Kindle for iPhone [Video]
Late last year we saw online shopping giant Amazon announce their new consumer-focused paperless reading device. The Amazon Kindle. It’s sole purpose was to ditch reading on paper and instead use it’s electronic-paper display to create a new wireless reading experience.
Today, Amazon have announced Kindle for iPhone. An application designed to complete the Kindle experience, and I’ve been testing it out! ..
With the introduction of Kindle 2 Amazon also announced a new syncing service ‘WhisperSync’, and with Amazon today announcing that books from it’s Kindle Store are now wirelessly downloadable and deliverable to your iPhone or iPod touch, things are about to get very interesting.
“Kindle for iPhone [App Store] allows Apple iPhone and iPod touch owners to read Kindle books using a simple, easy-to-use interface. You can shop for hundreds of thousands of books at www.amazon.com/kindlestore, and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone or iPod touch. Enjoy Amazon’s low prices on Kindle books, including New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases for $9.99, unless marked otherwise.”
Cue Kindle for iPhone. A free application available in the US iTunes store which essentially turns your iPhone into the Kindle 2.
WhisperSync
I really like the idea of this. So what is it? Alongside Whispernetâ„¢ – another way of Amazon saying it will pay all your network connection bills when using it’s Kindle devices – WhisperSyncâ„¢ is a new syncing technology devised by Amazon, which allows you to sync your current reading position and bookmarks (in any book your reading), across every device connected to your Amazon Kindle account – now including your iPhone or iPod touch. But it doesn’t just work one way. If you bookmark a page on your iPhone WhisperSyncâ„¢ will sync that current reading point to all your Kindle devices.
“I have the new kindle. Important to note it (Kindle for iPhone) synced my reading point from there”
Twitter user @russu
It’s useful to note that Amazon’s WhisperSyncâ„¢ technology will only work on books you have actually purchased from it’s Kindle Store, rather than the free book samples available.
On iPhone
Opening the app for the first time will ask you to sign into your Amazon account and from here you’ll be thrown to a list view of all your available purchased books and downloaded samples.
On the ‘Home’ screen you can reorganize all your Kindle-bought books by three categories; Recent, Title and Author. If you ever need to delete a book you have an edit/delete button top left. Top right is the ‘Get Books’ button. This currency just loads an iPhone formatted screen giving you instructions on how you can buy books from Amazon. Bottom left you have a refresh button. Unfortunately Kindle for iPhone won’t refresh automatically to check for new books. instead you have to click the refresh button to initiate a check. I’d like to see auto-refreshing introduced in a future update.
See it in Action:
Buying Books
Now although you might think this is the logical way forward, Kindle for iPhone doesn’t currently allow book purchases from within the app itself. However, it’s not that big of a problem as you can use mobile Safari to access Amazon and buy them from there, and then they will sync as normal to Kindle for iPhone.
Now it’s important to note that I don’t own a Kindle, nor have I ever used a Kindle, so I didn’t have any books to try this out with at first. Instead I decided to try out Amazon’s Kindle Store for the first time, and download the sample of Dan Brown’s Deception Point – Great book!
As I was completing the process for the first time, I was very interesting to see how user-intuitive it was, and I have to say – it couldn’t of been simpler. It was a case of searching for Deception point on the Kindle Store, clicking the ‘Send sample now’ button and logging into my Amazon account.
What’s even more interesting is the message I received:
Kindle users will probably notice that instead of the download section on the right of the order page just stating ‘Send wirelessly to your Kindle’ it now reads: ‘Send wirelessly to your Kindle or Kindle for iPhone‘. This is because from today Amazon has started (and will continue to) roll out purchasable books for your iPhone and iPod touch.
To give you an example of how fast this service is at downloading content to your iPhone, the sample I requested of Dan Brown’s Deception Point took less than 5 seconds to appear on Kindle for iPhone.
Reading & Visuals
Although Kindle for iPhone doesn’t have many features yet, it does have a very clean interface. Tapping on a book or sample will open it up in the built in reader. Navigating previous and next pages is just a simple left or right swipe away. Tapping the screen on any page of a book will bring up the floating menu bar, and from here you have six reading functions. From left to right the buttons include: Quick chapter navigation, Bookmark this page, Goto chapter (list view), Text size (extra small, small, normal, large and extra large), Retrieve furthest read point.
It’s handy to note that there is a shortcut to using the ‘Book this Page’ function. Simple tap the top right hand corner of any page. The page corner will curl showing you have now saved and bookmarked this reading point.
Below this is a progress meter. This shows you how far you have read through one of your purchased book or book sample, in the form of a slide dial. Sliding the dial to a different position on the scale will automatically flip to the page corresponding with that reading position – and I have to say, it’s fairly accurate to use.
Overall
If there’s ever been a way to read and enjoy ebooks on the move, this is it. By integrating their Kindle Store with the iPhone (and iPod touch) Amazon have brought hundreds upon thousands of licensed books to our fingertips. Fonts display crisply, and extra options make for a great reading experience. You no longer have to take your Kindle or Kindle 2 with you on the road. Kindle for iPhone completes the Amazon Kindle experience.
Things we’d like to see
- Access to the Kindle Store from within app itself. (One-Click Purchasing)
- Auto refreshing of Home Screen / Downloaded books
- Current download status of bought books samples
Current Status: Recommended
Reviewed at: v1.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2.1
Download size: 2.9MB
Released on: 3rd March 2009
Retails for: FREE
Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 5:33 PM and is filed under App Store, iPhone, iPod. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Arron
Hi, I'm Arron. I'm 20 and I am currently working as a freelance graphic designer and blogger. While managing RazorianFly, I currently also write for AppBoy.com, have previously written for 148Apps.com and have been approached by many others. I've been into graphic design for about 7 years now, and now offer iPhone and iPad Interface Design to developers professionally. Along with James, I also co-founded our brilliant new shortening service, RFly.Me. I'm very much tuned into both the App Store and Apple in general. I like the design, presentation and clarity of a product. If it doesn't cut it I'll tell you straight. I'm on Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook!
RSS Feed
E-mail Feed
Follow us on Twitter!
I was skeptical when I received this kindle reader as a birthday present from my wife and kids but I love this product. It is so easy to use both to read and purchase new books. I read a lot at the gym while on cardio equipment and this is so much easier than dealing with books and using something to hold the pages open. If something were to happen to my kindle I would have to go out and get antother one!