A new report appears to confirm that Microsoft’s long-expected e-book store experience will debut in the Windows 10 Creators Update.
Microsoft has been laying the groundwork for its return to e-books—yes, return; surely you haven’t forgotten about Microsoft Reader from back in the Pocket PC days—for the past few years. The most obvious recent step in this direction was the addition of support for the e-book EPUB file format in Microsoft Edge in a December Windows Insider build. But there have been many reports about e-books coming to Windows Store over the past few years as well.
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This week, MSPowerUser has confirmed those reports, and it says that we can expect to see the e-book store and reader experience in both Windows 10 for PCs and that mobile thing which we shall not name.
The store bit will look and work exactly as you’d expect, with a new Books entry sitting alongside Apps, Games, Music, Movies, and TV Shows in the store.
Oddly, Microsoft doesn’t appear to be releasing a dedicated e-book reader app, though one imagines that is coming. Instead, users are expected to use Microsoft Edge to read e-books. And as with that browser’s Reading View feature, you will be able to tailor your e-book reading experience with themes and other customization.
MSPowerUser says we can expect the new e-book experience in the Creators Update, which will be finalized in March and begin shipping in April.
That timing makes sense. But I’m not sure that Microsoft pushing further into content makes any sense at all. Who on earth would buy e-books from Microsoft when high-quality options like Amazon Kindle and even Apple iBooks exist on the mobile platforms on which we actually read?
Interesting, regardless.
5510
<p>People, don’t do it. If Microsoft comes out with the eBook Store, just ignore it. Do you really want to invest in a platform that will most likely have a very slim chance to survive?</p>
<p>Imagine all those people who invested in Zune and bought it’s music. How about those who invested all their business data on Microsoft Small Business Accounting or Microsoft Money?</p>
<p>For those considering it, do you really want to take that chance? Do you really want to have a mixed ecosystem of books, where one is from Amazon, the other is Google (or whatever) and the other is Microsoft?</p>
<p>Here is my advice to all of you. Go with what you know and trust. Go with who you know that will be around for a very long time, so you can have a unified collection of books all in one place.</p>
<p>Make your life easy.</p>
<p>Stay away from the Microsoft eBook Store.</p>