Mobipocket - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mobipocket SA is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

, phones and desktop operating systems.

The Mobipocket software package is free and consists of various publishing and reading tools for PDA, Smartphones, cellular phones and e-book devices (Symbian

Symbian

Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...

, Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...

, Palm OS

Palm OS

Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...

, webOS, Java ME

Java Platform, Micro Edition

Java Platform, Micro Edition, or Java ME, is a Java platform designed for embedded systems . Target devices range from industrial controls to mobile phones and set-top boxes...

, BlackBerry

BlackBerry

BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...

, Psion, Kindle

Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

and iLiad

ILiad

The iLiad was an electronic handheld device, or e-Reader, which could be used for document reading and editing. Like the Barnes and Noble nook, Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad made use of an electronic paper display. In 2010, sales of the iLiad ended when its parent company, iRex, filed...

History

Mobipocket.com was bought by Amazon.com in 2005. Amazon's acquisition was believed to be a result of Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...

's announcement that it would no longer sell its eBook packaging and serving software.

An alpha release of the java-based version of the mobipocket reader was made available for cellphones on June 30, 2008. There is also a reader for desktop computers running Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

, which also works with computers running Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

and Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

using WINE.

Design

The software provides:

A personalized press review using the Mobipocket Web Companion, an automated content extraction tool dedicated to press articles.
eBook
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...

s, including for each book a biography of the writer. Each downloaded eBook is registered in the My Mobipocket personal virtual library, from which a user has access to any previously downloaded eBook.
A secure reading system, as a result of the encryption of eBooks (using DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...

) and unique signature, a timestamp
Trusted timestamping
Trusted timestamping is the process of securelykeeping track of the creation and modification time of a document. Securityhere means that no one — not even the owner of the document — should be able to change it once it has been recorded provided that the timestamper's integrity is never...

added to each book at the time of purchase.

Depending on the device, different functions are available. Those are usually managing of books and their metadata

Metadata

The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

, assigning books to arbitrary categories, auto-scroll, rotate by 90°/180°, bookmarks, custom hyperlink

Hyperlink

In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...

s within one or between different documents, highlighting, comments and by sketches. When transferring documents to other device types, functions that are not supported on the device will be ignored but the information one is reading will not be altered or deleted.

Implementations

There is a reader for personal computer

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

s that works with either encrypted or unencrypted Mobipocket books.

Unencrypted Mobipocket books can be read on the Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle

natively as well as in Amazon Kindle apps on Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, the iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

, Android devices, Windows, and Windows Phone

Windows Phone

Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...

devices. By using third-party programs such as Lexcycle Stanza

Lexcycle Stanza

Lexcycle Stanza is a freeware program for reading eBooks, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. The software supports the eBook formats EPUB, eReader, MS LIT, Amazon Kindle, Mobipocket, and PalmDoc, as well as general document formats HTML, PDF, MS Word, and Rich Text Format...

, calibre or Okular

Okular

Okular is the document viewer for KDE SC 4 . It is based on KPDF and it replaced KPDF, KGhostView, KFax, KFaxview and KDVI in KDE 4.Its functionality can be easily embedded in other applications....

, unencrypted Mobipocket books can also be read on Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, the iPhone

IPhone

, Android devices and Linux

Linux

.

A user can thus create documents in the Mobipocket-format (.PRC

PRC (Palm OS)

PRC is a container format for code databases in Palm OS, Garnet OS and Access Linux Platform. Its structure is similar to PDB databases. Usually, a PRC file is a flat representation of a Palm OS application that is stored as forked database on the PDA....

) and use personal comments, bookmarks and so on on all devices supporting those features. Additionally, Amazon offers a free program called KindleGen which can convert or create documents in the Mobipocket format

There is no way to print or export the text itself nor the personalized additions without manually selecting, copying and pasting them piece by piece. According to Mobipocket support a print function will be released soon; an export feature is planned but not yet in an advanced stage as consultation with publishers continues.

Despite desperate pleas from owners of Android based mobile phones, Mobipocket has not released a version for the Android platform. This is despite the web site claiming "you can read it on your desktop or to send it to any mobile device". Some users suggest that this is due to the new owners, Amazon

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

, wishing to maximise sales of their Kindle

Amazon Kindle

e-book

E-book

An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...

reader and suggest that the Mobipocket format and software are dying from intentional neglect. Owners of Android devices can download the Kindle app from the App store, which can read .mobi files.

Long term plans for the Mobipocket platform are in question in the wake of Amazon

Amazon.com

's announcement of the Kindle 8 format, which moves in the direction of HTML5 and Cascading Style Sheets#CSS3.

History

Design

Implementations

See also