Amazon's Kindle for iPhone hits the App Store

Sure, Amazon could pit the Kindle squarely against phone- and PDA-based e-book apps, but why not play both sides? The company had previously mentioned its desire to embrace non-Kindle devices in its digital delivery ecosystem, and the first fruits of that labor have now hit the iPhone App Store. The uncreatively-named Kindle for iPhone allows you access to all of your Kindle content right from the comfort of your iPhone or iPod touch, and if you have the good fortune of owning an honest-to-goodness Kindle, Whispersync will kick in to keep your location synchronized between readers. It's a huge win for owners of both devices, considering that the Kindle's still just a little bit big to be carrying everywhere you go, but your phone -- well, if you don't have that everywhere you go, you're just plain weird. [Warning: iTunes link]

[Via The iPhone Blog]

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 4th 2009 2:27AM]

So does this app work alongside the Kindle and apart from it? Are you able to buy Kindle content without owning an actual Kindle? Very interesting if yes to both...anxiously waiting to hear how readable a book is on the iPhone Kindle (I own the Kindle2 and love it for reading...the screen is beautifully recreates paper)...I'm sure there will be plenty of reviews by 10am tomorrow!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 4th 2009 2:34AM]

We were just covering this too. We think this is a brilliant move on Amazon's part for many reasons:
1. Amazon can sell more digital contents since every iPhone owner is now a potential buyer.
2. By having an iPhone app, Amazon is making the Kindle experience better for existing owners since they can roam their contents between iPhone and Kindle. Users can now read on whichever device they want depending on the environment.
3. It is taking another step in making e-book reading more mainstream and changing the social habits of reading digital contents from a device instead of a book.
4. Once people are sold on the idea of reading digital contents, more people are likely to buy Kindle devices.

Congratulations to Kindle for iPhone team at Amazon!

Sincerely,
[e-mail]
http://www.skratchboard.com

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 4th 2009 2:58AM]

Awesome! Any word whether / how soon until something similar comes down the pipe for Android? By year's end there will be more android-powered devices to choose from than apple-powered devices, so I imagine the market of potential buyers would grow faster on Android than iPhone.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 4th 2009 5:11AM]

Well, the writing is on the wall for Windows Mobile. With so many major sites and mindshare porting to iPhone apps, it's a cold porch for WM.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 4th 2009 7:25AM]

Where is the Blackberry app?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 4th 2009 2:27PM]

I can't register the app on my ipod touch. Found another user at boing boing that had the same problem on an iphone. Message returned is :"No Internet Connection-Please check WiFI..."

I'm hoping its a problem only at my work's wifi and not at home or other free wifi hotspots.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 5th 2009 9:08PM]

I'm having the same problem of "No Internet Connection". I get it at home on wi-fi and on 3G. I've tried a few times since last night and I get the same. I called Amazon. They said to uninstall it and re-download/install. If that doesn't work, it's an Apple issue. I didn't bother calling Apple as we all know that's going nowhere.

So, I basically can't use it. Too bad for Amazon ..... I may have been a good customer.