We just downloaded and installed the Kindle for iPhone app and you can color me impressed. Not only do you get – almost – the same reading experience you get on the Kindle this essentially opens to ebook market up in ways that could change the whole “reading a book” industry.
The download is free and opens a small window asking you for your Amazon account. We covered the original news on MobileCrunch.
It then brings up a screen showing the books in your archive and, most importantly, adds your iPhone to the Kindle download page. A few clicks later you’re reading your book.
Photo Gallery by Picturesurf
You can scroll back and forth with one finger, add bookmarks, and jump to sections in the book. You can also sync your current page across different devices, which means you never lose your place.
Purchasing is hobbled by Apple’s messy EULA – you can’t sell third-party things through an app in an app store, thereby making an app store in the app store and causing a singularity that would destroy the iPhone and those in the general vicinity, and you can’t read newspapers and magazines. To purchase books you’re sent to Amazon on mobile Safari or back to your desktop.
This is a great step for ebooks. By opening the market to the 12 million or so iPhone users worldwide (provided you figure out how to download the app outside of the country, a proposition and have a US-based Amazon account, two propositions that should be solved within the hour by hackers). This isn’t working overseas yet – they probably have to get a special stamp from the Authors Guild and it’s taking months just to get Old Man Blount from his rocking chair to the little window in the Guild’s headquarters and then another few months to get a new stamp pad – but expect it to work internationally very soon.
If you really want the Kindle experience, I don’t think you’ll find it on the iPhone. I say buy the real deal if you want to experience it as it should be.
If you want the Kindle experience “as it should be,” you should wait for Kindle 3 or 4. The thing still looks like a prototype, it needs more internal/removable storage, and it should (and will) have better image-display resolution. Until then, this is a nice option for iPhone/iPod Touch owners.
The Kindle App on iPhone is a great marketing campaign to expose the Kindle and Amazon brands to tens of millions. Gadget freaks will own all of the above.
Selling ebook content improves the gross margin for Amazon where the margins for commodity products is razor thin.
Aren’t there free e-readers on the iPhone from which you can get free books? I’m beginning to think Amazon is paying you to do free marketing for them.
“I’m beginning to think Amazon is paying you to do free marketing for them.”
Please read that sentence out loud and ask yourself “does this make sense?”
This is a wise move by Amazon! Too often companies try to shutdown their services so that other companies can’t use it. But, it seems that Amazon realizes the benefit of the razor-razor blade business model. The money isn’t in the selling of the Kindle itself, it’s in the ebooks it sells for it. The more ways you can sell the ebooks the better for Amazon’s bottom line. Great move Amazon!
Totally agree with Charlie, the business is in the content, not the Kindle.
It is ironic, Apple makes software to sell hardware, Amazon makes hardware to sell content.
Are you high? Apple makes hardware and software to sell content.
Kevin — Apple has always stated that its iTunes store is at worse a loss-leader, at best a break-even proposition. The money’s in the hardware (e.g. 50% profit on the sale of each iPhone).
No, I don’t think Amazon gets it. Both hardware and content are pretty expensive – not the classic razor-razor blade model.
This seems to only be available to the US!!!
Some people just can’t seem to read before they post a comment.
All those business development deals around e-books will only improve Amazon’s bottom line. Content is king building as is CASH IS KING for Amazon.
I like this very much, because I have an iPhone and don’t want to buy another device. But I’ll need to get a fully adjustable stand for my iPhone so that I can read a book without having to get carpal tunnel syndrome. There’s one I saw at http://www.nimblesource.com/podium that I guess I have an excuse to buy now.
I have an iPhone and I get want Amazon is trying to do…kinda have their own interface/store and own the market like iPhone is doing with micro apps.
I have pretty big technical library and don’t buy just books from Amazon believe it or not. So, I have my own ebook viewer and set up on my iPhone and works pretty well.
I wrote about the experience here:
http://silverlighthack.com/post/2009/02/14/Taking-your-developer-library-mobile-with-the-iPhone.aspx
I am so pumped for this
This actually already works outside of the US. Just make your accounts with a little bit of creative fudging of data, install the app, and order on Amazon.
I love this. I really didn’t use my Kindle much as I never seem to have it with me and it’s big to carry around. But my iPhone is always on and always with me.
