Sony Reader gains EPUB, Adobe Digital Editions support
Big Sony news broke while I was sleeping: according to MobileRead, Sony is opening up their Reader to work with third-party formats. Checking the official press release confirms it as next month, the Sony Reader PRS-505 will support expanded content selections. Aside from books in Sony’s format from the Sony eBook store, their Reader will work with content in both the EPUB standard as well as Adobe’s Digital Editions.
Opening up the hardware to additional formats is about the only way Sony can compete with Amazon’s Kindle from a hardware perspective. Last I checked, there were roughly five times more Amazon Kindle titles available than Sony-compatible titles, so this move should help. I’m still staying away from a dedicated eBook reader for a few reasons. I already have hundreds of titles in the eReader format, which won’t work on either the Kindle or the Sony Reader. Plus, I’m pretty happy with the eReader app on the iPhone, which should be getting an upgrade within the next week or two based on our recent chat with the Fictionwise folks.
What’s concerning to me is that the Sony PR only addresses the PRS-505, not the older PRS-500. I would hope that a firmware upgrade is in the works for the first-gen product. And I may be reading into the press release too much, but Sony says that "new Readers model PRS-505, will be able to access and accept secure and non-secure ebooks in the EPUB format". I hope that doesn’t mean "new" as in existing PRS-505 units won’t have this capability.
Wow, it took them only a year…
http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2007/06/sony_reader_to_.html
I think you’re not reading the press release closely enough. It talks about people being able to upgrade their existing 505s. Though I do have to wonder about my 500…
Well, the press release talks about the update for the 505 being available today, doesn’t it?
This cake has been baking in the oven since *February*. Some of us thought it’d never come out. Now on to see what people who plop it in think of it. Probably full of Adobe DRMish nastiness.
But eInk? Dead, Jim!
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/eink-ebook-readers-theyre-all-dead-jim/
I haven’t tried it on my Touch so I have no real world experience but it would seem to me that it would be hard to read a book on it. I tried PC World using the Zinnio reader on my 19″ LCD and went back to the paper version.
A necessary move on Sony’s part, but it doesn’t impress me. The content champs right now appear to be Amazon Kindle/Mobi,
ereader and, yes, MS Reader. Adobe Digital Editions have the ugliest DRM I’ve ever had to endure, and I haven’t got the one book I bought in that format to work properly on my main tablet. (I bought an ereader copy with homelier graphics and have been satisfied with that) As for epub, I just haven’t seen enough titles to pass judgment yet.
What I’m really excited about is the upcoming Astak Mentor, assuming they are able to deliver. There’s a thread about it on Mobileread, it’s worth a look. 5, 6 and 9-inch screen models to come, secure ereader and PDF support using industry standard eink displays (in fact the preliminary drawings of the 6-inch model look suspiciously like the Cybook Bookeen….
I haven’t tried it on my Touch so I have no real world experience but it would seem to me that it would be hard to read a book on it. I tried PC World using the Zinnio reader on my 19″ LCD and went back to the paper version.
Wonder if the comments *now* work (been trying all day)…
Anyway, update is only for the PRS-505, and it’s available now as a downloadable update (as stated in the press release). Get it from here:
http://ebookstore.sony.com/downloadclient.html
You know, when Apple announced version 2 of its iPhone software, I knew– knew! — that my original iPhone would benefit from it. I can’t say why, except that Apple is pretty generous with its updates. I’m disappointed that Sony is leaving its original customers of the Reader behind. This move doesn’t inspire me to invest in Sony products. Thankfully, I’m still pretty happy with my Reader. But when I want a change, I will probably look elsewhere.
@Pam – I’ve been an Apple customer since 1993 and they have had a history of leaving original customers behind like Sony has done with the PRS-500. Sometimes, it happens and it’s the luck of the draw or due to some technological reason. I certainly won’t let this discourage me from buying Sony, just like I haven’t let it stop me from purchasing Apple products.
That being said, I’ll be downloading the update for my PRS-505 and continue using eReader on my iPod Touch as a nighttime reading device (love the backlight!!)
@Angel – Thanks for the reply. Perhaps you’re right; I may be judging Sony too harshly or complimenting Apple too quickly. I went looking for an explanation for why Sony is not updating the PRS-500 and it may be that the PRS-500 has insufficient memory for the update.
No way! They better come out with a PRS-500 update soon. Or esel Sony would really be screwing their early adopters. There’s no justification for them not to since the hardware differences are not that great.