it seems that a change recently announced by amazon opens the possibility of reading apple books on kindle devices, but unfortunately it will not be like that…
Understanding e-book formats
For years, there were two main competing eBook file formats: mobi and epub. amazon used mobi for their kindle devices, while apple used epub for what were then ibooks and are now apple books.
You are reading: Itunes books on kindle
For a while, it looked like we might end up with a single standard, as most companies adopted epub. but this was not to be, as amazon stubbornly stuck to mobi.
You could at least use apps like caliber to convert between formats, but both amazon and apple wondered what they could do to make things worse, and each concluded that the answer was to convert the standard they used into a proprietary format. amazon converted .mobi files to .azw3, while apple tagged its ebook files as .epub and added digital rights management (drm) to break compatibility.
amazon adds epub support to kindles
good e-reader spotted that amazon will add epub support to kindle later in the year. this means you will be able to use the send to kindle feature to upload epub files to your kindle and then read them there.
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Amazon has announced that all modern Kindle e-readers will support the world’s most popular e-book format, EPUB. The company recently updated its shipping to Kindle documentation and stated that it will add support for EPUB later this year. send to kindle will discontinue the ability to upload to mobi as it is an older file format and will not support newer kindle features for docs. if you already have mobi books on your kindle, they will still be accessible. Amazon is also disabling the ability to send azw to the kindle.
send to kindle is a highly underrated system for sending files to compatible devices registered to your amazon account. you can send books, pdf files and other compatible documents to your e-reader. Most people send files as attachments in their favorite email client like Outlook, Gmail or even Hotmail. you can send the documents from your main email account and the destination address is your kindle special email account, you can get information about this feature in its official help file.
In principle, this would mean that you could upload your apple book purchases to your kindle. not alone. apple’s drm means that even though the files claim to be epub, you can’t convert them to other formats.
reading apple books on kindle still not working
the change that amazon has announced will not change this.
In order to send epub books to your kindle, they must be drm free, so the books cannot have any encryption.
not only that, but tnw discovered that amazon is adding epub support “in the most amazon way possible”.
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Instead of supporting native epub files, amazon is converting them to kf8 (or azw3). What this means is that if one day you decide to escape Amazon’s walled garden, it will be difficult (although not impossible) to get all your e-books out of your kindle and onto another e-reader.
but of course that’s what the company wants.
opening up epub “support” in this incredible way is simply satiating the small percentage of advanced kindle users who like to get their books from elsewhere. sure enough, the bezos giant opens the door a bit to let some air in, but doesn’t let anything out.
Many years ago, I gained access to a book scanning machine and converted most of my print book collection to e-books. doing it myself meant I could choose the format, which I could convert at will. However, when it comes to buying e-books, I prefer the flexibility of Amazon, as I can read books on a kindle device or on an iphone or ipad in the kindle app. this move isn’t going to change that, and as tnw’s callum booth says, that’s entirely by design on amazon’s part.
photo: vikas pawar/unsplash
check out 9to5mac on youtube for more apple news:
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