Flash! Amazon updates iPad/iPhone Kindle app

Flash! Amazon updates iPad/iPhone Kindle app

Amazon has just updated its

Kindle for iPad app

and

free Kindle for iPhone/iPod Touch apps

There are some exciting additions here!

• Instant word lookup, similar to the dictionary lookup on Kindle devices
• Finish downloading a book in the background (meaning you can do something else on iOS 4 devices
• Support for some non-Amazon book files…this one is huge, it means you get access to Project Gutenberg and Archive.org files.  I don’t see where they’ve told us the formats yet.  Some of it appears to do with web-e-books (you can open files in Safari), but you can also transfer files from iTunes.  This may mean you can use personal documents, but I’m not sure yet
• Zoom has been improved
• There’s a “new book indicator”…I assume this is something that tells you when a book has been downloaded and not opened yet.  I don’t think it means it is an improvement to an existing book indicator.  The Kindle tells us when books are new to the device

Kindle for iDevices help page

If you download the update, feel free to share your experiences by commenting on this post.

No, I don’t know if the upgrades are coming to the Blackberry, Android, or Windows 7 apps. 

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Flash! Amazon to introduce reader apps for more tablets

Flash! Amazon to introduce reader apps for more tablets

Amazon says in this new

press release

that they’ll be releasing apps for Windows and Android tablets.  They already have an app for the iPad and for Android phones.

This isn’t a surprise…Jeff Bezos said quite some time ago that the Kindle and Kindle e-books are two different markets.  That’s why there wasn’t a “contract” deal with the Kindle, where you might buy the device, pay a monthly fee, and have books included in that fee.  He didn’t want to marry the two markets that much.

I think the press release is also part of preparation for a possible Amazon tablet (which I’ve suggested could be called the “Amazon Current“).  They seem to be preparing Kindle users mentally for the idea that a backlit device isn’t a bad thing , and that they could own both a Kindle and a table. 

Dorothy Nicholls, the Director for the Amazon Kindle, is quoted in the press release as saying, “Many people are buying both a Kindle and an LCD tablet computer…”

A recent JP Morgan survey said that 40% of iPad owners also own a Kindle…and more plan to do so.

Isn’t that nice for Amazon? 

Wouldn’t it be even nicer if that was a Current and a Kindle?  :)

Amazon has services that would work great on a tablet…streaming video, MP3 downloads…they sell videogames already.

While this press release doesn’t prove anything about a possible Amazon tablet, it is suggestive.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Flash! Kindle for Android updated, new features

Flash! Kindle for Android updated, new features

You don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle store books.

You can get a free “reader app” and read them on a PC, a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone, an iPod touch, a Blackberry, and Android devices.

Those readers don’t have all the features of the Kindle (including the reflective E Ink screen, text-to-speech, and some Kindle store items), but they are being improved over time.

In this

press release

Amazon announces updates to the Android version.

• You will now be able to search within your books by text…or voice.  The latter is interesting: that might be one of the uses for the currently inactive microphone on the K3s. 
• “Seamless” Wikipedia look up
• Locking landscape/portrait orientation
• Look up book descriptions in Shelfari (a readers’ social networking site owned by Amazon)
• Add, edit, and delete notes and highlights, and sync them to other devices on your account

Customers who already have the app should get the update automatically. 

For more information, see

http://www.amazon.com/kindleforandroid

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.