Mobipocket Reader faces unlikely future - and will leave a vacuum
Published by Steve Litchfield at 8:33 UTC, April 28th 2009
There's a nice piece by Chris Meadows here talking about the future for Mobipocket and its previously ubiquitous ebook reader software, now that Amazon have not only bought Mobipocket but are competing against it vigorously with its own Kindle hardware and software. In fact, it's looking increasingly as if Amazon bought Mobipocket simply to put paid to a competitor. Yet there's nothing else decent to fill the vacuum on S60 and Symbian. Read on for some thoughts and links.
Mobipocket Reader has been a feature of the PDA and smartphone world for years - hey, I even switched to it years ago as the de facto format for distributing my own Trivopaedia - but things have been increasingly on hold ever since the buyout of Mobipocket by Amazon in April 2005. The version for S60 3rd Edition has been essentially the same since early in 2006 and there's no sign at all of a beta for S60 5th Edition. Meanwhile the number of grumbling users is growing.
And it's not as if Mobipocket Reader was perfect as-is. There's not even a basic 'Find' function, which is, frankly, unbelievable after all this time. The problem is Amazon's takeover, of course, with precious little resources plied in Mobipocket's direction. And I'm starting to agree with Chris that action after all this time isn't at all likely.
It's not as if we're all demanding that an ebook reader should be free - far from it, I and countless others would no doubt be happy to pay £10 for something that worked and was still being actively developed. But, curiously, there's a complete vacuum of development in this software genre. It's as if noone's at all serious.
I do believe that ebooks are a wonderful resource, especially DRM-free, public domain texts (reference works, older fiction, etc) - and it's terrifically useful to roll your own, bundling up large amounts of reference text or translations. But just because the books (and creating your own books) are free doesn't mean that the reader software has to be. And yet there are no challengers to take on the task of handling anything other than the most trivial ebooks.
Other than Mobipocket Reader, there are a few possibilities, claimed to work for S60 3rd Edition phones at least. I copied three '.prc' format ebooks onto my memory card on the Nokia N95 and tried opening them in a variety of readers. One was a plain text affair, one was password-protected and one had embedded hyperlinks. A fairly typical (if moderately challenging) set of files.
eReader Pro has been in 'beta' for ages and flatly refused to show my ebooks, wherever I put them, let alone open them.
QReader has been promising to 'update soon' for years and, while it would happily show my three ebooks, it also couldn't open any of them, popping up the unhelpful 'unknown file open error'.
eBook Mobile also seems somewhat abandoned, with the developers admitting that it only handles the most vanilla of files and that there's no touch/S60 5th Edition version planned anyway. The opening file manager screen let me see all my ebooks, but opening all of them gave 'eBook Mobile Invalid format!'
I'm somewhat appalled that these tools are so flaky, that they're so lacking in development and that they don't work most of the time, it seems. It doesn't say a lot for the ebook scene that the three year old build of a long bought-out product is still by far the best application for the job.
There seems to be a big gap in the market here for an enterprising young developer. Something that has good file compatibility and which will work happily on the new breed of large screened, touch-enabled Symbian-powered phones.
Can you suggest a candidate? Or have I missed an obvious software contender?
Steve Litchfield, AAS
PS. it's worth noting in this context that there's no sign of a 'Kindle' application for Symbian, along the lines of the client for the iPhone - but any insiders at Amazon are welcome to drop us a line if there's news of development in this area. The Kindle ecosystem seems to also be USA-only at the moment, though doubtless it will appear in other markets in time.
Categories: Software, Miscellaneous, Links of Interest, Editorial Thoughts
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition
News Discussion
I've never seen anyone in public staring at their phones for long periods of time, so I can't have seen anyone reading an ebook.
The much hyped eInk-equipped Kindle apparently has sold less than one million units since it launched. That's pretty much the same rate of sales as the original gen N-Gage.
Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) seems not to read that many physical books, or at least doesn't remember them if he does:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/43/bezos.html
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What are your three favorite books? My favorite novel is The Remains of the Day. My favorite business book is Built to Last. Let's see ... three books. Well, my favorite movie is Dr. Strangelove. I'm a huge Peter Sellers fan. And I think Mike Myers is the new Peter Sellers. I think he's fantastic. |
I have hope that the developers of Stanza might release an S60 5th version if the N97 really takes off sells in big numbers. Unfortunately its more likely that this will be one of an increasing number of categories of software where Apple's more "computing platform" focussed approach will attract the lion's share of the development community.
I'm one of them who does but I never read while on the go as the screen is a bit too small for my taste (and humpy roads when sitting on the bus).
That said most of my ebooks are in the pdf or chm format and I therefore often use the pdf reader more than mobipocket.
