Create unlimited folios today with InDesign CS5 and 5.5!

Question

Adobe's official statement
http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/2011/10/create-unlimited-folios-today-with-indesi gn-cs5-5.html
Did you know…
Customers with InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 can now create an unlimited number of .folio files for no additional charge.
You already know that InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 integrate with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to allow customers to publish apps to tablet devices such as the iPad, Xoom and PlayBook. But for InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 customers who are interested in creating content for tablet devices but are not yet customers, it is now easier than ever to try digital publishing before making the financial investment in the Digital Publishing Suite solution that meets your needs.
InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 customers can now:
Create an unlimited number of .folio files in InDesign
Preview them on Adobe Content Viewer  – including interactivity – to see how they will render when published to a tablet device
Share them with colleagues or clients on a 1:1 basis via the Adobe Content Viewer
Further, customers can now access the Folio Producer Service in the Digital Publishing Suite with a valid Adobe ID to manage and edit their .folio files. All of this can be done before purchasing Digital Publishing Suite.
If you are interested in learning how to create an App directly from InDesign CS5 or CS5.5, without writing code or depending on a developer, feel free to try it. You can pitch ideas to your client or your boss; or you can build a portfolio of your work and preview it on a tablet device. Practice makes perfect, and with an unlimited number of .folios, you can practice as much as you want! When you’re ready to publish to an app store, you can select the Digital Publishing Suite solution that is right for you.

Answer 1

I'm sorry EvBurk, what you want is intended not to work.
All Adobe's promotional material concerning InDesign and Digital Publishing (including the above "official statement") carefully uses verbs like "create" or "produce". But they never mention "distribute" or "spread", without explicitly referring to their exclusive hosting services. The whole Folio thing (in contrast to the former "issue" format) revolves around not giving you any chance of physically exporting, managing or owing the folio file itself. It's always somewhere on Adobe's or Apple's servers, or on your iPad, which is also as shut as a vault. So there's no way to export a folio file and toss it around like a pdf or jpeg. All you can do (without a paid distribution) is "share" your folio with some others, under the idea of "testing" and "reviewing". But this can be a cumbersome method. And even when paid (for the app), it's still difficult to distribute it outside Apple's or Android's market.
More than a year ago (in the middle of the Flash-on-iOS debate) Adobe users, developers, bloggers, and evangelists heavily criticized Apple's "walled garden". Adobe literally stated "We Love Apple - What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web." Well, you could say now: "I love Adobe, but what I don't love is Adobe taking away my freedom to own my files, and distribute them on my own terms." They let us create, but not spread our ideas. It's like giving you a typewriter and copier, that only works with Adobe stock paper. Like giving you a voice and an instrument, but only allowing you to sing and play in some walled gardens (dress code: Apple ID) or secluded shed (invitation only).
I really wonder why they so fiercely protect 'their' Folio file. Why do they either have to be "under protection" or be turned into apps? I understand why Apple wants and needs to curate apps, but they don't mind me spreading my own ePubs, mp3 or jpegs. Why doesn't Adobe let me put my folio's on my own server, or send them off to someone with my own preferred service? The Content Viewer could easily be an Acrobat-like reader and let the iPad open folio's (by web links or mail enclosures) into it. If I see how many questions, worries, and problems creators and users have due to this whole closed technique and business, it would be easier to just let go and see what happens. Is it money? Of course it is. But my guess is that Adobe would eventually benefit more from it.
So I hope Adobe declares the Folio as an "open" standard soon, but they're definitely not in that stage. Maybe the specification of the file format just isn't ready yet. Maybe some managers need to remember again how to "Spread the Love"...