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Sony/Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t work on the Mac, reports Chamber Four
August 29, 2009 | 4:47 pm
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By Paul Biba
This is a major problem if Chamber Four is correct. Sony proudly announced a Mac version of its library software at its press conference last week and many of us were delighted. Since I no longer have a working Sony Reader I downloaded the software to my Mac but I haven’t tried it out yet. Now, Chamber Four is reporting a major problem. If Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t work on the Mac. then all us Mac users are left out of a lot of the new stuff Sony announced. Here is the report from Chamber Four. Mac users should read the full report because Chamber Four had other major problems as well:
… In the 8 months between then and now, I’ve switched to a Mac laptop, and Sony’s had plenty of time to improve their software and finally, finally make a Mac version. So my first question is this: is it better? My second, more realistic question: is it even usable?
The short answers are no, and not really. Even worse, Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t recognize the Reader, so Sony’s newly hyped library ebooks won’t work on Macs. The long and the short of it is that Mac users should think long and hard about getting a Reader.
Let’s get into the details.
Library eBook support: F- Does not work on Macs
Adobe Digital Editions, which enables the DRM on PDF and ePub library ebooks, doesn’t recognize the Reader at all. This isn’t a bug, or an oversight; this is a known issue, as Adobe said when I started a support thread on it.
This is slightly shocking, seeing as library ebook support was the issue of the day at Sony’s big announcement Tuesday. You’d think they’d at least mention somewhere that it won’t be available on Macs.
It also means that Sony’s vaunted content “relationships” are unavailable for Mac users. Without ADE, you can’t buy books from any store but Sony’s.
Can any of our readers help clarify this situation?
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Comments:
Has he yet tried to borrow a library eBook? When I installed EBL for XP, it took over all the functions of ADE. Library ePubs went straight to the Sony software, bypassing ADE altogether. I don’t know if this is because I already had ADE installed, but it made me wonder if ADE is now superfluous and if the Sony software now incorporates all that it requires for Adobe DRM.
I managed to do this today on my Mac with a library book. The only trick was, I had to authorize my reader (a Sony 505) to my Adobe ID via ADE on my virtual Windows pc first. Once the reader is authorized via ADE in Windows, then the Sony library program takes over the function of sending the library book to the reader on the Mac – ADE was really only necessary on the Mac to authorize the computer initially, and now I no longer need it, but I don’t think I can uninstall it, because the Sony program uses the Adobe ID information that ADE stored in my keychain.
So basically, the steps were:
1. Install ADE on my virtual Windows pc and authorize my reader through it.
2. Install ADE on my Mac and authorize the Mac.
3. Install Sony ebook library on the Mac
4. Allow Sony ebook library to use the keychain information created by ADE when prompted.
5. Check out library book, right click on downloaded link and open with Sony ebook library rather than ADE
6. Drag book from library section of ebook library to main memory of my reader (within Sony ebook library) after reconnecting reader to Mac computer. (I had trouble getting it to work on the SD card – not sure if that was just me, or if the book must be in the main memory).
7. Eject the reader.
I hope this helps!
Hi,
Sorry it took me a little while to follow up, I was out of town and internet range this weekend.
Mike and BookLoverToo are exactly right.
EBL 3.0 now takes care of the Adobe DRM, so you can open ePub library books and Adobe books bought at other ebookstores directly in the Sony EBL software. So the news is not as bad as I first thought.
However, Adobe Digital Editions won’t recognize a Sony Reader on a Mac, for some reason. That means that you’ll have to find a Windows PC and follow BookLoverToo’s steps in order to register your Reader with your Adobe account before you can use it with Adobe DRMed ebooks on your Mac.
That’s really annoying, but it’s only a one-time annoyance, and a far cry from unusable, as I originally thought.
Sorry for my confusion, hope that clears things up.
Nico
Hey all,
Just wanted to provide a newbie’s perspective on Mac compatibility. I’ve never used ADE before, but I can state for a fact that you can put Adobe DRMed ebooks on a Sony Reader (in my case, the PRS-600 Touch Edition) using nothing but a Mac and the Sony eBookLibrary software. I’ve got a library book on there right now, and my Reader’s been nowhere near a Windows PC or Adobe Digital Editions software. Like I said, I’m new to this whole thing, but from my perspective, I don’t see why I’d need to bother with the Adobe software at all when Sony’s EBL for Mac handles everything just on its own.
Cheers,
Michael
Michael,
I alo have a PRS-600 Touch edition, and have no trouble having EBL recognise the books on my reader. Unfortunately, I don’t live in North Aerica, haven’t got a billing address there, and so can’t download books from EBL. I have to use English bookstores that have ebooks in ADE format. My reader has been authorised in WIndows (partitioned my Mac) but ADE won’t recognise it in the Mac OS system. It’s a pain having to reboot to WIndows format to download books, and I wonder if anyone out there can help. When I install ADE on the Mac, I don’t get any instructions to authorise my Mac as Booklover Two suggests.
Hello. I have a mac I bought the eBook reader prs-600 recently. I just can not make the elibrary work properly. It launches the library and nothing happens although the icon of the elibrary appears in my doc. I’ve installed it several times and any of those times it worked. Can somebody help me?
I have a Macbook with Snow Leopard. I bought a downloaded digital edition book and installed Adobe’s digital reader. It reads very well–plenty of display options. It does not support the bookmarking, annotating, copy/paste or printing functions which have icons or menu commands on the program. ADE will not open the document from within the program–gives a “no permissions” error message.
To open the book, I go to the digital editions document and click its Adobe PDF icon. That brings up a dialog window asking if I want to open it as Adobe Digital Editions in order to activate the permissions. That works.
The book I bought is designed to provide handouts for instructional purposes. I use Apple’s Grab.app to transfer those pages, in a non-editable text box, to the word processor or the pdf reader for hard copy printing.
So it does work, but it’s a pain in the drain to work around all its unsupported functions.
I think there’s a pay-for version of the Adobe digital reader. I haven’t checked on whether it would activate all those beyond-read-only functions.
I have bought a Sony Pocker Reader and i can’t download the software. It starts up but then cuts off and won’t load the programme, i have tried it on 4 different pcs to see if it was the internet. I have also taken it backto the Sony Centre and they could work it out and gave me a new one to try. That doesn’t work either. I have tired to download updated software, but it said that it would take 6hrs to download and i have a fast boardband connection, so i left it and it cut off after about an hour say that there was an error with the software. I have run out of ideas what do i do, can anyone help please
PLEASE HELP!
THis is driving me crazy!
I’ve tried the steps that Booklover suggested, but now I’ve loaded ADE onto my windows machine it still doesn’t recognise the reader. I plug it in and nothing. I now have ADE on a MAC and a Windows machine but it doesn’t see the reader on either. What do I do?
Hx