In a recent communication, Amazon has alerted Kindle users about significant changes set to take effect from next month. The notification pertains to the phasing out of support for sending MOBI (.mobi, .azw, .prc) files through the “Send to Kindle” feature, starting November 1, 2023. This change, as News18 pointed out, specifically impacts users attempting to send MOBI files via email and Kindle apps on iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.

  • Rizoid@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    They’re just removing an antiquated file type that you should have moved on from anyway. All my books are in epub format and even if they weren’t calibre converts them so I don’t think this is a significant change at all.

    • anteaters@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Yup. I see no problem with this change. EPub is an open format and one can easily convert existing ebooks.

      • kaitco@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This news wouldn’t really affect you, though, would it?

        Send to Kindle feature is only for Amazon Kindle, and Kindle apps, and those have been able to support more than .mobi since the Kindle 2 (non-touch with a keyboard) which was discontinued nearly 15 years ago.

        • inasaba@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I have a Kindle. It does not support EPUB. This does affect me. I used to use a bookmarklet to send articles to my Kindle, and this would make that unfeasible.

          • kaitco@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Kindles don’t natively “support” Epub, but you can Send to Kindle or even email things to your Kindle and it will get formatted into a format that Amazon will accept. I’ve done this myself for years on Kindles and for devices with Kindle apps.

            For your bookmarklet, you’d have to either update it to send as Epub or find another option that sends as Epub instead of Mobi.

            In your situation, it sounds like just emailing articles to your Kindle would be the best option. This article can tell you how to figure out your Kindle email and how to send files to it.

      • Paradox@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        So just set Calibre to convert the books to mobi before sending it to them

        • inasaba@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          That doesn’t work for the workflow of sending articles to my Kindle with a bookmarklet.

    • HipPriest@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I remember having to change things I got from… places… from epub to mobi using calibre for my old school kindle to recognise it years ago. I don’t even have that device anymore.

      Glad they’re accepting what appears to be the standard format tbh.

    • lnxtx@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      What if you bought an ebook in mobi format a long time ago?

      It doesn’t make sense.

      • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        If you’re technically competent enough to have a mobi locally and send it to a kindle, then you’re technically competent enough to convert it, so it’s not a huge deal. I agree it’s weird though.

        Honest question: what non-piracy reasons are there for having a mobi file locally and not already having it attached to your Amazon account ready to download straight to your kindle? Did anyone but Amazon ever even sell mobi files?

        • nick@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          Hello checking in here.

          Last night I finally got calibre and dedrm working. I have around 400 ebooks that I’ve bought from Amazon over the years,but my trust in Amazon has been eroded to the point I want local, drm-stripped copies in case they take the books back; it has happened, but not to me yet.

          The first book I converted: 1984.

          • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            But you do have them attached to your Amazon account. So there’s likely no real usecase for you to want to push a mobi file to a kindle.

            • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Amazon has deleted books from peoples’ accounts in the past, so I would never trust that as the sole source for any book I owned. I don’t buy ebooks often but when I do they immediately get deDRMed and stored in my local archives.

            • nick@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              I do, for now, yep. And yeah you’re probably right, I’ve never down the push to device thing.

              I’m going to start buying my books elsewhere though, and suspect they will be epub format.

        • SARGEx117@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “what non piracy reasons are there”

          “If you have nothing to hide then what’s the problem with putting a camera in the bathroom. What non crime reasons could there be?”

          Really though, if you’re technically proficient enough for torrenting and vpns, you’re proficient enough to convert to newer formats, too.

          So even then, it’s really just not that big a deal. Other than being a once-used format for the platform. And honestly how many devices are still functioning that can only use mobi? Heck I have a 10 year old Kindle somewhere that probably has 4 or 5 different formats from about 10 different sources.

          • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            “what non piracy reasons are there”

            “If you have nothing to hide then what’s the problem with putting a camera in the bathroom. What non crime reasons could there be?”