The app seems to work fine. I think this is the future of ebooks. Put them on a device that is convenient…
Bad for Authors…not as much money in ebooks as in real books. But cant stop progress i guess.
What??? Look, if the publisher doesn’t want to provide a Kindle version, he doesn’t. Period. But that would be stupid.
Which do you think has the greatest production cost, a dead tree version or an e-book version?
Which do you think has the greatest profit margin?
As a several-time published author of both fiction and non-fiction, nothing would make me happier than to excise my publisher from the equation. Kindle lets me self-publish and the Kindle service makes it easy for me to get in front of prospective readers and market myself.
Kindle and e-books in general are great for authors.
Oh, should add that my royalty on a typical printed book is going to be somewhere between $2-5/book sold, sometimes less, sometimes more, all depending on the medium and distribution (hardcover, paperback, paperback via airport stores and supermarkets, etc).
While it’s true that many boilerplate publishing contracts would reduce an author’s royalty rate for electronic editions, my broader point is that Kindle affords the author the opportunity to bypass the publisher altogether.
Just as we’re seeing with Redfin and Zillow, being the middleman in a transaction is not a long-term bet.
Is that true? I would think that electronic versions would allow for higher profits for everyone.
This is great – but even if this is just a first version of the app I think they miss a few important details. Notably, no preferences, which is meaningful if only because it means you can’t choose to read in landscape mode, something readers have come to expect on the iPhone via Stanza, which sets the tone and the benchmark for flexible ebook user experience. I’m also surprised they haven’t immediately started selling content through Stanza’s internal purchase system – this would allow those who don’t want two apps to still buy from Amazon. Stanza is likely to survive this because of its free content and large installed user-base – why not just start playing along nicely together from the get-go? :)
But a bold move by Amazon and one that is definitely going to shake things up!
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Brilliant!
I’ve wanted to try the eBook movement for a while, but not enough to invest the $350 or so on a kindle.
This is an easy way for me to get started.
Obviously the screen is smaller but how much less on the page do you get on the iPhone vs. the Kindle?
IPhone: bright (no ambient light required), lightweight, nice reliable newspaper-style column width for faster reading, smooth Apple interface.
Kindle: Nice paper look that works well out in sunlight, direct downloads from Amazon.
For me, I’ll pack the Kindle and carry the iPhone. Both revolutionary products.
what?
LOL, except that I just bought the Kindle 2 because I couldn’t stand reading on the iPhone
I hope that we can buy ebooks from diffirent ebook store, not just amazon.
There was already a great e-book reading app for the iPhone from fictionwise.com. They have a great selection (with many bestsellers) and you can sync libraries across multiple platforms. They were there first with a great app. They deserve props for that.
They put text onto the iPhone, what a revelation. What separates the Kindle from anything else is the eInk display. You’re missing the entire point, that no one wants to be reading from a computer screen that projects light.
The biggest problem is that the iKindle doesn’t support newspaper subscriptions.
IDK if I want to do that much reading on my little iPhone screen. It’s not bad for a news article here or there, but a whole book? Ehh.
It’s sweet that this is available though. I think it’s a great move on Amazon’s part to bring people to eBooks!
I don’t mind the screen size at all. In fact, I have read some rather large books on it. I used the eReader app and downloaded them directly from manybooks.net. The largest were Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina. IIRC, when formatted for eReader on iPhone, each was in the range of many thousands of pages. I found it extremely convenient to continue reading on a device I always had with me.
this app looks cool…
I can not check it… Is it only available in US?
Amazon and Authors are loosing a lot of money not opening the service beyond US. In time of crisis this is not sense.
Great Amazon, one of the very few true innovators.
This is a defensive move to prevent Apple owning that space and partly a marketing move to get the brand out there more widely.
Go Amazon! Go!
I’d go blind if I read a whole book on my iPhone.
Do you think Karen will like this?
Good Application! I have a kindle and this is definitely an extension of the kindle device. I always have my phone on me but not the kindle on me at all times.
My only gripe is that it only supports books and not periodicals or newspapers yet. I would love to be able to read my WSJ on the iPhone as well.
Jim
I was very excited to see this and immediately downloaded it this morning. Sure enough, it opens my books to my last-read page. The only complaint I have is that I can’t see my magazine or newspaper subscriptions on the iPhone Kindle app.
