The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has released an update to its EPUB 3.o Support Grid, an Excel spreadsheet with comparisons of the major EPUB reader devices and apps. According to the July 17, 2012 BISG Bulletin, “Updates include new information from Infogrid Pacific’s AZARDI reading system, as well as update to Google E‐Books.” The BISG download page also says the grid includes “new information from Sony and expanded information from Safari Books Online.”
So what does the grid show? Right from the start, you will see that Adobe has not released a version of Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) that supports EPUB 3.0. While a reader is sure to come that has this support, it is not available today and Adobe is at risk of losing ground to other eBook readers.
Infogrid Pacific’s AZARDI still seems to be one of the best readers for EPUB 3.0 support. Both Kobo and B&N’s NOOK are under reported on the grid; both need to give BISG more information on their EPUB 3.0 support. Sony’s EPUB 3.0 support is spotty at best.
The big surprise on the grid is Ingram’s VitalSource family. VitalSource apps appear to offer as much EPUB 3.0 support as any other reader. The app for Mac or PC can be downloaded here.
What else did you note on the BISG grid? Did you find any surprises? What is your preferred reader for EPUB 3.0 files?
