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  • Kindle, meet iPhone.
    by
    Kyle Matthews
    Published on 03-05-2009 02:57 AM
    25 Comments Comments


    Amazon.com's Kindle is recently released in its 2.0 iteration, and with it comes a whole new competitor - the iPhone. Except... its not competition at all. Amazon has actually released a free app in the AppStore to allow iPhone users to read purchased Kindle-compatible books on their iPhones.

    The Kindle Store currently has more than 240,000 titles and are adding more every day. The Kindle Store offers 104 of 112 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list. New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases are $9.99, and you'll find many books for less.
    While the app allows you to read Kindle books (and smartly syncs with your Kindle reading - if you left off at page 143 on your Kindle, that's where you'd be on your iPhone as well), it does NOT let you purchase Kindle books FROM the iPhone. You can however purchase them on Amazon.com and send them to your iPhone wirelessly... but no browsing and purchasing books from within the app - that'd be sweet.

    $359 is a bit steep for the Kindle still, so perhaps Amazon can net some extra revenue this way by simply selling books to iPhone users. Either way its a useful app!

    Kindle (AppStore Link - free) via Reuters
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Kindle, meet iPhone. started by Kyle Matthews View original post
    Comments 25 Comments
    1. Enkidu's Avatar
      Enkidu - 03-05-2009, 03:14 AM
      What's the name of the app? I can't seem to find it in iTunes (German App Store). I've searched for kindle, but I couldn't find it. Maybe this is US only right now?? That would suck...
    1. vedavis's Avatar
      vedavis - 03-05-2009, 04:48 AM
      Although I applaud Amazon for thinking of us iPhone users, I would like to hear from others if this is a practical idea. My opinion is that you'd really have to be so passionate about reading that you'd be willing to peruse an e-book what looks to be like a paragraph at a time.
    1. KingRedmer's Avatar
      KingRedmer - 03-05-2009, 07:42 AM
      you can adjust the font size within the app. it's actually quite nice. flick left or right, like in photos, to switch pages.
    1. confucious's Avatar
      confucious - 03-05-2009, 09:43 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Enkidu View Post
      What's the name of the app? I can't seem to find it in iTunes (German App Store). I've searched for kindle, but I couldn't find it. Maybe this is US only right now?? That would suck...
      It is only US at the moment - but I'm in no rush for it to come to the UK.
      Who wants to pay for books in yet another proprietary format?
    1. butisitart's Avatar
      butisitart - 03-05-2009, 10:24 AM
      Anyone figure out where the book files are stored on the iPhone? I have some Kindle Books from free sites I'd like to load on.

      Edited by me (butisitart) 03/06/2009:

      Okay ... I found the path myself.

      /private/var/mobile/Applications/Kindle Folder/eBooks


      Here's the catch. Where it says "Kindle Folder" in my path above, it's actually a folder with a huge number. It seems applications stored in /private/var/mobile/Applications are contained in a folder consisting of a huge number like: 223FB8C6-B666-47F5-A841-98BA65E06A5D. Inside that folder is where you will find all the files, prefs, etc and the actual app. If you have many apps, you may have to find which one Kindle.app is in, it may not be the same number as mine. Then again ... maybe it is.

      To make my life easier I also created a symbolic link at the root level of my iPhone to the eBooks folder.

      Hope that makes sense.
    1. HighTymes's Avatar
      HighTymes - 03-05-2009, 10:51 AM
      Really frickin sweet. My parents and girl love the Kindle, they were shocked/jealous when they found out I now have this.

      App works great and is fast. Had no problem brown on amazon.com on iphone and selecting which books I wanted. Book were then sent to my iphone all WITHOUT a PC. Every easy to read, Good stuff.
    1. sziklassy's Avatar
      sziklassy - 03-05-2009, 12:11 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by vedavis View Post
      Although I applaud Amazon for thinking of us iPhone users, I would like to hear from others if this is a practical idea. My opinion is that you'd really have to be so passionate about reading that you'd be willing to peruse an e-book what looks to be like a paragraph at a time.
      This is probably not geared toward those who buy books and read at home... more for the person that travels a lot and enjoys reading and would prefer to not have to take a handful of books with them wherever they go.

      Having looked at prices I was a little surprised. They are not much cheaper than going out and buying the book at the local Barne's and Noble (depending on the book I guess). I would have expected something at least like half price or less.
    1. confucious's Avatar
      confucious - 03-05-2009, 02:22 PM
      Not sure what it's like in other countries but here in the UK we have a very good library service. I very rarely buy books, I just borrow them from the library. Unlike music which you listen to many times and swap depending on your mood, I tend to read a book once and only one book at a time so don't want or need to carry many books.
    1. SubEd's Avatar
      SubEd - 03-05-2009, 02:57 PM
      I hope the next version includes searchable text so it's practical to use with reference guides.
    1. sziklassy's Avatar
      sziklassy - 03-05-2009, 03:19 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by confucious View Post
      Not sure what it's like in other countries but here in the UK we have a very good library service. I very rarely buy books, I just borrow them from the library. Unlike music which you listen to many times and swap depending on your mood, I tend to read a book once and only one book at a time so don't want or need to carry many books.
      Educational books here are not hard to come by at the library. Anything else is hit or miss.
    1. confucious's Avatar
      confucious - 03-05-2009, 03:31 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by sziklassy View Post
      Educational books here are not hard to come by at the library. Anything else is hit or miss.
      Ouch!

