| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 2000; 25 years ago (2000) |
| Defunct | October 31, 2016 (2016-10-31) |
| Headquarters | Paris, Île-de-France, France |
Key people | Thierry Brethes, Founder;Nathalie Ting, Founder; Martin Görner, CEO |
| Products | Mobipocket Reader |
| Parent | Amazon |
| Website | www |
Mobipocket SA was a French company incorporated in March 2000 that created the.mobie-book file format and produced the Mobipocket Reader software formobile phones,personal digital assistants (PDA) and desktop operating systems.
The Mobipocket software package was free and consisted of various publishing and reading tools for PDAs,smartphones, mobile phones, thee-readersKindle andiLiad, and applications on devices usingSymbian,Windows,Palm OS,Java ME andPsion.
Amazon.com bought Mobipocket.com in 2005 and kept it running until October 2016, when it permanently shut down the Mobipocket website and servers.
Amazon.com bought Mobipocket.com in 2005.[1]
Analpha release of the Java-based version of the Mobipocket reader became available for cellphones on June 30, 2008.[2] There is also a reader for desktop computers runningMicrosoft Windows, which also works with computers runningMac OS X orLinux usingWine.[3]
Since Amazon's acquisition of Mobipocket, software support, user support, and platform growth ended. In December 2011, Amazon reportedly officially notified book publishers that it was ending support for Mobipocket.[4] The status of Mobipocketdigital rights management (DRM) content previously purchased by users was unclear since no other eBook-reader supported its proprietary DRM method.
On October 31, 2016,Amazon permanently shut down the Mobipocket website and servers.[5]
The software provided:
Depending on the device, different functions were available, including managing of books and theirmetadata, assigning books to arbitrary categories, auto-scroll, rotate by 90° or 180°, bookmarks, customhyperlinks within one or between different documents, highlighting, comments and by sketches. When transferring documents to other device types, functions that were not supported on the device were ignored, but the information one was reading would not have been altered or deleted.
Each book had one or two language attribute(s); in the latter case it was meant to be a dictionary. As a typical example, reading a book in Fr language, a word may have been selected and asked to translate with Fr → En dictionary provided the appropriate dictionary was installed on the reader-device. Dictionaries were always unidirectional so Fr → En dictionary could not be used in reverse – a separate En → Fr dictionary was needed for that.
There was a reader forpersonal computers that worked with either encrypted or unencrypted Mobipocket books.
Unencrypted Mobipocket books could be read on theAmazon Kindle natively, as well as in Amazon Kindle programs onMac OS X,iOS devices,Android devices,Windows, andWindows Phone devices. By using third-party programs such asLexcycle Stanza,calibre orOkular, unencrypted Mobipocket books could also be read on Mac OS X, iOS, Android devices andLinux. Third party tools existed to decrypt encrypted Mobipocket books, allowing them to be read using software that does not support encryption.[6]
A user could thus create documents in the Mobipocket format .mobi[7] and use personal comments, bookmarks, and more on all devices supporting those features. Additionally, Amazon offered a free program called KindleGen that could convert or create documents in the Mobipocket format.[8] This program was, however discontinued in the year 2020.[9] An alternative application, called Kindle Previewer, was launched by Amazon shortly after in replacement of KindleGen with all the same features, in addition to other new features.[10]
User-added information, such as annotations and bookmarks, were kept in separate ".mbp" files by the official Mobipocket Reader and Kindle applications.[11] In October 2012, Amazon also introduced an encrypted variant of the file (".smbp"), preventing access to the information by third-party applications.[12]
Owners of Android devices could downloadAmazon's Kindle application from the Android App store,[13] which could read .mobi files, though no official Mobipocket reader for the Android platform was released.
The Amazon Kindle's AZW format (Kindle File Format) shares a substantial similarity with the Mobipocket format, distinguished primarily by serial number representation (making use of anasterisk instead of adollar sign).
In late 2011, the Kindle Fire introduced "Kindle Format 8" (KF8), also known as AZW3 file format[14] that supported a subset ofHTML5 andCSS3 features, while acting as a container for a backwards-compatible MOBI content document.[15][16]
KindleGen is acommand line tool used to build eBooks that can be sold throughAmazon's Kindle platform. This tool is best for publishers and individuals who are familiar withHTML and want to convert their HTML,XHTML,XML (OPF/IDPF format), orePub source into a Kindle Book.
This package reads [an] .MBP file, which ... would contain annotations, corrections, drawings and marks made by the user on the book content.
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