What's the point of mobile book formats?

March 11, 2009 by Amr

I do a bit of reading on my mobile device (Nokia E71, which runs S60 3rd edition) almost every day. I was really surprised to find how competent the default browser is, even with websites with complex layouts. It works with more than 90% of the websites. I was under the impression only HTML would be supported. But turned out CSS and Javascript are supported to very good degrees as well and I can't help but wonder: Why are there so many different formats for ebooks on the mobile and special programs to open them (for different platforms)?

Most e-book readers give you a way to convert books in existing formats to a proprietary or non-standard format, usually using a PC tool (i.e. for operating systems like GNU/Linux). Then you should install a reader on your mobile device to read it in the new format later. I was surprised when I found that for the Plucker project, the input format is most of the time, good old HTML. Oh well, HELLO?! My mobile device already does have a web browser capable of HTML.

If you really need to help, then give me better, cleaner HTML with things such as a table of contents, click-able images, ...etc. And the list can go on for small optimizations which mostly can be done using javascript!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying HTML is a great format for books. No, I'm not. I'm saying that none of the other *new* formats and programs does any better job than plain old HTML with an average browser. I encourage HTML because: It exists. It's supported. It's not complex by today's standards.

Why can't people use formats such as DocBook? Which together with something like XSLT, or XML tools, can be converted to almost any format. Actually, out of the box, you can convert any docbook to HTML and PDF (and other formats). And I can grow on my own XSLT with all the conveniences I want and I use that to convert to HTML and read on my device. People can then share their XSLTs which all in all seems like a better exploitation of the current available technologies.

What am I missing here?

Example of HTML-formatted books (try pointing your mobile device to each of them):

• The Banjo Players Must Die by Josef Assad (Homepage: http://sancairodicopenhagen.com/)
• The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 by J. Arthur Thomson (Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20417)

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