 2 also isn't waterproof and also doesn't have a front light (warm or cold) at all. That's how they got it so thin. It's also awful at reading ePubs but I guess better at note taking.

Kindles aren't much cheaper. Compare the Kindle Oasis to the Libra. All you really get is a metal case for an extra $100. And the stores are pretty similar in size with the exception of like self published books which IMO are worth stripping out of search...

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#216

Post by bayindirh » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:24 AM UTC

maratc wrote: post #196

spacehunt wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kobo has built-in Overdrive, Dropbox and Pocket support on the device itself, which Kindle lacks.

Kobo only needs it to support transfers, and because it lacks emailing. If I want Overdrive, Dropbox and Pocket support, I have a smartphone for that.

Nothing beats a reading long form article from Pocket on an e-ink screen, though.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#217

Post by goosedragons » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:25 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #185

Derbasti wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kobos have this feature

Didn't know that! Can you upload custom dictionaries to them? That was my only gripe with how Kindles do it - they support this feature in some languages but not others.

Yeah it's possible but it's not an official feature (it's not hard though).

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#218

Post by Lio » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:25 AM UTC

maratc wrote: post #196

spacehunt wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kobo has built-in Overdrive, Dropbox and Pocket support on the device itself, which Kindle lacks.

Kobo only needs it to support transfers, and because it lacks emailing. If I want Overdrive, Dropbox and Pocket support, I have a smartphone for that.

Kobo supports email transfers already, if that's what you want.

Just email to Dropbox and it'll sync onto the device.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#219

Post by moffkalast » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:27 AM UTC

longrod wrote: post #9

Finally! Amazon should have done this long ago. ePub v3 supports everything MOBI does and it has really extensive support across platforms. This is HUGE for people with a big eBook collection.

I mean, given that Calibre can convert from anything to the reader's native format I couldn't care less what kind of format any eBook I get is in, as long as it's not PDF.

Still it's a good thing to move to a common standard to simplify things.

Re: Retirement of Amazon MOBI eBook file format

#220

Post by ryanmercer » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 10:32 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #210

Thorentis wrote: post #25

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 re…

>I would never have bought it myself since it costs €249 (!)

I bought my Oasis 2 around for closet to 299 EUR (309.97 USD) when I was making 30k USD a year, was 100% worth it to me while I still had a fully functional kindle keyboard and kindle paperwhite 3. If you're a casual reader, that might seem expensive, but if you are chewing through 1-3 books a week like I do (heck I read 3 books last time I flew from Indianapolis to San Francisco and 2 more on the return flights), it becomes a much better price.

I've been using it for almost 5 years now which has me at a cost of 17 cents per day with thousands of hours of use (about 8 cents an hour if I had to guess).