windows-10-simple-screenshot-644x373As far as e-books are concerned, any platform is only as good as the e-book readers that are available for it. iOS and Android have been around long enough that there are an amazing number of options for them—both from the “big names,” like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, and smaller third-party apps like FBReader or Prestigio. But what about Windows 10?

Windows is in the odd situation of being old and yet not. Windows has been around for long enough that there are plenty of desktop reading options—but it’s a newcomer to the world of mobile. As a result, there are hardly any options at all for Windows tablets and smartphones. On WinBeta, Mark Coppick goes into the scanty e-book options for Windows in detail.

Effectively, while the Kindle and Kobo do have mobile Windows e-reading clients, they’re by and large missing most of the features present in their Android and iOS versions. There’s no Windows 10 Nook client, just a defunct Windows 8.1 version. Google Play Books doesn’t have a native mobile Windows client at all, and Coppick wasn’t able to get the web version working well enough to be usable. Coppick didn’t look into Adobe or DRM-free e-book options, because most of his books are from one of the DRM-using major stores.

Windows 10 suffers from the chicken-or-the-egg conundrum common to any new OS. It hasn’t been around long enough to have many users, and without many users the software developers don’t see much point in trying to develop for it. Maybe after it’s been around for a while, that will change—but for now, e-book readers are best off sticking with one of the tried-and-true options like Android or iOS.

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