Not looking to drop $360 bucks on a gadget purposed almost solely for book reading, but still want to partake in Amazon’s new found love for eBooks? You’re not alone – and if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, you’re in luck. As we’d assumed they would, Amazon has just launched a free Kindle application for Apple’s much-lauded touchscreen, available immediately.
While it won’t go and turn your iPhone’s display into an e-Ink screen (we feel bad for our eyes already), the Kindle application does replicate much of the functionality provided by the namesake device. You can read any Kindle-compatible book you’ve purchased from Amazon’s catalog, read the first chapter of other books for free, adjust text size, bookmark pages, and view notations made on the Kindle.
One of the big features here is WhisperSync, which automatically keeps track of where you left off in each book, allowing you to pick up from that spot from any Kindle-friendly devices you may have. The feature didn’t seem too useful when the Kindle 2 was announced (How many people have more than one Kindle?) – but with Amazon stretching Kindle across multiple platforms, it makes perfect sense. Leave your Kindle on the bed side table, pick up where you left off on your iPhone once you’re on the bus.
Buying new books is a bit more tedious for iPhone users, as Apple doesn’t allow third parties to sell content within their applications. To get a new book, you’ve got to pop into Safari, then head to the standard Amazon Kindle store and purchase the book there. Amazon’s syncing sorcery takes over from that point. It’s not too bad, but the experience isn’t as seamless as it is on the Kindle.
Will this put Kindle device sales at risk? Not likely. The Kindle is a fairly niche product – not that reading is a niche activity (though it’s probably a bit less common than it should be), but the ideas of eBooks/e-Ink/etc are still fairly foreign to most (though Oprah’s mention definitely didnt hurt). This lets Amazon push more copies of e-products they’ve already got licenses for, all the while coaxing the stubborn folks into the idea of reading books on an electronic screen without requiring them to drop $360 bucks on a dedicated device.
What it may put at risk, however, are all of the other publishers (ScrollMotion, for example) looking to peddle eBooks on the iPhone platform. Amazon’s eBook library is massive, and almost always cheaper than these other options. Has Amazon just conquered the iPhone eBook market?
Check out the free application and catch up on your reading here. [iTunes Link]
How bout launching the Kindle in Canada instead. Sheeeesh!
Isn’t available everywhere ?..Am from Bangalore , India . The search option for the same doesnt return a thing !..
Not available in UK :(
Guess its available in US alone as of now .
Europe? Only available is the US?
I think this is a great start! I love that I can move to my iPhone to continue reading where I left off on my Kindle 2. You can bet your butt that Amazon will grow the feature-set of this quickly.
http://kevinelliott.net/blogs/kindlekevin/2009/03/04/kindle-for-iphone-has-been-released/
Hopefully, they will bring this to the Android platform as well.
Doesn’t seem to support Kindle newspaper subscriptions which is all I read on my Kindle.
Just noticed that as well.
Not available here in the UK and neither is the last application that they launched for the iPhone :(
Not in available in the German AppStore either… suck.
Good thing to note is that you can get tons of public domain books for free. The Amazon Kindle store itself has tons of them: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Fie%3DUTF8%26rs%3D154606011%26sort%3Dprice%26ref%255F%3Dsr%255Fpg%255F389%26bbn%3D154606011%26qid%3D1233262084%26rh%3Dn%253A154606011%26page%3D389&tag=kaleidojewel-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957
And of course, if you have a Kindle, you can get free books from places other than Amazon as well: http://ireaderreview.com/2008/01/19/free-books-for-the-amazon-kindle/
Pretty sweet!
oh man! make it available in germany and make the goddamn kindle available in europe. thanks.
Biggest hurdle to release kindle anywhere else but US is agreement with a wireless phone company to use their data network to download books from Amazon store. In US I think they are using Sprint network. Until they have a willing partner who can provide data network at a reasonable price, AMZN can not launch kindle outside of US. Without data network, kindle is not as useful.
I bought two kindle2’s and it’s ridiculous that I can’t share the WSJ or even TechCrunch fo that matter on 2 Kindles. I have to physically go to my computer, open amazon.com and switch the subscription.
If it were a physical newspaper at home, I can read it, put it on the counter and have someone else read it.
On the kindle I’d have to pay $10/mo for each kindle in the same house! Even techcrunch which is $1.99 for each kindle..
I really hope they change this…
Kindle Shmindle. I’m very happy with Stanza – tons of free books, keeps track of where I’ve left off.
not in the italian Store either. Booo !
Dah, I just tried to access the App Store in order to download the Kindle, but it seems, it’s not available in the french store yet.
This move really demonstrates why Amazon is such an adept company. No, not just because they’re making Kindle ubiquitous and the de facto e-book brand. No, not just because they build technology that really understands the user experience (start reading on one device, pick up reading on another device).
It’s because from the onset, they decided that they would not lose money on the Kindle and not adopt an Xbox-style pricing model in which they lost money for every Kindle device they sold. They made the decision early on to be cost-following in their business model for Kindle. This now gives them extraordinary flexibility in how they sell their content. iPhone, Kindle, Android, PC/Mac, the NextBigThing that some entrepreneur builds…it doesn’t matter. If you want to read, Amazon will be there with content in the form factor you want and they’re able to do so because they’re not hamstrung by the financial need to sell their own device.
I’m a huge fan of what these guys are doing, whether it’s cloud computing or e-books or online retailing.
There are a lot of things involved with taking Kindle international.
First, they need to bring the device to Europe and it’s currently only CDMA (Sprint). Second, they need to negotiate carrier agreements in Europe (ask Apple how hard that is/was). Third, they need to ink content deals with local language publishers.
It’s not to say that they shouldn’t be doing this and it’s not to say maybe they aren’t doing this. I bet they will and they are working on it. But it’s a lot more complicated than just selling the device overseas.
This is a good news! How I wish this would also be available here.
Got myself a US iTMS account and am now trying with some free samples (mostly Tom Clancy). So, downloading books definitely works outside the US over normal internet access.
Kindle on the iPhone has a weird pagination glitch when switching type sizes. Also, page turning is a drag gesture, I suppose they’ll issue an update for making it tap-once like other readers do.
Good announce, thanks for this
nice app!
Would be nice to see this on Android sooner rather than later, especially since Amazon’s music store is already built in. It’d make the purchasing process far less tedious.
You can purchase ebooks via the Amazon Mobile app (available as a free download from the App Store), then download and read them via the Kindle app. No need to muck about with Mobile Safari.
i see in a video and looks very well for the Iphone.
I’m considering buying my first smart phone the Omnia i910 which has Windows Mobile. Have they said anything about an app for WM?
Android! Android! Android! :-)
Sign the petition to ask Amazon to bundle ebooks with print book purchases: http://www.cityspeek.com/url/a2cf4
I’ve posted pictures of all three Kindle devices, open to the same book, comparing fonts and graphics between them:
http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com/2009/03/kindle-iphone-pictures.html
Nice but you can not get magazines and news papers :(
Probably nice, but not available in my national Appstore.
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
Slow news day? This was released on the 4th.