Digital Editions 1.0 merges Flash and PDF to bring free and rights-managed content to the desktop in an iTunes-like environment.Adobe announced on June 19 the release of Digital Editions 1.0, an e-book product that includes both a desktop client and DRM service, and which the company hopes will make e-books as accessible as MP3s on iTunes.
The Windows-only Digital Editions client, a 3MB download, looks like a cross between iTunes and a bookshelf, organized into something akin to shelves or playlists. Adobe hopes the app will make e-books appealing to a much wider audience.
"Digital publishing is starting to take off in the marketplace," said Bill McCoy, general manager of San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe's ePublishing business. "But we need to do some things to help accelerate that adoption by giving consumers a complete platform that allows for mobile-optimized content as well as paginated content suitable for larger screens, and gives them more engaging options including rich media and interactivity."
Digital Editions can be opened in Adobe Reader, although the Digital Editions client is faster and offers an e-book-friendly interface that makes for easier reading. While Acrobat and Reader offer integrated downloads and installations from within the apps, it's not required; the Digital Editions client can open e-books on a machine that doesn't have either installed on it.
Two kinds of e-books exist in Adobe's new system: those with static, laid-out pages that look more legible on a desktop or laptop, and those with XML schemas conducive to screen reflow that adapt to smaller, mobile-device screens.
What mobile users gain in portability, however, they lose in image size and multimedia bells and whistles; the richer-media content fit for larger monitors is where the "way beyond paper," cross-linked multimedia wizardry of PDF e-books can be found.
Adobe served up more than 300,000 downloads of its Digital Editions client beta since it debuted on the Adobe Labs site last fall, McCoy says. While Adobe sidestepped the download-, startup-, and installation-time complaints that Acrobat and Reader typically attract, the Digital Editions users asked for Mac support, print support and annotations—all of which they got.
"We've now incorporated a lot of the feedback in order to bring to market a product that's really pretty advanced versus our beta," McCoy says. "We've been able to refine the product and made it, really, a lot more than a 1.0."
McCoy said that the annotations feature could get expanded in future editions to enable sharing of notes among users—which he hopes will encourage social networking in the textbook market.
The student and technical markets have been early adopters with e-books, according to Adobe. Companies like O'Reilly have been capitalizing on tech-savvy audiences willing to pay for PDF e-books. The University of Phoenix, a popular online school, already uses secure PDFs for all of its textbook content.
One major impediment to e-book adoption in the mass market so far has been the confusing array of devices upon which they can be read, from proprietary devices (Gemstar or hiebook, for example) to desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs, even cell phones.
Even though open e-book standards exist, how will Adobe—wielding the biggest e-book stick, control over the PDF spec—help bridge the gap between industry and the consumer, who still is confused and afraid of wasting money on tech that will go obsolete in six months?
The short answer: PCs will be the main target, but Adobe will attempt to cover as many others as it can. One device McCoy mentioned in particular was the Sony Reader; Adobe partnered with Sony to make PDF a standard on that platform.
"We see PC support, and we really mean Windows and Mac, and we're committed to delivering a Linux version as well," McCoy says. "We intend to be both on mass-market mobile handheld devices [such as PDAs] as well as dedicated devices, such as the Sony Reader."
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