            You’re being silly. This wouldn’t inconvenience any legitimate buyer. And pirated material is in epub format already or can easily be converted to it.

            • growsomethinggood ()@reddthat.com
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              1 year ago

              I have a very old Kindle that’s still kicking. No reason to replace it if it still works right? I’m concerned that borrowing books from the library uses this delivery system and therefore might not be able to deliver to my Kindle. Ironically, piracy might be the only option to still use my working and not otherwise obsolete device.

            • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              And pirated material is in epub format already or can easily be converted to it.

              Self-contradict much?

    • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I haven’t had an e-reader in years but I remember using mobi files a lot, admittedly I’m not up to date, but I thought that this was more important than it appears it is.

      • kraniax@lemmy.wtf
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        1 year ago

        it’s trivial to mass convert mobi to a widely supported format. I think this is a welcomed change, because Amazon was the only one on the industry still promoting a legacy format like mobi, even if they tried to start moving on with their newer formats.

  • Treczoks@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    lacking support for the latest Kindle features

    What kind of support are they “lacking”? They do contain the text and basic formatting. What else would they need in a book?

    I’d guess that those “lacking” features have something to do with user tracking or DRM.

    • Clegko@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Epub doesn’t natively have user tracking and DRM either. Mobi files are just ancient and there are better alternatives for them. Like bmp files vs jpg.

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The devices themselves still can’t process epub though so they still need conversion to … mobi.

    • accideath@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Gotta say, cannot complain about my kindle either. Thanks to calibre, I’m not bound to Amazon and can read whatever I want.

    • 520@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I got myself a Remarkable. Expensive but omg so fucking useful compared to most e-readers.

      • wild@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        How much are you missing out on if you choose not to have a subscription with it for the cloud features?

        • 520@kbin.social
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          Nothing at all really. The cloud is just a convenient way to transfer documents and notes (but you can still do so over USB).

          The only thing that really needs the cloud service is transfer from and to mobile devices, which is an understandable niche. The Remarkable does not act like a regular USB drive. Instead, when plugged in, it acts as a virtual network device, and you browse to it on a browser, uploading and downloading documents via a browser interface. This behaviour doesn’t seem to work properly on Android and Apple sure as hell don’t allow it on iOS.

          If you really must have direct access to the files and OS, it allows for SSH access as root, and provides a surprisingly full featured Linux environment. If you’re the experimenting type, you can even put homebrew applications on the device, and it has a modest homebrew app community. Just…be really fucking careful not to bork the OS to the point SSH doesn’t work, else you’re fucked unless you wanna tinker at the hardware level. Also, direct access to the document files isn’t as useful as you’d think because their internal filesystem is confusing as shit. You’re always better off using the device or cloud web interfaces.

  • elscallr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If anyone knows of a good ebook reader that’s as easy on the eyes as a Kindle I’d love to know it. Everything I look at looks like a low spec tablet instead of a proper eink display.

    Edit: thanks to a few comments in this thread I went with the Kobo Libra 2. I love this little device. Plenty of storage, a great display that’s really easy on the eyes even with the backlight (which is fully dimmable and has color temperature adjustment). Thanks for everyone for the recommendations!

    • zaphod@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      If you can find an old Kindle Paperwhite that can be jailbroken, you can run KOReader on it and leave the Amazon ecosystem behind while still using the hardware.

    • paulsmith@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I’ve had two readers made by Boox. They’ve been great. I broke the screen on the first one, but software-wise, I have no complaints.

      • elscallr@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So I took your advice though I ended up settling on the Kobo Libra 2 and I absolutely love this thing. It has a couple hardware buttons, too. Thanks for the recommendation!

  • hahattpro@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Huh what ? They prevent people read .mobi because the format is old ? What about plain text ? .txt ?

