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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jdrakeh" data-source="post: 4639283" data-attributes="member: 13892">Umbran brought to my attention that the conversation has been focused primarily on producing documents for devices not intended to serve primarily as document readers by design. This is a huge contributing factor to the lack of document formats and e-book products specifically designed for such devices. Perhaps ironically, cell phones are designed primarily to serve as phones and PDAs are designed primarily to serve as Personal Data Assistants (i.e., organizers). More functionality has been added over the years, of course, but this doesn't change the fact that such devices are still primarily designed to serve as phones and organizers, respectively. Anything else is an added bonus, but not a primary function of the device. Complaining that the industry standard for all of e-publishing isn't a file format created for use with a device that is not intended to perform primarily as a document reader or e-book (and probably never will be) seems pretty silly. It's kind of like complaining that .ILSR and its associated hardware isn't the de facto standard for network storage (you can use it for that, sure, but that's not the primary function that it's designed for). Devices that are actually designed to serve as document readers first (e.g., the Amazon Kindle, iRex Iliad, etc) have the best chance of spawning a new cross-platform file format for e-publishing — not any time soon, however.</blockquote>

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