Years later than they probably should have, Amazon’s modern lineup of Kindles will finally support the ePub file format for books. According to a change spotted by Good E-Reader, Amazon updated its “Send to Kindle” documentation stating that it will add support for ePub files later this year. At the same time, though, Amazon is also disabling support for the MOBI file format, as it won’t support the newest Kindle features that the company wants to integrate.

At the moment, it’s not clear how exactly ePub files on Kindle will work. Will independent sellers and publishers be able to submit their own ePub files for distribution? If so, will they need to use proprietary Amazon encryption? From the Send to Kindle documentation, ePub files transferred to your Kindle will be required to not have any DRM or they won’t work.

This is a major boon for the Kindle ecosystem, as ePub files are the most widely used ebook format. Kindle owners had to convert their own files using a tool such as Calibre so that they could read their books on their devices.

As for the loss of the MOBI file format, it comes as a bit of a surprise, though it’s a really old file format. Amazon acquired Mobipocket, the inventors of the MOBI file format, way back in 2005. Amazon then rebranded MOBI to AZW, and that’s been usable on devices. If you own ebooks in the AZW/MOBI file format, they’ll still be safely stored and readable on your Kindle — you just won’t be able to copy any new ones in that format in the future.

Source: Good E-Reader

Via: Engadget