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Pocketbook to Launch Send-to-Pocketbook Delivery Service

pocketbook301[1]The Ukrainian ereader and tablet maker Pocketbook announced yesterday that they will soon be copying one of the Kindle’s more clever features.

They’re calling it Send-to-Pocketbook, and it is going to be available starting in October. According to Pocketbook:

The feature will allow users to send documents to their PocketBook eReaders as an email attachment. The documents will be downloaded to the device over Wi-Fi.

Send-to-Pocketook supports a large number of formats such as PUB DRM, EPUB, PDF DRM, PDF, FB2, FB2.ZIP, TXT, DJVU, HTM, HTML, DOC, DOCX, RTF, CHM, TCR, PRC (MOBI), JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF.

The service will also include security features such as “White List”, which is a list of e-mail addresses from which the eReader will receive documents to avoid spam mails.

When Amazon launched the Kindle in 2007 their automated email conversion service was one of the many useful and clever features that helped the $400 ereader succeed. It saved inexperienced users from having to bother with converting documents and transferring them to a Kindle. It made the Kindle easier to use for the non-tech-savvy and is a feature that I am frankly surprised that (almost) no one else copied.

I say almost because a number of smaller ebookstores added a Kindle-centric email delivery option for DRM-free ebooks. Fictionwise, for example, added it in late 2007, and Baen also supports a similar delivery option. Also, Smashwords just announced a beta-test for a send to Kindle/Dropbox service.

And Pocketbook’s service isn’t quite a copy; they won’t convert to or from any formats. But that’s okay because their ereaders already supported enough formats that conversion is not required.

In fact, I like the fact that Pocketbook doesn’t convert the content to Epub; the main reason I stopped using the Kindle’s automated conversion service was that it kept converting a Kindle ebook to a Kindle ebook and mucking up the formatting. This is immensely annoying when you are sending a carefully crafted ebook.

The Pocketbook Touch Lux will be the first device to get the new feature. Pocketbook will release an update for the Touch Lux in October, and other Touch ereaders will receive similar updates in the coming months.

Pocketbook has indicated that their Touch ereaders will be getting this update; I do not yet have any info about their other models.

The-eBook.org

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Comments


Name September 28, 2013 um 8:11 pm

This is a kludge like their Dropbox synchronisation service since it always depends on the availability of some third-party service. They should instead just allow users to point the device to some plain URL, whereever users have their webspace.

Max October 2, 2013 um 4:32 am

Actually, Send-to-PocketBook doesn’t relay on any third-party services and relays only on PocketBook’s infractructure.


Jussi Keinonen September 29, 2013 um 8:56 am

Interesting. I too am surprised that no one else has offered this possibility. It’s the major cause I prefer my trusted Kindle Keyboard over my Kobo. I send all the longer web articles for later reading to Kindle.

I also prefer to use the Klipme javascript over Send to Kindle, because the latter sometimes makes mistakes. Rare for an Amazon service indeed.


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