  • Bill@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I have never connected my kindle to the network. Always use calibre.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    1 year ago

    Ah they’re closing the walled garden off. More in shitification. You don’t own the hardware, you just rent it from Amazon

    • noodlejetski@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      as per linked article, they’re phasing out an older, unsupported format. you can still send .epub files.

    • al177@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      …but pdf and epub still work. Easily the least objectionable thing Amazon has done all year. But don’t let that get in the way of your mad.

    • SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo
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      1 year ago

      There replacing file formats nobody uses with an open format (epub). I remember having to convert epubs before I could load them to my kindle so this is basically the opposite of closing off a walled garden.

      • Michal@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        But kindle still doesn’t support epub files outright? You can’t just sideload epub files, you have to use the email service.

        • SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo
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          1 year ago

          Yeah you have to send through email. I guess some people might want to do via usb, I find sending to email easier tbh.

      • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Kobo devices work out of the box, and they are very hacker friendly, a good middle ground. They run mainline Linux with a custom UI, but you can change that to other systems, e.g. PostmarketOS (an alpine based linux distro) or install more fully featured reader programs like Koreader. With some hacking you can use the devices without a Kobo account. Some devices run from a simple sd card, so you can easily grow storage size, and easily backup the whole system. Most devices have hidden a serial port inside, with some soldering you can connect peripherials!

        I have a clara hd, I use it as a tactical glide computer with xcsoar,, with an external serial gps and barometer

        • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          I’m not going to lie. A lot of that went right over my head. But I see a fair amount of praise for Kobo. I looked at them in the past but I can’t remember why I didn’t pull the trigger and get one.

          • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Ok, elevator pitch for muggles:

            They are good devices, and there is a huge hacker community behind them. Having a hacker community means, that they are not locked down, and when the manufacturer will disappear you can still use them with some tricks. You really own them, you can do whatever you want with them.

      • Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        I bought my daughter a Kobo years ago and it has worked great. This was before Walmart bought them and they were much harder to find in the US but Kindle was requiring my daughter to have an Amazon account to check out library books. In order to have an Amazon account you must have a credit card attached. Tech support’s solution for me was to just give her a pre paid card. They didn’t understand why I wasn’t interested in forcing my 7 year old into Amazon in order to check out library books.

        Kobo has Overdrive installed in the device. You can also load PDF files directly onto it. I don’t know if they’ve changed that over the years but her device is now 7 years old and working great.

        • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
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          1 year ago

          This was before Walmart bought them

          Walmart didn’t buy Kobo, although they did/do own a small share of Rakuten, Kobo’s parent company.

          In 2018, in an attempt to keep up with Amazon, Walmart partnered with Kobo to sell ebooks and Kobo devices in Walmart stores and online, and I believe that devices purchased from Walmart had the Walmart logo when they booted up, and I think the Kobo site in the US also had Walmart branding, but Kobo was then and is now a Canadian company fully owned by a Japanese company.

      • stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I’ve just purchased an Onyx Boox device to replace my old original Kindle Paperwhite. Moves like this make me feel good about choosing to go that route since it is essentially an Android tablet that will support any format as long as there is a reader app for it.

        That said, to anyone thinking of buying one from the website that this article links to, there are lots of negative reviews for them so it might be best to find a different distributor.

        • phx@lemmy.ca
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          I’m satisfied enough with my Paperwhite but would like to diversify off Amazon hardware to something that I can just run their app and also others for more variety.

          What Boox device did you get and how do you find the battery life? I’d like to see how things work with color so the mini-C looks interesting as an e-book replacement, and there apparently an “ultra C” which is more of a tablet device but might be a bit bulky (plus more expensive)

          • stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            I haven’t even received it yet, so I can’t comment on the actual device. In the end I decided on the Page as I didn’t want something too much bigger than my current Kindle and I wanted the page turn buttons since I always found the touchscreen page turning on my Kindle to be inconsistent.

      • edric@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I turned an old android tablet that was too slow to run anything into an ebook reader. I just installed Moon Reader and it works for me.