Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!

smashman42

Did a search and didn't find any note about this on here yet, so here it is.

I saw the update for the latest Bookworm premium ePub, so I converted and sent it to my phone's Kindle email addy via Calibre as usual, and it worked like usual, but then I got this extra email...

Dear Kindle Customer,

Thank you for using the Send to Kindle service to send personal documents to your Kindle library. We noticed that the following document(s), sent by you at 12:26 PM on Tuesday, June 21, 2022 GMT are in MOBI (.mobi, .azw) formats:

Ascendance of a Bookworm_ Part 4 Founder of the Royal Academy's So-Called Library Committee Volume 7 - Miya Kazuki.mobi

We wanted to let you know that starting August 2022, you’ll no longer be able to send MOBI (.mobi, .azw) files to your Kindle library. Any MOBI files already in your library will not be affected by this change. MOBI is an older file format and won’t support the newest Kindle features for documents. Any existing MOBI files you want to read with our most up-to-date features for documents will need to be re-sent in a compatible format.

Compatible formats now include EPUB (.epub), which you can send to your library using your Send to Kindle email address. We’ll also be adding EPUB support to the free Kindle app for iOS and Android devices and the Send to Kindle desktop app for PC and Mac.

If you have any questions, please visit our help page or contact our Customer Service team.

Regards,
Amazon Kindle Support

So TL;DR..

They're bringing in EPUB support to the Android and iOS Kindle apps, and the send to Kindle windows/mac apps
The send to Kindle email address already supports ePubs (must convert them to a newer Amazon format?)
They are dropping legacy MOBI and AZW imports in August

Dunno how many people still use Kindle apps/physical devices on here, but it used to be pretty common so thought I'd share the info

kuali

...I wonder about the stuff they write on those releases, sometimes. .epub files are basically just zip files full of xhtml and jpg files. What on earth do they support that mobi and azw do not?

Still, nice to know about the upcoming epub support in the android app :)

Geezer Weasalopes

@kuali said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

...I wonder about the stuff they write on those releases, sometimes. .epub files are basically just zip files full of xhtml and jpg files. What on earth do they support that mobi and azw do not?

Still, nice to know about the upcoming epub support in the android app :)

.epub is a non-proprietary format.
.mobi and .azw weren't. I'm not sure off the top of my head which firm first developed .mobi for their eReader, but .azw is an Amazon developed and controlled format.
This would seem to indicate Amazon is shifting from maintaining their own eBook format to utilizing an open source standard, albeit possibly with tweaks such as B&N does.
The fewer file formats I have to worry about when looking at eReader software, the better, so long as nothing truly snazzy is lost.

kuali

@Weasalopes The amazon fluff @smashman42 quoted specifically said that .mobi and .azw were being depreciated because:

MOBI is an older file format and won’t support the newest Kindle features for documents.

Which has little to do with the file format's openness (or lack thereof). In terms of features, epub is more of a 'lowest common denominator' format, so what features does it have that mobi lacks?

@Weasalopes said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

This would seem to indicate Amazon is shifting from maintaining their own eBook format to utilizing an open source standard, albeit possibly with tweaks such as B&N does.
The fewer file formats I have to worry about when looking at eReader software, the better, so long as nothing truly snazzy is lost.

Sadly, you are giving Amazon too much credit here. They are ditching the oldest of their three proprietary ebook formats (.azw) in favor of the more recent two (.azw3 and .kfx).

saffire

@kuali said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

@Weasalopes The amazon fluff @smashman42 quoted specifically said that .mobi and .azw were being depreciated because:

MOBI is an older file format and won’t support the newest Kindle features for documents.

Which has little to do with the file format's openness (or lack thereof). In terms of features, epub is more of a 'lowest common denominator' format, so what features does it have that mobi lacks?

The determination to end support for MOBI has nothing to do with feature sets. Amazon simply wants to end support for some of their own archaic formats. That's it. Which...you acknowledge further down so I guess I don't really understand what you're driving at. The email itself says absolutely nothing about EPUB being a superior format or anything like that.

Geezer Weasalopes

@kuali
We're clearly looking at it from different perspectives.
My question would be, "What do these proprietary formats add that I find of use?"
So far, nothing I'm aware of.
Other than a headache if I desire being able to access my various eBooks using something other than proprietary software.
Something with the least deviation from a well supported open standard suits me just fine.

