Kindle for PC v. Mobipocket
Amazon has released the Kindle for the PC today. I downloaded a couple of the freebies they offer just to test it out.
It’s a reader. In the books I’ve downloaded, chapter headings are hyperlinked. You can change the size and width of the text to suit yourself and bookmark passages. Books can be sorted by title, author or most recent download and are displayed by cover art. The interface is simple. You download the book, and read the book. ’Nuff said.
I’ve been using mobile devices to read books since about 2004 or so. I started with Mobipocket. A friend of mine recommended it because they have software that syncs with Palm-based devices and Baen Free Library offered many titles in that format. (By the way, offering freebies did work. I wound up buying many more titles in series I liked). I use a Palm-based smartphone to this day and carry around a large library with me most of the time.
The Mobipocket software for the PC is a bit more robust. There are more display options and sort options, as well a way to create reading lists for syncing rather like the iTunes interface. However, the Mobipocket software is designed to sync to devices and not just as a reader, so these functions are more necessary.
These days, I really am more likely to read a book in electronic format than not. Even so, I can tell you that I’m extremely unlikely to buy a Kindle. Not because it’s a bad design. I’ve played with it. It’s a nice little device to read a book. But it’s more or less a single-use device that costs more than my Netbook. Call me the Alton Brown of technology, but I don’t buy many electronic single-taskers. There was no way I was going to buy a Kindle, nor the Kindle-formatted titles available. When I pay for electronic books, and I buy several titles a year, I’m much more likely to go to Fictionwise and get the Mobipocket versions. Then I could read them on my Palm or my PC. Now that I have a netbook, I’m more likely to be carrying my computer around with me, so having books on my Palm is less crucial to me.
I applaud Amazon for having the sense to realize that the money is in the information, and that the device may not be as important as all that.
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