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New Kindle app lets you download Kindle e-books directly to your PC from non-Amazon sites—not just the Kindle Store
November 10, 2009 | 10:39 am
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By David Rothman
Earlier this morning we briefly test-drove the Kindle for PC app.
Now here’s a capability we didn’t pick up at first—the ability to download Kindle files directly to your PC from non-Amazon sites, just as the K machine itself can download such files. Enjoy the updated version of our review.
Alas, the downloaded books apparently won’t show up in synching (correct me if I’m wrong). But that’s still progress. Meanwhile thanks to GJN.
Of course, with all this fuss over the Kindle and the related format, I wonder what’ll become of the Mobipocket format. The Mobi reader, as I make clear in the test-drive review, remains a better piece of software, with far more features.
Related: KFPC download page and an Amazon news release.
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Comments:
KindleforPC runs on Linux using Wine, but you won’t be able to see the menu text so it’s a little iffy. You can at least read your books though!
Runs well on a Mac that runs Windows XP under Parallels. Each installation of Kindle for PC, by the way, counts against the 6-device limit. After deregistration, however, the count is reinstated. After deregistration one can no longer read previously downloaded Kindle books, but the application can continue to be used to read public domain .mobi and .prc texts.
Not to be picky, but there *are* DRM-free commercial Mobi/prc ebooks in addition to the public domain stuff. If we want to encourage that trend we shouldn’t forget to pass the word, right?
Preferably pointing out who the good guys at Baen, Fictionwise, etc might be.
Basically, KfPC sounds a lot like the iPod/iPhone app, feature-wise.
More functionality would be good but I suspect we’ll see more hardware platforms supported before we see Version 2.0.
Its a good move, nonetheless.
Hi David, I like your idea. One good thing is that i m searching for such technique to download e-books on my PC. So thanks for sharing.
It’s certainly a shame that the app doesn’t make it more obvious to import non-Kindle content into the app. But most importantly, it allows more non-Kindle-owning people to read e-books from the Kindle store. That alone is excellent!
(Now, let’s see how many $10 e-books they can con me into buying…)
Of course this is a another case that Canada is locked out. It would be really nice to check this application out with the free books you can find, unfortunately if you live in Canada you can’t download it.