Can anyone out there explain the status of the ebook industry?
I have been reading ebooks from mobipocket on my motoq phone for a year now and I love it. But i am approaching upgrade time, and I am trying to figure out if I should go with an iphone… my concern is will I be able to read all the titles I want on the iphone.
Currently, the iphone cannot read mobipocket titles…they may be working on a reader.
Currently, the iphone has an application called Stanza…but the book catalogs available are very limited.
I don’t want a kindle, I want to read all my ebooks on my phone…but I get the sense the Amazon is locking down and limiting availability of lots of ebook titles just for the Kindle…is this right?
Basically, I just want to be able to buy any ebook I want…for any book I want…and read it on my phone…should I go to the Iphone? Should I go a different direction…should I wait…does anyone have a sense of the direction the industry is going? I don’t want to buy a Betamax.
First of all, Amazon owns Mobipocket, and most titles I see on Amazon for the Kindle are on the Mobi store too. Amazon seems to see the value in a large ebook marketplace overall - they haven’t quashed Mobi sales in any way from what I have seen, and Mobipocket files work just fine on the Kindle.
Stanza will read Kindle and Mobipocket content - but currently the software has issues with the DRM. They seem to think that this can be resolved, but we’ll see. I find I can convert nearly anything I want to read for my Kindle with minimal effort - I’m not up on the ins and outs of doing so for an iPhone I don’t own.
“issues with DRM” indeed. If by this you mean Amazon is apparently keeping mobipocket from releasing a mobipocket reader for the iphone yes it seems you are right.
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/12/02/missing-iphone-mobipocket/
Why else would Mobipocket not release a reader for the Iphone? The iphone free reader Stanza has already surpassed the Kindle…
IPhone Steals Lead Over Kindlel
Ereader’s books can be read on the iphone:
http://www.ereader.com/iphone/
I do a lot of ereader downloads, as they work on my Palm PDA. Their prices are comparable with (or perhaps better than, in some cases) Amazon’s for electronic books. They’ve also got a very good selection - most of what you could find through Amazon will also be available through Ereader.