However I've found many great books in the prc format which Mobipocket takes and many of them are of great enjoyment value.
http://tequilacat.org/dev/br/index-en.html
The beauty of ebooks on my phone is that I can quickly read a few pages and paragraphs whenever I have a few minutes to spare without having to carry a physical book. I can read, stop and then pick up where I left off without much hassle.
I do four things on my E90 most: voice, sms/email, browsing and ebook reading.
I'm amazed Nokia's done an official audiobook app and podcast app but no ebook app... wouldn't ebooks be the easiest starting point?
Being the eternal optimist, though, perhaps amazon are going to use it as the basis for a Symbian version of Kindle?
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Hi, Sorry, right now we do not support this phone. We are working on a version of our eReader reading software for this platform (Symbian OS 9.4 + S60 platform 5th Edition), however, we do not have an exact release date at this time. Best Regards, Ted eReader.com Support Team |
Thanks for the heads-up on Shortcovers, they have an S60 app in the works.
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Originally Posted by xerxes
I have read many ebooks on a variety of devices including Psion, Palm, Pocket PC, N95, and now iPhone using the fabulous Stanza software.
I have hope that the developers of Stanza might release an S60 5th version if the N97 really takes off sells in big numbers. Unfortunately its more likely that this will be one of an increasing number of categories of software where Apple's more "computing platform" focussed approach will attract the lion's share of the development community. |
See The Register coverage here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04...buys_lexcycle/
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Originally Posted by readme
Let's not forget that iSilo is still around and in active development. Out of all the readers out there, iSilo seems to have the greatest platform coverage.
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these guys have a great app, plenty of free eBooks and previews for DRM titles with multimedia and embedded video!
I can't believe that I missed this!
Bluey,
The site is in Russian, but it should be relatively easy to understand. The software come with an english interface by default.
Mobipocket do a pretty good job (although my aging eyes would like the option for a slightly larger font, just because the E90's internal screen insists on using a smaller font than the external one, which always struck me as odd).
Anyway, I have the background set to yellow with black text, which gives me the best setup for bedtime reading with the light off - clear display but without bright glare.
I like MobiPocket's slim progress bar at the bottom of the screen. I like the fact that I can choose my font and font size, text and background colour. I like the fact that I can use the space bar to "turn the page" (it's the most comformable key to use - much better than the D-pad). Lots of things about MobiPocket Reader just work well for reading a book. I also like the fact that I can make notes (albeit only by synching changes made on the PC end) about my books (give them ratings, write my own precis, make notes about what other books are in the same series, and in what order, etc.). For me, an eBook reader needs all these features, and others I probably haven't remembered.
Features I'd like to see on a S60-based app - whatever it's written in (i.e. not needing sync with a PC): the ability to add my own comments, rating, etc.; Library views showing both title and author (unlike a real book, you don't get a reminder of what you're reading every time you pick up the "book") - Mobipocket gives you the option to open in library view (with the current book selected), but only shows the title, not the author). I read a lot, but often forget what / who I'm in the middle of reading. Maybe it's just me ...; the ability to categorise / tag / label books in whatever combination I choose, and view/filter the "library" by tag / label / category as well as by whatever built-in tag (such as genre) that the book is given by the publisher. It appears that if you change device, you also have to re-download secure (DRMed) MobiPocket format books, so it would be useful to keep a note of where you purchased too!
One particular book I read prompted me to look for more in the series, and I discovered that the next book was only available in eReader format (and later ones in no e-format at all), so I bought that, and installed eReader. It was awful. A lot of the formatting was poor on the internal screen (I don't even ever attempt to e-read on the external screen), with italics in particular not being rendered in the correct font size, and disappearing off the screen. It frequently seemed to "forget" part of my settings, so it would remember my font size, but forget how that related to page size, so turning the page would skip a couple of paragraphs. There was a poor (read uncomfortable) choice of keys for page turning so that I reverted to automatic scrolling which I don't much like, no option for scrolling part of a page, and numerous other annoying things I can't even remember. From now on, no matter how good the book, I won't buy it if the only option is eReader format ... unless I can find a better app that supports that format.
It may be "simple" to write a e-reading app, but there are still a lot of things that you can get right or wrong in the process that make a big difference to whether it's a pleasure or a battle to use it.
Then, I'd just like to see a much wider availability of up-to-date e-books! Bring on the latest Pratchett, etc.
Julie
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Originally Posted by Unregistered
Well, here you go. A freeware ebook reader for S60 5th, with txt support, basic FB2 support (use Any2FB for conversion from the usual batch of formats). Developed by a lone hobby programmer somewhere in Russia. Mad props to the guy: http://zxstyles.allnokia.ru/index.php
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