Sony

The Sony Reader was my first experience of ebook reading and I had invested the best part of £500 in books at the Waterstones' online bookstore before I decided to defect to the Kindle store - initially because I could synchronise my purchased on all my devices. Since then I've been left with a budding library of purchases that have been inaccessible except by using the Sony software on my Mac.

In December, though, all that could change when Sony introduce their apps for iOS and Android. The hope is that all books bought from the Sony Reader Store will magically appear on the smartphone apps. This would be ideal and would answer all my criticism of the Sony as a closed system. I wonder, though, how this is going to be achieved because. Unlike Kindle and other cross-platform systems, the Sony Reader works on the basis that purchases are downloaded once and that's it. And for users outside the USA, who have to rely on a ragtag of third-party bookstores in the absence of an official Sony store, the problems can only be greater. How are we to get our purchases from Waterstones, W.H.Smith and other suppliers to sync to the iPhone app?

I hope these purveyors of eBooks are now giving some serious thought to how it can be accomplished because, without doubt, there will be some very unhappy customers out there. We have paid good money for our books and the least we can expect is that they should be readable on a wide range of devices. It's no use saying we can't, because Amazon and others have shown how easy it is. 

It takes a lot to spoil my breakfast. But I choked on my cornflakes this morning when I read that Apple seems to be turning against non-App Store purchases of books. Apparently Sony had their iOS reader application turned down because it would have allowed users to purchase books directly from the Sony store. In common with most industry commentators, I see little difference between what Sony was trying to do and what Amazon already do very successfully. The Kindle eco-system is well on the way to cornering the ebook market while Apple's own iBookStore languishes in the doldrums. 

At the moment, the Kindle app circumvents the App Store (and Apple's 30% commission) by taking book buyers to the website where the transaction takes place entirely within the Amazon system. Presumably Apple doesn't like this and there is a fear that they could now do something about it. Since there is absolutely no chance that Amazon would give in and pay Apple's commission, there's a strong likelihood of a confrontation that will penalise users.

The Kindle store is successful because purchases can be read on almost any device, from the dedicated Kindle reader through to smartphones, Macs and PCs. Contrast this with the Apple iBookstore which is a closed eco-system. Buy a book there and you can read it on your iPad or your iPhone. Nowhere else. 

Apple has failed to introduce iBooks apps for other platforms - not even for OS X which is pretty inexplicable. If they had done, and could approach Amazon in price and content, they would have had a success on their hands. As it is, few avid book readers are interested in closed systems any more. 

Many of us have by now invested a lot of money in the Kindle eco-system and will be seriously disgruntled if Apple tries to turn off the tap. While Cupertino might see short-term financial advantages in restricting book sales in this way, they would lose in the long run.