Kindle app for iPhone and iPod touch

I'm not the most avid reader, but I did find some interest in the Amazon
Kindle. The Kindle itself seemed too expensive to me, so when I heard about
the Kindle app for iPhone and iPod touch I tried it out.

Let me start by saying that the Kindle app for iPhone is definitely not mean
to be your primary reading device. It's really meant to be a companion to a
real Kindle. This being said, the iPhone app really does leave a bit to be
desired.

You get all the same books as you would on a "real" Kindle as well as
periodicals you subscribe to. You get super-fast downloads straight to your
iPhone or iPod touch. I swear it took like 30 seconds to download 4 books
to my iPhone 3G while on the 3G network. It would probably be faster on
Wi-Fi. That's more than acceptable for downloading an entire BOOK to your
mobile phone.

The disappointments abound, however. The screen size of the iPhone is just
too small to read from. I know this isn't really a fault of the
application, but it's disappointing nonetheless. Also, because the iPhone
has an LCD display instead of the super-pleasant E-Ink display of the
Kindle, there can be some pretty hefty eye strain after reading for a
while. There's no Landscape support, though I don't think this is an open
API in the 2.2 SDK for the iPhone so hopefully we'll see it on the next
version. There is no purchasing from the application, or even from the
Amazon mobile app. This is a deal-breaker for many iPhone users, I'm sure.

All in all, the application is OK. I can't say that I would have paid for
it had it not been free. Once the iPhone 3.0 update goes live, we'll see if
Amazon can add some of the missing functionality. I'm hoping to see all of
the application specific issues get fixed at this point.

Overall I give the Kindle iPhone app a 5 out of 10.







Amazon.com WidgetsKindle app for iPhone and iPod touch