Amazon finally releases iPhone/iPod Touch app for e-reading

Mar 04 2009

When I first read about Amazon’s new app for the iPhone, I was reminded of the saying, "If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em!" Or something like that. For me, this story broke when I read this Publishers Weekly article that detailed Amazon’s new app:

The company launched its Kindle for iPhone and iPod Touch app this morning, making it available for free from Apple’s App Store. By downloading the software, iPhone and iPod users will get access to the 240,000 e-books now available through Kindle. Amazon’s Whispersync technology will let users switch back and forth between the iPhone and Kindle and pick up reading a book or publication where they left off. The iPhone app will not include Amazon’s text-to-speech function.

I love that last sentence. The line makes an ominous reference the trouble Amazon found itself in for including text-to-speech capability in their new Kindle 2. Amazon recently caved to pressure from groups like the Authors Guild and will let publishers decide whether to allow their books to have that functionality.

Anyway, I think Amazon made the right decision. The more choices we (the readers) have when it comes to ebooks, the better the market will be. The only question now is whether or not Amazon can compete against Stanza in the app market, especially given that Stanza is open to so many different formats and lets readers download books from a wide range of sites.

The best part about Amazon’s app, is obviously such a wide selection of books. They boast 240,000 titles. When I find an ebook I want to read, I can now compare prices from Amazon, Fictionwise and others and go with the cheapest one. Ah, I love competition! This alone might just force down Amazon’s ebook prices, especially given recent criticism of how prices have been crawling upwards.

I plan on adding Amazon’s new app to my iPhone and will give it a test drive. You can read my detailed review here. In the meantime, you can read more about the new app here, here and here.

What do you think about Amazon’s new app? What will it do for the ebook market? Leave a comment below and let’s hear your thoughts!

3 Responses

I have to say I am VERY dissapointed in Amazon’s decision to fold to publisher’s pressure on the TTS issue. I am a Special Education teacher and jumped right to the Amazon Store to buy them for my Learning Disabled students soley because of the New text to speech. If I can offer the ability to see and hear the words at the same time, they have more of a chance at establishing a larger sight vocabulary. We don’t think about that when we think we are cutting into audiobook profits. Do you really think that the average person would rather listen to a robotic voice vs an audiobook read by a real person? Ridiculous! Or how about that audio support for those that are progressing in their literacy and just need the occasional support? It is equivelant to taking any other assistive device away from a disabled person (wheelchair, aac device, cane, etc)! Here’s to taking 10 steps back! VERY upset!

LisaP 5/9/2009 2:47 pm
Do you really think that the average person would rather listen to a robotic voice vs an audiobook read by a real person? Ridiculous! Or how about that audio support for those that are progressing in their literacy and just need the occasional support? It is equivelant to taking any other assistive device away from a disabled person

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