Skip to main content

Diesel eBooks Releases Universal eFreedom App

Diesel eBooks, the largest independent ebookstore in the US, has just released browser based app which, in retrospect is such a good idea that I wonder why none of the major ebookstores thought of it first.

They’ve just announced the Universal eFreedom App, a mobile version of their ebookstore. I don’t have any ebooks in my account with Diesel so I cannot test it, but it looks like this ebookstore is intended to run on pretty much any Wifi equipped ereader or tablet.

"As eReader agnostics, we feel an eBook Store shouldn’t shackle you to any one reading device and vice versa,” said Scott Redford, Founder and CEO of Diesel eBooks. “That’s why we’ve purposefully refused to narrow in on a single eBook Reader and instead built our store with freedom in mind so that our customers can read their eBooks on whatever device they want.”

To put it simply, Diesel eBooks has taken their device agnostic position to the next level. Not only do they let you read on whichever Epub equipped device you prefer, now they’re going to make it easy to load your ebooks on to that device.

I’ve looked over the site. It’s not terribly well designed, with a poor layout and fixed with,, but it should do the job. Assuming it works the way I expect it to, gone are the days where you have to download ebooks from Diesel to your computer before you can transfer them to your device. Now you can download direct, thus eliminating the headache.

Note that it appears you cannot read the ebook with Diesel’s new app, but that doesn’t bother me. I don’t like either the Kobo or the Kindle cloud reading apps.  They just don’t perform as well as the native reading apps on iOS or Android.

To be fair, this isn’t all that new. It’s only a mobile version of their ebookstore, and others have beat them to it. Black Mask has a mobile website which was originally designed for the Kindle (but those are free ebooks), while Amazon has launched a Kindle Store which has been optimized for the iPad. Fictionwise has a mobile site as well, though I doubt many use it. And B&N, Amazon, Kiobo, and Google have each built a mobile ebookstore for their own ereaders and they have mobile ebookstore built into their apps.

But how many have built a mobile ebookstore with the purpose of poaching customers from the competition? Because that’s what I think Diesel eBooks has done here. You should be able to navigate to this site while using the web browser on the Sony Reader Wifi, Android tablet, or Kindle Fire. Once you’re there you should be able to download the Epubs and read them in a compatible app (DRM permitting).

Then again, this probably won’t work as well as I expect. The mobile site is still somewhat buggy; I couldn’t always see it when I was visiting from my laptop web browser. Also when you try the site you might discover that your device has a security setting that blocks you from downloading the ebook. That’s an unpredictable element that will vary from one device to the next.

Still, it’s worth a look.

Universal eFreedom App

Similar Articles


Comments


Rose June 27, 2012 um 3:34 am

This is an ereader app as well, and functions as an ereader without the need for wifi–at least on the ipad. I am using it because I validate most of my drm ebooks through Adobe Digital (yes I know you don’t like them), but when I downloaded the app on my ipad I validated the device, and then dragged and dropped all my epubs that are Adobe compatible to that one app. It’s a very basic reader–no shelves, or highlighting, but I wanted one ereader for all my epubs (and PDF’s) and got it.

Nate Hoffelder June 27, 2012 um 8:00 am

Really? I downloaded an ebook and it tried to open in my regular reading apps. I wonder what I did wrong.


Write a Comment