      You can't order fiction books in the UK if they don't have it - but that doesn't happen very often. Any non-fiction book can be ordered though and they will get it for you.

      I once had to travel 20 miles to the next county to get a fiction book, but there weren't many copies arround. The author herslf would have lent me her copy but she'd lent it to her son-in-law and hadn't got it back. Apart from that I've never had a problem getting any book from the library.
    1. discostar's Avatar
      discostar - 03-05-2009, 04:27 PM
      I downloaded it and it's pretty disappointing. No landscape view, You can't even buy the books through the app! They just send you to Amazon.com. I probably would've bought at least 1 book, definitely would've bought one if it was on my to-read list, but they don't even supply you with a custom web interface. I didn't want to browse through the regular amazon.com Kindle site, WHICH ISN'T EVEN CUSTOMIZED FOR iPHONE!

      Very little thought went into this app. Amazon dropped the ball and got lots of publicity out of it all at the same time.
    1. JacquesChirac's Avatar
      JacquesChirac - 03-05-2009, 04:49 PM
      I don't know why anyone would want any overpriced bookreader.

      They're just crappy modified .txt readers

      books app (a txt and html reader) is the best. It's free and .txt books are available all over the internet. just take any file format and copy and paste the words into textedit/notepad or just change a file's extension to .txt or .html and you can plop that file into the books app reader.

      Or you can go to librivox.org for free audio recordings of a load of awesome books that actually work really well on the iphone even on edge. (no app or patch needed!)
    1. sziklassy's Avatar
      sziklassy - 03-05-2009, 06:44 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by confucious View Post
      Ouch!

      You can't order fiction books in the UK if they don't have it - but that doesn't happen very often. Any non-fiction book can be ordered though and they will get it for you.

      I once had to travel 20 miles to the next county to get a fiction book, but there weren't many copies arround. The author herslf would have lent me her copy but she'd lent it to her son-in-law and hadn't got it back. Apart from that I've never had a problem getting any book from the library.
      If I had to drive 20 miles for a book I think I would rather just buy it...

      Quote Originally Posted by discostar View Post
      I downloaded it and it's pretty disappointing. No landscape view, You can't even buy the books through the app! They just send you to Amazon.com. I probably would've bought at least 1 book, definitely would've bought one if it was on my to-read list, but they don't even supply you with a custom web interface. I didn't want to browse through the regular amazon.com Kindle site, WHICH ISN'T EVEN CUSTOMIZED FOR iPHONE!

      Very little thought went into this app. Amazon dropped the ball and got lots of publicity out of it all at the same time.
      To allow you to purchase books through the app they would either have to partner with itunes (yeah, don;t think they want to do that...) or make you enter some sort of credit card info in an app. I, personally, would rather not do any of those. I suppose you could also just enter your info in a main PC and just have a login that stores your credit card info. At the end of the day this thing is geared towards those who were thinking about the kindle but didn't want to shell out the cash for the unit. I don;t think they so much dropped the ball as the app just doesn;t meet your preferences
    1. confucious's Avatar
      confucious - 03-06-2009, 01:10 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by sziklassy View Post
      If I had to drive 20 miles for a book I think I would rather just buy it...
      So would I - but the book was out of print. The two nearest counties libraries had lost their copies and the author herself didn't have a copy - the chances of finding it in a shop wre somewhat remote

      Quote Originally Posted by sziklassy View Post
      To allow you to purchase books through the app they would either have to partner with itunes
      But having a web page optimised for the iPhone is something they really should consider.

      Has anyone found where to transfer files to the iPhone for use with this app? I've downloaded it to have a look and can't download direct from Amazon (they won't send outside the US) so have downloaded a book but now need to know where to put it on the phone.

      Thanks
    1. Mr space's Avatar
      Mr space - 03-06-2009, 03:35 AM
      It is only US at the moment but I hope we get it
      here in germany soon.
    1. Nimbulan's Avatar
      Nimbulan - 03-06-2009, 05:54 AM
      He dies.
    1. mobilexile's Avatar
      mobilexile - 03-06-2009, 12:24 PM
      I read a lot so the Kindle 2 was a no-brainer for me. Got mine last week and have been very pleased.

      When news of this app came out some friends, and my wife, gave me a hard time. What they, and many others, don't know is that reading a book on the iPhone stinks. The backlight fatigues my eyes very quickly when trying to read long text -- a decent Wall Street Journal article is about my tolerance. Anything beyond that is simply painful.

      The Kindle 2, by contrast, creates the text with e-ink which is reflective, like printed pages. It's much easier on the eyes and the battery life is much longer than that of an iPhone, as in a week or more on a charge (with Wifi turned off).

      Then there's the fact that I actually need my iPhone for calls and email -- can't afford to be draining the already poor battery life of the iPhone 3G on books.

      While I'm a fan of device convergence this isn't the place / way for me to cutback on gadgets. I'll keep my Kindle 2 and my iPhone and allow them to serve the very valuable roles they play for me.
    1. confucious's Avatar
      confucious - 03-06-2009, 12:32 PM
      So, what your saying is the Kindle 2 is nearly as good as a real book then?
    1. mobilexile's Avatar
      mobilexile - 03-06-2009, 12:47 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by confucious View Post
      So, what your saying is the Kindle 2 is nearly as good as a real book then?
      No, it's better. The one and only way in which it's not as good as a book is the inability to roll it up and swat my dog if she acts up. Other than that the printed page loses to the Kindle 2.
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