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Amazon releases Kindle app for iPhone
March 4, 2009 | 12:35 am
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By Chris Meadows
Well, that was fast. The Wall Street Journal has just posted the story that Amazon has released its Kindle app for the iPhone today. The application is in the (US-only) iTunes app store right now, and I have downloaded it into my iPod Touch.
Preliminary inspection suggests that, unlike the hardware Kindle which supports USB book sync, there is not presently any way to load books into the Kindle iPhone app except by direct download from the Amazon Kindle store.
[Amazon Vice President Ian] Freed said he is "not at all concerned" that making e-books available on other devices will cannibalize sales of the $359 Kindle. Instead, it will increase sales of digital books and the Kindle, he says. Amazon says it plans to release applications to read Kindle books on other devices, but declined to specify which ones.
He has that much right, and it is great that iPhone owners who would like to take advantage of the lower prices on Kindle e-books will now have a way to do so. Unfortunately (and as I had expected), this still leaves high and dry the people with pre-existing DRM-locked MobiPocket libraries and no (legal) way to read them on the iPhone.
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Comments:
The only way to load Kindle books to the iPhone app is via “WhisperSync”, i.e. over the air download. The good news is we do have access to the free first chapter previews. I’ve done a quick test run and a review :
http://www.treotoday.net/2009/03/04/kindle-iphone/
The app works okay, very easy to access your books at Amazon and download. Once you register your iPhone/Touch through the Kindle app it shows up as a registered device on the “Manage Your Kindle” page at Amazon.
You need to use a swipe to turn the page. I prefer eReader’s option of a tap. Like the Kindle itself there is also no choice of font but there are 5 font sizes to choose from.
There is also the option to sync with the furthest page read which is a nice feature if you are reading material on more than one device.
The app is free and anyone (in the US) can register their iPhone/touch and buy from the Kindle store.
Untimately, the availability of a software version of the Kindle does remove one of my complaints about the Kindle. I imagine other major mobile platforms will have versions of the reader available soon. That being said, you have to wonder why Amazon is not making it available for full featured Operating systems? Are they worried that if someone gets the software on a UPMC with a 5-7″ screen that they will have little reason to buy the Kindle itself?
In any case, as others have pointed out, this does nothing to relieve my chief complaint about the Kindle, Mobi and other DRM’d formats. If in five years, Amazon has lost the ebook wars, you could have lots of people with lots of books tied to a format that Amazon may not want to support anymore.
ePub, html, txt and PDF will remain my formats of choice for the forseeable future.
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Bill
Actually, you can use plain old wi-fi to download books to your iPhone or iPod Touch (good thing, since neither one is compatible with WhisperNet, which is the Sprint network, not AT&T). I have no idea if it works with the internet access via AT&T (but presume it does), since I don’t have cell access on my iPhone.
I’ve posted a quick overview of the limitations of the Kindle Iphone App on my blog:
http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com/2009/03/kindle-marries-iphone.html
Along with pictures of all three Kindle devices, open to the same book:
http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com/2009/03/kindle-iphone-pictures.html
Karen
http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com
Bill says:
“…you have to wonder why Amazon is not making it available for full featured Operating systems?”
Do you know for a fact that they are not planning/working on doing just that?