I'm working on the presumption that eventually I'll be in a Medicaid retirement facility with who knows what kind of internet access, hopefully the most long-term stable laptop or such I've laid my hands on and an eBook collection that can be accessed without requiring an internet handshake to unlock them so I can read them.
Fancy bells and whistles I don't need.

And given I'm in my sixties and on disability retirement since I was 45, that could be a heck of a lot sooner than one might think.
I'm attempting to prepare for that in how I obtain and manage digital media.
And just hope I don't come down with Alzheimer's like my mom, her dad, and one of her brothers all did.

Anyway, what format best suits the needs of a given individual can really vary.
If you don't need a given feature, the lack of it isn't even noticed, while its presence might even prove irritating.

kuali

@saffire Because Amazon said, in the same message:

We're removing support for azw and mobi because they're obsolete
We're adding support for epub

Which seems an odd combination to pick when epub isn't exactly built to support whatever super-new features azw is getting dropped for lacking.

@Weasalopes said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

We're clearly looking at it from different perspectives.

Yes, apparently so. I'm wondering what Amazon's motivation for those changes is. I know perfectly well why an end-user would want epub support. Frankly the lack of it in the kindle line last time I upgraded is why I own a kobo.

Amazon just tend to be more in the business of locking kindles down than making their owners happy.

Geezer Weasalopes

@kuali said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

Yes, apparently so. I'm wondering what Amazon's motivation for those changes is. I know perfectly well why an end-user would want epub support. Frankly the lack of it in the kindle line last time I upgraded is why I own a kobo.
Amazon just tend to be more in the business of locking kindles down than making their owners happy.

Just had a thought on that, while off cooking breakfast.

This is all about formats being accepted by Amazon for importing eBooks to your Kindle account.
Amazon isn't shifting to epub for export.
Amazon is saying they will no longer accept items in way ancient Amazon file formats.
They'd prefer you submit in a newer Amazon proprietary format, yes, but lacking that, you can use epub as a fallback format when sending the files to be imported to your library.

I suspect there are a lot of places where you can obtain legal copies of eBooks where the more recent Amazon file formats are not an option for export. [That's for sure the case with the Baen CD images running around the web; legal images, but they haven't released a new Baen CD since Jim died.]
There are utilities which will perform conversions to the recent formats, but the output may not always be 'clean' from Amazon's perspective; they probably run them through a proofing engine to tweak them properly upon receipt.
Why bother.
Why have readers take their epub, run it through a converter, send it to Amazon... and Amazon still goes through a proofing process.
Send the bleeping epub to us untweaked and we'll handle the conversion process; it could well result in less expense on Amazon's part to do it that way.

That's what's in it for Amazon.
It saves them money when processing ebooks for which they receive no revenues.

Shiny

Thanks for the news. It would be great if JNC could be given our Kindle email addresses and then give us the option to manually or automatically send premium epubs to our Kindle. I seem to recall that Humble Bundle have a send to Kindle option like this already.

admin

@Shiny Now that they implemented this change we probably could finally implement a button that does that!
Beforehand, we would have had to internally convert to .mobi which was a bit more complicated since we would have had to run Amazon's tool that does that.

Basically Amazon's kindles still don't support epub files themselves, but Amazon has now built in the epub->azw converter into the process when you send files to your kindle over email.

One rub though, I do think that there is a filesize limit for the email system (which is more about email than Amazon), which would make doing it for manga epubs not possible right now. But most novel epubs are <25 MB so should be okay?

We'd have to do some experimentation. It's still most foolproof to convert with calibre and the copy the file over directly onto your hardware.

kuali

@admin said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

But most novel epubs are <25 MB so should be okay?

The ones without premium illustrations as bonus extras, perhaps.

The smallest Ascendance of a Bookworm LN is P2V1 - at 26.6MB. The largest (P4V5) is 38.6. :(

smashman42

Just reading the first book I know for sure I emailed as a EPUB (Bookworm Academy Stories V1) and they've compressed the hell out of it and made the pictures unreadable

Looks like I'll need to figure out what other formats they use to replace mobi & azw and still manually convert in Calibre

SomeOldGuy

I really don't know what to do on this.

