Despite my sarcastic title, this is really good news for the ebook community. The availability of ebooks on more and more platforms can only be good for the medium. Here is part of the announcement from Mobipocket today:
Do you read emails on your Blackberry? Why not read ebooks and enews? Download the free Mobipocket eBook Reader on your Blackberry, and enjoy the reading experience. The online eBookstore is also integrated: find and start reading your favorite stories 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, straight from your Blackberry! Read on and discover how your Blackberry can become the ultimate ebook reader.
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Forget your desktop computer: the Mobipocket Reader now gives you Over The Air (OTA) access to the entire eBook catalogue from your Blackberry. At any time, and you can be anywhere, you will find your favorite stories among more than 65.000 premium titles ! Download and try free samples, read other reader’s reviews, buy and download instantly the titles you like… all from your Blackberry.
And of course, all the titles in your library can be downloaded or redownloaded at any time from your account.
I think people with Blackberries are among the most likely to need to read–to destress. I’m impressed with Mobipocket’s ability to support multiple devices and I’m excited about the plans that Fictionwise has for its eReader format (not to mention dropping the price of its pro version–long overdue).
The more the major formats are available across virtually all platforms, the more the ‘tower of eBabel’ becomes an issue only for publishers (which we can deal with although we don’t like it) rather than a critical roadblock toward accepting eBooks for readers.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
Mobipocket even supports the Symbian format and is the only ebook program available for my Nokia E61i. eReader supported some older Symbian versions but told me that they had no plans to support any of the newer phones. Kudos to MobiPocket.
I recently bought a Blackberry Curve 8820, downloaded the Mobipocket Reader, synchronized my device with my online Mobipocket library, and downloaded only the books I want to read on my device. Excellent experience as all it took was a couple of minutes and I can start reading! Although the screen was small, the font adjusted to a comfortable size for me could easily accomodate an average of 9 lines with 4 words across – and turning the page in an instant by pressing the space bar.
By turning wi-fi and bluetooth off, the battery should last a few days without charging (standby time is 17 days). I’m not using it as a phone also. Because the device weighs a mere 115g and small enough to fit my palm, I can read holding the device in one hand. The size is ideal as it’s discretely small. Because I always have my blackberry with me (have been using one for 5 years), the ability to read ebooks on it is definitely a plus.
Mobipocket’s ubiquity is pretty good. What’s bad is that — like everybody else — they consider Palm a dead platform, and haven’t updated the reader in years.