Kindle on iPhone
Kindle comes to iPhones and iPods: as rumours predicted, Amazon starts selling eBooks with its own app; http://tr.im/gZQ6
Kindle comes to iPhones and iPods: as rumours predicted, Amazon starts selling eBooks with its own app; http://tr.im/gZQ6
Gerrit Eicker 08:12 on 4. March 2009 Permalink |
NYT: “‘We think the iPhone can be a great companion device for customers who are caught without their Kindle,’ said Ian Freed, Amazon’s vice president in charge of the Kindle. – Mr. Freed said people would still turn to stand-alone reading devices like the $359 Kindle when they want to read digital books for hours at a time. He also said that the experience of using the new iPhone application might persuade people to buy a Kindle, which has much longer battery life than the iPhone and a screen better suited for reading.”
RWW: “In the past, we wondered if the iPhone might just turn out be the ultimate eBook reader (even though Steve Jobs famously proclaimed that Apple isn’t interested in the eBook market because nobody reads anymore). While Amazon is adamant that this app is only a complement to the Kindle, we can’t help but think that Amazon is hedging its bets with this app. After all, it’s still very early in the development cycle of both eBooks readers and smartphones, and for now, it is anything but clear which devices users will prefer in end.”
Mossberg: “The new Kindle app isn’t as full-featured as some other e-reader apps for the iPhone, which do allow annotation, searching, and so forth. But it gets the job done and it gives you access to Amazon’s large catalog, which contains more popular and current commercial titles than other e-book sellers offer.”
Gerrit Eicker 13:30 on 4. March 2009 Permalink |
Mashable: “This is a smart move from Amazon. They could have stuck with the Kindle and shunned all other devices in order to retain more control and make more money on the hardware, but what they’re really interested is selling ebooks, and spanning the Kindle delivery system accross multiple platforms is a better way to do it. I’d like to be able to buy books directly in the iPhone application, though; users that are really serious about reading will buy the Kindle because of the better and bigger screen, so there’s no need to hamper the iPhone version in any way.”
MC: “Will this put Kindle device sales at risk? Not likely. The Kindle is a fairly niche product – not that reading is a niche activity (though it’s probably a bit less common than it should be), but the ideas of eBooks/e-Ink/etc are still fairly foreign to most (though Oprah’s mention definitely didnt hurt). This lets Amazon push more copies of e-products they’ve already got licenses for, all the while coaxing the stubborn folks into the idea of reading books on an electronic screen without requiring them to drop $360 bucks on a dedicated device. – What it may put at risk, however, are all of the other publishers (ScrollMotion, for example) looking to peddle eBooks on the iPhone platform. Amazon’s eBook library is massive, and almost always cheaper than these other options. Has Amazon just conquered the iPhone eBook market?“
Gerrit Eicker 17:30 on 4. March 2009 Permalink |
Last100: “However, aside from the Kindle’s superior e-ink screen technology, which is optimized for readability, there are a number of features that are missing from Amazon’s iPhone app. Most notable is the inability to browse and make purchases from the Kindle store directly within the app itself, instead you’ll need to fire up the iPhone’s web browser or make purchases first via a Kindle or desktop PC. Another omission, reports mocoNews, is access to newspapers, magazine and blog ‘subscriptions’, which due to copy-protection are currently tied to a single Kindle device.”
Gerrit Eicker 07:31 on 5. March 2009 Permalink |
AdAge: “Amazon’s long-term goal isn’t just to sell Kindle devices, but to become the dominant e-book platform the way it’s become the dominant online bookstore. That’s where the profits are going to come from. Opening up to the iPhone and other devices – how about a Web-based Kindle reader? – can only help.”
Kindle Goes iPad « Wir sprechen Online. 17:06 on 22. March 2010 Permalink |
[…] Goes iPad Amazon announces Kindle apps for tablet computers, including the iPad; http://j.mp/9vQKGZ […]