It's kindles fault in that the screen limits the types of materials it can attrack. Few if any magazines could be effectively published to the device. Not even the larger distribution newspapers can publish all of their content on the device. That due to the lack of color.
No it isn't the Kindle's fault. Stop misrepresenting a brand when you are talking about the e-ink technology in general. Your comments refers to every single device that uses e-ink.
The magazines and newspapers is responsible for their own content, they aren't usually used to publishing to new media, including e-book reader. Newspaper shouldn't be a problem considering none of them actually prints in color, most of them are in black which is what e-book reader is perfect for. Both the manufacturers and the newspaper is at fault here for not trying to make their content accessible for ebook readers. Amazon is trying to push NYT newspaper on the ebook readers but there are still issues that need to be stomped out.
The problem is Kindle went after the hardest part of the market in my estimation. People like their paper novels. However papers and magazines often end up in the trash. That actually makes them a good candidate for electronic publishing.
Again, this applies to any e-book reader in general. It is up to the magazines and the novel publishers to make their content accessible for the Kindle. Amazon or any ebook manufacturers can only do so much, Amazon in general are allowing their consumers to send a request to the publisher to make their novel available for the Kindle.
Which major publisher has adopted ePUB? Can I get an ePUB version of astronomy or any of my other favorite publications. What's the distribution method. Apple has the ability to clear up all of these issues and to get the market started.
The ebook industry has been around for a decade or so, starting with MS reader format and some Palm format. Ever year there is a new format with even more screwed up closed system with DRM. ePub has started to appear within the last few years and they are increasing right now with the BN announcing major support for ePUB (with Adobe's DRM unfortunately), Sony announced ePUB support a year ago. Publishers are going to use whatever formats that will allow their content to reach the largest market possible. This wasn't possible a few years ago with multiple formats such as MS Reader, Palm, Mobipocket, eReader, PDFs and so on. We need to cut it down to one format that'll be accessible for all ebook readers but that's not going to happen as long as the stores make their own readers.
Just like Apple made it all happen by making iPod only usable with iTunes. Apple isn't perfect, they were using a closed format as well in the beginning. So don't pin all your hopes on Apple as it will take years for the market to evolute around Apple just like the iTunes/iPod. Unfortunately, this may be the only area where I can see Apple failing but I would love them to be able to succeed.
Update: I forgot to mention there is a strong possibility that Amazon will be pressured into supporting the ePub format as they are the only one that doesn't.
For example I don't resell any of my magazines but I do give them away. The same pretty much applies to old books as they are useally worthless when I get rid of them. But here and there you might be successful in getting a little cash from an old book. DRM blows this out of the water and frankly sucks.
Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen. Many publishers expressed interests in electronic publishing because it allows them to do one thing that is not possible with paper books, to be extremely restrictive in how many times a book can be shared and in this case, one time for the owner. Remember it is after all more profit for them in the end by doing this, by cutting out all publishing costs, they can sell ebooks at lower cost, effectively turning the publishing business into a low-cost large volume type of business like Dell. In many stores, the books can't even be downloaded more than 5 times for some reason as well. It's the most retarded thing ever but that's the problem with DRM. I do expect there to be some kind of family household DRM loose restriction like they do on Kindle, when there's up to 5 kindles that can be registered to the same amazon account so that all 5 family members can have the same library of books bought.
