Amazon Kindle app for iPad

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Books, Free Apps,

Just like the Barnes & Noble iPad app that we talked about previously, an Amazon Kindle app that is specifically made and formatted for the iPad is also on the way. The folks over at the New York Times were able to get a look at it, and it sounds fairly similar to what we saw from Apple with their iBooks app. You can control the speed of a page turn with your finger, and it has a couple of new ways for people to view their entire eBook library. One of those, above, shows books covers with a background of someone reading a book under a tree. The position of the sun in the background changes depending on the time of day, which is fairly cool.

We find the whole things with both B&N and Amazon rushing to get their eBook reader apps ready for the iPad to be very interesting. In a nutshell, the iPad is now the only mobile device that will let you read eBooks purchased from Apple, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. All the other devices are tied to one store. Between the eBook stores, and apps like Instapaper, the iPad is prepped to be the most feature-rich eBook reader on the planet, and that doesn’t even take any of its other features into account.

Read More | NYT

Barnes and Noble readying iPad app in time for launch

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Books, App Store News, Free Apps,

Looks like Apple isn’t the only company looking to capitalize on the iPad hype in order to sell eBooks. Barnes & Noble has just made it public knowledge that they plan on releasing an iPad-optimized version of the B&N reader app, with the goal being to have it ready in the App Store on day one. We must say, we like it. In fact, this may cement the iPad as the best reader device around, because you’ve got the B&N app, the Kindle app, and of course, the Apple iBooks app as well (among others.) This means that you can purchase a book in any of those three ebook marketplaces, and read them all on your iPad. That’s something you just can’t do with a Kindle or nook. Let’s just hope that Apple doesn’t give these apps the same treatment that they’ve given to others, like Google Voice.

Amazon releases Kindle for iPhone

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Books, New Apps, Free Apps,

We knew that Amazon was planning on bringing their Kindle e-books to other devices, but we didn’t think it would happen this soon. This evening, Kindle for iPhone was released on the App Store, available for free. In a nutshell, you are able to associate your iPhone or iPod touch with your Amazon account, and can then buy Kindle book content and have it sent to your phone for reading. Kindle for iPhone is also compatible with the Whispersync service, which allows you to continue reading any Kindle content from where you left off, no matter which device you are reading on. That means you can start reading on your iPhone, stop, then power on your Kindle and continue from the same page you left off on. Very nice.

If you are a Kindle or Kindle 2 owner, and you’ve purchased books for those devices, when you download Kindle for iPhone you’ll have an Archived Items category that will list all your purchased books, which you can access immediately. In using the app, we found that it works extremely well—not as well as a Kindle, mind you, but as an extra way to read the e-books (or as a way to save yourself the $359 Kindle price tag,) the app shines. Go ahead and hit the App Store to grab Kindle for iPhone.

Read More | Kindle for iPhone