Review: Amazon’s Kindle app for iPhone/iPod Touch

Mar 06 2009

As I promised in this earlier post, here’s my review of the Amazon Kindle app I recently added to my iPhone (1st gen).

Download/Installation

No problems here. The Kindle app downloaded nicely onto my iPhone and I was able to open it up after it finished installing. No crashes. No glitches that I was able to detect. Par for the course.

The Kindle app is free, and so is my new ebook reader of choice Stanza, so they are both tied in this category.

Price

I decided to buy William Lashner’s Marked Man as a test book. Why? Because I’ve read a few other of Lashner’s books and have really enjoyed them, and I wanted something light and entertaining to test drive the Kindle app on.

The price I paid on Amazon’s Kindle store was $6.39. The same book on Fictionwise is $7.99. But, if you are a member of the Fictionwise Reward Program, you get 15% off ($1.20), which brings the price on Fictionwise down to $6.79. Not that big of a price difference, but Amazon is still cheaper on this one. I suppose if you buy a lot of books, the difference can quickly add up. Score one for Amazon.

I should note that the Fictionwise Rewards Program is basically signing
up for their free newsletter. You can read more details about it here.

Just for comparison purposes, the price of the print edition is $7.99 on Amazon and $5.98 on the Barnes & Noble website (who recently purchased Fictionwise, I might add).

Ease of use

The Kindle app doesn’t let you buy directly from the app on the iPhone/iPod Touch, as it does on the actual Kindle. Not a big deal for me, but might be an annoyance to others. However, I also have the regular Amazon iPhone app, and was also unable to buy the ebook version from there. That annoyed me.

Thus I had to open up the Safari browser and go to the Kindle Store on Amazon’s regular website and buy the ebook from there. The transaction itself was very simple and I didn’t even have to enter my credit card number in. By itself that is scary – I could easily go on an ebook buying binge and spend way too much!

After the ebook had been successfully purchased, I closed out Safari and opened the Kindle app again. As soon as I opened it, the book began to load onto the iPhone. Since I was on my home WiFi network, it loaded in a matter of seconds. If I had been out and about using AT&T’s Edge network (I have a 1st generation iPhone, remember?) it would have taken much longer.

Once the book was loaded it showed up in my library, and when I touched it, the book opened to the first page and I’m ready to read!

Reading experience

After playing around with the settings, I read a few pages of my newly purchased novel. The reading experience on the Kindle app is much like that on Fictionwise’s eReader or the Stanza, with a few notable exceptions.

First, there is no "landscape" view for reading (unless I totally missed something). I usually prefer to read in landscape as it makes the iPhone more comfortable to hold. By itself, however, this is no deal breaker.

Second, the Kindle App requires a fairly long swipe with the finger to turn the pages. This is opposed to Stanza where I just tap to move on to the next page. The eReader app only requires a small swipe, or, the settings can be changed so all you have to do is tap. The longer swipe will probably become cumbersome, especially during a long reading session.

Third, there are several choices for text size. This is great, especially when your eyes are a little tired you can make the text pretty big. But this is something the other apps also feature, so it’s not new.

Finally, overall the Kindle app doesn’t give the user nearly the amount of setting as Stanza does. I guess that’s because Amazon intends people to use this for quick reading sessions, when it may not be convenient to carry the Kindle 2 around with them.

Final thoughts

The Kindle app for the iPhone/iPod Touch is good, but not spectacular. I can’t predict how often I’ll use it, but I’m guessing that will depend on where I can find the best price on ebooks.

With a few updates and added features, this app can really give Stanza and eReader a run for their money, especially given the large number of books Amazon has available. However, I’m not sure that will happen. Amazon still wants people to buy the actual Kindle device for a majority of their reading, so I have a gut feeling that this app will always be lacking. Think about it: If they made their app too good, who’d buy the Kindle?

Another reason I don’t see Amazon putting the Stanza ebook reading app to rest is because the Kindle app is really only good for books bought on Amazon. With Stanza, the user has a lot more options for many different formats. And in the end, I think ebook readers want choices and the freedom to "shop around".

Does anyone out there have the Amazon app for the iPhone/iPod Touch? If so leave a comment below with your thoughts and impressions. I always love hearing what others have to say!

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