Why eBooks are backwards still in 2015

I was very early when it came to eBooks. I had one of the first e-ink devices from Sony even. And by early I am talking about the year the original Kindle even out. (Sony PRS-505 I believe is the model) This was a time period where page turns were measured in seconds and nobody was talking about backlighting e-ink or high resolution. Back then though there was something very different. You wouldn’t buy an eReader based on the store (unless you bought the Kindle) it supported. I mean when it came to stores Sony’s was really never good. The difference was that Sony could play books from pretty much every store online (not Amazon but who cared since Amazon barely had any eBooks at that pooint) now a bunch of those was through some crazy Adobe DRM scheme or you had to find some DRM free books.

Now this may not sound very different but lets look at where we sit today. Now we are down to two major eBook stores. Ok there is Kobo but they really aren’t as big. The only real players anymore are Amazon and Apple. Now why does this really suck? I mean you can read your Amazon books on pretty much any platform and Apple well those can be read on a bunch. The real issue in my mind is the book stores have moved 100% cloud based. Ask anyone how to get the ePub from Apple or the Kindle azw. I can promise you nobody knows how. Most don’t even realize there are alternative readers like the Kobo which while sounding pretty cool is just the 3rd of the evils in this whole fight.

So why does this matter? Lets start by talking about issues with the two main platforms first.

Amazon

Now Amazon has always been the lockdown king. They started with mobi and have only gotten worse when it comes to DRM. To make matters worse Amazon eBooks seem to be horrible formatted and any older ones are in a pretty sad state when it comes to editing. Why is this? It really seems like Amazon wants quantity and really doesn’t care if it looks all that good. I mean look at the Kindle fonts and app. It would be awesome if they would give us one amazing font and a clean app. I mean its 2015 and I have a tablet or phone why is it I CANNOT scroll through a book? Really I still have to flip pages on a phone? This isn’t an e-ink device I have to wait a second to render the screen. And on the Kindle devices why such big margins? It’s not paper Amazon the text can goto the edge of the screen and my fingers wont go over the text (unless I’m holding it wrong).

Apple

Apple is also a lockdown king. I mean you still have to authorize your computers for iTunes. The craziest thing though about Apple’s eBooks is that you CANNOT read them on non-Apple devices! Now why would I want Apple’s eBooks in the first place. I mean it’s so locked down. First off it has scrolling which call me crazy but it changes how you read a book when you can just keep scrolling till you get to the end. Second, they are the only company which seems to realize now that we have HiDPI screens we can have some amazing fonts and that formatting matters. Apple eBooks generally have seemed better put together and they do something really crazy they seem to update more. Now this could be that I have just more recently bought Apple eBooks that are more popular then the books I got while using the kindles. Third, did I mention you can scroll in their app instead of flipping pages? Crazy I know!

So basically Amazon has some great e-ink devices which really need a UI expert (all the e-ink devices have needed this since they got HiDPI screens). At the same time I could live with Apple if it played in more places. But overall the issues comes down to one think DRM and the lack of easy exporting has made the whole ecosystem worse. Vendor lock-in is horrible. I mean I have book in Kobo (Sony books transferred there), Amazon and Apple along with some random publishers who are awesome to distribute DRM-free eBooks. If there was just a way for me to pull down an epub even if it had to be authorized would be awesome. (Part of Apple’s formatting advantage is epub)

So eBooks are backwards since they haven’t picked up on what saved the music industry with DRM-free music. If you really want to read eBooks try and find a DRM-free source of epubs. That is the best long term option to speak with your wallet. As for what to do right now if just must jump into the DRM lake? Well if you got a iPhone and iPad personally I would with iBooks but just cause it is a better experience for me. If you’re using Android or really paranoid about switching (and don’t care about scrolling) jump on Amazon. I mean the only reason I would avoid eBooks right now is just cause you have to choose one which sucks.

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And the E-Book wars begin!

First shots are now being fired in the real start of the e-book wars. Many would argue that the e-book wars started a with the Kindle trying to rival the Sony Book Reader. Back then epub seemed young and weak and Amazon was the 800 pound gorilla. And this has seemed to be true for the last year or so. The Kindle was synonymous with e-book reader and pretty much every other reader went epub hoping that the “openness” would win readers over from the Kindle. Now Apple with the announcement of the iPad has showed up on the scene and if Amazon was a 800 pound gorilla, well Apple is some kind of shiny new 20 ton battle tank.

Sure we have seen Amazon king for awhile now but what is going on now? Amazon the biggest book retail just lost a deal with Macmillan! This shows that Amazon has got to be to powerful. They are so powerful the book publishers are willing to walk away to someone they know they can challenge them but will give them a better posision. Apple says it will price match Amazon well if your books are not even on Amazon what is there to price match? Jobs talks about publishers pulling out of Amazon. Apple is providing a perfect marketplace for the book publishers. They are using epub (the open standard publishers agree on) and not using mobi like Amazon. Apple never said anything at their event about DRM for the e-books but we can assume that they will start with Apple’s own version of DRM. The question though is will Apple be able to force ebooks to become DRM free as it did with MP3s?

The fact that Apple is doing epub is something many may not realize the importance of. Epub in the past has always been a format that even though its an standard and open has always been controlled by Adobe. Adobes renderer has been the bane of many people who really know the epub spec and write a document to the spec only to find Adobe’s renderer does not work as it was intended. Apple now has a chance to come in and show the true power of epub.

What we are watching right now is just a minor skirmish who knows what wonderful things we will get out of this ebook war. We may finally see affordable college textbooks that don’t break students backs economically or physically. We may see DRM be gone from another media format. Really though all to truly know at this point is it will be very interesting to watch.

Brick and mortar book stores jumping on the ebook bandwagon.

Amazon was the first major bookseller to jump on the ebook bandwagon but now we are seeing Barnes & Noble join Amazon with the acquisition of Fictionwise. This can only mean good things as currently vendor lock in is being attempted by Amazon. Barnes & Noble does not directly make a ebook reader though I have heard that they sell Sony Readers. This hopefully means that the idea of walking into a bookstore and buying ebooks will be closer and hopefully means we will have at least another option of major retailer pushing ebooks. Also Fictionwise has been one of the biggest online ebook retailers for awhile now and tries to do multiple formats for books as much as possible unlike Mobipocket which Amazon bough which only releases books in the mobi format. Hopefully Barnes & Noble will use its position to push for more epub support if it has DRM support or not I really don’t care I just am hoping to see a good standard format win the format war.

Links:

• pcmag.com