"The Abominable Kindle Wins?"

Thought I'd pass on an amusing but insightful article from Mike Cane's iPad Test blog, which I'll quote from liberally, hoping that's okay with him.

He starts out by saying he's always hated the Kindle and has been very public about it, because (1) the Kindle 1 was "fugly" and he'd "never be seen in public with something that looked like it was designed by terrorists" and (2) most egregious of all, it didn't use ePub, the file type that has been "emerging as a 'standard'" while Amazon has been going its own way.

And then Amazon announced the Kindle Previewer, the coming WEB-based previewer of Kindle books.  He explains:

' Yesterday, Amazon announced its upcoming Kindle Previewer feature.  It will allow people with HTML5-compliant browsers to see fully-formatted Kindle eBooks on the web.  With that, Amazon has stepped into the future I’ve described here.  Amazon is now poised to take on Google and its eBook-dominating plans.

And today I just had this thought:

How many Kindles are now out there vs ePub devices?  If there are MORE K, then isn’t *K* the goddammed “standard” for eBooks now!? '

That's an interesting thought, no? --

He goes on to expand on this, and I'll quote more than I should, but if you enjoy or have a reaction to his ironic take, drop by his ipadtest site to add a comment to his unique line of thought.

' There’s a Kindle app for the iPhone and iPad.  So those tens of millions of devices are now Kindles too.

And Amazon just let loose Kindle for Android this week.  So those millions of devices can now be Kindles too.

Add up all those numbers and the population of devices that support ePub — Adobe DRMed ePub — are just crushed.  (Note: You cannot count the iPad as an ePub device because it does not do Adobe DRMed ePub — and that’s the flavor of ePub that’s been the “standard.”)

For the IDPF to continue to bray about ePub being an “eBook standard” is just desperate PR now.  The numbers are no longer there.  Hell, even writers have jumped on publishing for Kindle rather than ePub.

The numbers now support Amazon’s Kindle format as the eBook standard.

You don’t know how much I hate having to admit this.'

He goes on to talk about the situation with Amazon and public libraries, and the OverDrive program, and has an interesting take there that Amazon should actually read and consider seriously for the effect it could have.

 So, I've left a bit for you to read at Mike Cane's site,

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