Comment by goosedragons
3 years ago
It's iTunes for eBooks. If you're someone that has 19 different readers, wants to keep them synced to the same page, make the metadata perfect, rate books, write notes about them etc. it makes a lot of sense.
For me it's basically a way to use two plugins and occasionally fix a book cover. It's a bit bloated IMO.
With iTunes, you were forced to use it to manage an iPod, iPhone, and any media bought from Apple. With Calibre, you can use it or not use it to manage your ebooks as much as you like.
That's a very important distinction.
Also, as an avid reader (average five books a month), I also cannot see the need for calibre.
Contrary to music, I consume my ebooks on one device: my e-reader. My laptop, phone and tablet are terrible for reading. Why would I need my ebooks on my phone or tablet.
The only thing I do want, is to process my annotations on my computer. Which calibre cannot do (but a python and bash hack does provide me).
People have different reading habits than you?
For reference materials, textbooks, comics, and other image heavy and laid out precisely books, I almost exclusively prefer PDFs and only read them on my tablet.
If it's a book with almost zero images, like most fiction, how they're laid out doesn't matter, and I enjoy the ability to read anywhere on any device. I've never found the need for an e reader and regularly switch between my tablet or phone. Reading comics on the phone isn't for me, but there are a lot of people that don't mind it.