Granted, it would be easier to submit stuff as epubs, since no conversion would be needed. However, the epubs are bigger than the mobi files output by calibre, AND the "submit to Amazon" in the version I have insists on converting them to mobi format.

But, Amazon is going to stop accepting mobi files next month.

As for file size, I've bumped my file system to handle larger files than Amazon does, so I've already experienced transfer failures.

poisonedbite

the benefit of using azw3/azw4 over azw/mobi is drm. That's it.

Jon Mitchell

@poisonedbite said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

the benefit of using azw3/azw4 over azw/mobi is drm. That's it.

the benefit to amazon you mean?
probably one benefit, there might also be a benefit to amazon in how they store files. New formats might compress smaller in amazon's proprietary storage infrastructure, or play 'nicer' with deduplication protocols (another way to squeeze more data/files in storage) - making those files take less space

or if this change (upload of ePub) removes an objection a consumer had to buying a kindle branded device - might increase device sales (which lead to more kindle store sales)

or this change lead to more files in AWS libraries that amazon can mine for metadata, for marketing purposes: "I see you like AoaB, perhaps you'd also like this other title that amazon sells.."

Kurzaa

@smashman42 what do you mean by the pictures are unreadable? I was using a 2010 (?) Kindle Reader with a keyboard until just recently and I was unable to display any photos from the Banished from the Heroes Party books purchased through Amazon / Kindle Store.

During Prime Day, I purchased a "new" Kindle Reader, the basic 167 PPI model with a light. While I haven't checked the images in Banished yet, I was able to view the images from VRMMO Academy and Zero Believers which I emailed to both my Kindle and the Kindle App on my Fire 8 Tablet.

Not sure why the Kindle App couldn't just READ the EPUB file I downloaded directly onto my Fire Tablet, obviously that would be the preferred format and easiest to use, but I didn't notice any issues with the novels themselves and I think they were still larger files (though I might be thinking of the initial download from J-Novel).

smashman42

@Kurzaa said in Loooong overdue Kindle app changes - ePub support!:

@smashman42 what do you mean by the pictures are unreadable?

Like I said above, this new auto conversion process for importing EPUB files shrunk and compressed the hell out of the images contained in the book.

Bookworm has some character profiles at the start that are full page images full of text next to pics of the characters that you have to zoom in to read if you're using the Kindle app on Android.

This new auto-conversion process made these pages unreadable, when they were fine with the old convert to MOBI/AZW first then email method.

It is like they took 4K content and shrunk it to 480p so without zooming it looks ok at first glance, then you try to zoom and it is awful

No idea about your Kindle hardware as I only have the app on Android, though it is the file import process so it would likely do the same thing regardless of your reading device - assuming the book in question has the issue of text in images like Bookworm does.

admin

@smashman42 Ah, I have a theory about that.

The auto convert is probably "optimizing" to your device. AKA it's downscaling all the images to match the pixel resolution on your kindle. If you manually convert to mobi yourself, it's likely keeping the images at a higher resolution.
I suspect there's no way around that using amazon's system.

smashman42

@admin I think so, so I'll have to see if the newer kindle formats in Calibre import properly with that "leave the images full size" option I was using when converting to MOBI.

Haven't experimented with it yet but if Calibre supports AZW3/4 or whatever the newer formats are that was mentioned above whilst keeping images unmodified, that could be the solution

saskir

Hmmmm. My take on it is simple.

Sure they add epub support as most sites still offer epub over other formats like mobi/azw(3/4), etc. If they would leave it out more people would leave the kindle eco system.

And removing mobi? Sure, why should they make a hassle to support an older format which has am Amazon equivalent.

And yes, as @admin mentioned. It has a 25mb filesize limit. Which is a pity. For example the Illustrated version of "Alice" from Seven Seas is around 74mb. And I recall some LN here whicha re also larger.

But this ladies and gentleman is why I use calibre. Simply add any format you have there (even .lit, etc) and it converts it (except it can not really do vodoo on PDF as source materials). Convert them to AZW3, connect my Kindle and I am set. And if I am not at home I simply use an OPDS Server (calibre web) over a VPN. Sure you lose Whispersync but I am not really starting a book on my kindle and continue it on my phone. But now I am getting Offtopic. Except that I see it as a solution to @Geezer-Weasalopes problem with proprietary software.