Jon Noring at TeleRead discusses the fundamental importance of the AAP’s endorsement of the EPUB specification and format:
The following two points in AAP’s letter are germane to this article:
1. AAP sees retailers selling EPUB directly to consumers … as well as selling derivative formats converted from EPUB. Publishers understand the great flexibility that EPUB provides.
2. AAP uses the phrase “high-fidelity” to describe EPUB. This mention means presentation quality is important to AAP, and thus should be important to everyone else in the ebook industry. It also acknowledges that indeed EPUB is “high-fidelity.”
It is clear that publishers consider “flexibility” and “high-fidelity” in ebook formats important, for themselves, for the rest of the industry, and for consumers. And EPUB is a format
that meets these requirements.