I really like this, B
Well, if Karen likes it then its a wrap, no reason to really argue the issue further. Thanks guys for all your comments until next time!
Is there something like spreed.com that allows you to speed read on this content? On the iphone, that would be much better since reading a ton without e-ink kinda sucks.
Would it be practical to have text to speech application on the iPhone so you wouldn’t have to read?
eReader for iPhone and Windows Mobile has been around long before Kindle and is an excellent product.
Amazon will do great in this economy. It’s kindle strategy makes sense and is the way to go on setting up Amazon’s revenue for this year:
http://www.wealthalchemist.com/Blog/2009/01/amazon-anti-recessionary-stellar-q4-2008/
Cool app… text to speech please
http://christopherlo.net/?p=81
Placing the Kindle content on a expensive USD$3K phone is in keeping with the price of the Kindle and its content. I agree that the authors should get paid for their work, but in these days I am using the library rentals for my best seller reading.
The content is digital, it did not require typesetting, binding, shipping, stocking etc. Just the Author’s imagination/knowledge and Editor’s diplomacy. This is the same paradigm that the music industry just went through.
Amazon: Please lower the price of the Kindle, USD$360 does not help in replacing a pulp novel with a silicon one. The payback is way too many books to read within the product’s lifetime.
Amazon: Who in the rest of the world uses Sprint ? Wasn;t that a railroad’s communication’s division ? How about a GSM version for both the US and the rest of the world.
Amazon: How about a short term lease of books? I have no desire to construct a digital bookshelf, think of all the bits that could be recycled. Our Silicon budget could be managed and we could save the free world. We could rent the book, with a terminating license, this would be the equivalent of a rental library. With a lower priced Kindle, and lower priced rental book, I’ll bet it would sell Kindles and Titles like hotcakes.
Couldn’t agree more, the thing keeping me from the ebook movement is the pricing. The best thing about the Kindle for the iPhone is it will introduce more competition and drive pricing down, or will create new models for renting books.
I’m about to buy it :)
what i really want to know is whether Apple will come out with an eReader or other table size device. the store Geniuses look silly cradling laptops. Woz’s modbook may be in the ballpark size wise.
Don’t knock reading on the iPhone until you’ve actually done it. While I’m sure some will find it unpleasant in practice, most people who complain about it without trying it find it’s actually just fine and their fears are blown away by the end. I’ve read thousands of pages, at least twenty meaty books, on my iPhone thanks to apps like BookShelf and Stanza and it has been a pleasure.
I’ve been reading books on mobile devices (like a grayscale WinCE device years ago) for a decade now and the “eBook revolution” that so many people claim is going to happen, is ancient history for me.
I live in Japan, with an iPhone through the Japanese carrier. I downloaded Kindle easily. I already had my Amazon account established from back home California, but the AppStore didn’t deny me the Download because of my Japanese carrier…
I do find it troublesome, though, trying to get books that I’ve downloaded elsewhere for free into the Kindle for iPhone App… through the Amazon site and the iPhone/iTunes setup. Lame.
Back to eReader.
My biggest concern about the Kindle, aside from it’s weird, book-buring-esque name, is that it compromises the integrity of the written word. A printed book may be unwieldy, but you know that once it’s on your shelf, not one letter is going to change. Can’t say the same for the Kindle.
Also, when I spill coffee all over a book, I’ve only ruined that particular book :)
We just did a demo of this app and it’s really useful, check it out: http://tinyurl.com/bcz9r5
I love the Kindle for iPhone. Another great and useful app that I use quite a bit. The Kindle to me, while is a cool device, is just another big bulky device that does only 1 thing well. When my iPhone does multiple things well – phone, music player, web browser, email and NOW reading device.
Perfect for long plane rides, and it’s an app that doesn’t eat up alot of the battery life (like listening to music or playing a vid). So you can enjoy reading for hours. And when you travel a bit like myself, and have no access to the internet, reading from my iphone is perfect. I don’t have to carry around multiple books or magazines, or another device. I just read from my iPhone.
I love that the Kindle is tied into Amazon.com’s huge library of ebooks, which makes dowloading and ordering super easy and FAST. And downloading the books is seamless. Order it, type in your pwd, use your 1-click settings and then Bam, imported into your Kindle. And the features on the iphone for Kindle are so much better than the eReader app (which I’ve also used).