Barnes & Noble releases free iPhone app (review included)

Jun 29 2009

Exciting news for all you iPhone and iPod Touch owners out there – mega bookstore chain Barnes & Noble (B&N) released a free app today, available on the iTunes app store. The app lets you browse books, read editorial/customer reviews, access to exclusive content, and even take a picture of a book’s cover and find out a whole bunch of cool information about it.

Could B&N be gearing up to go even more digital (think: ebooks) later on in the year?

I first got wind of the new app by reading this article from Publishers Weekly. In part, the article says:

B&N president William Lynch said the company launched the app based on the growth it has seen over the past year in its mobile traffic. With the app, he said, users can access “exclusive content and customer reviews, as well as information about the more than 50,000 events in our stores.” They can also purchase items, view B&N Recommends lists, watch video interviews with authors and access other features of BN.com.

Nothing really groundbreaking in the announcement. In fact, the app seems a lot like the Amazon iPhone app. So I guess it’s no surprise that B&N would want to cash in on the mobile computing revolution as well.

Possibilities for ebooks?

Earlier this year B&N acquired online ebook retailer Fictionwise, then came out with a statement saying that B&N will be unveiling a new digital bookstore later on in 2009. I can’t help but wonder if B&N is getting ready for this by unveiling the iPhone app.

With Fictionwise at their fingertips, the possibilies are really endless. I’d love to see B&N integrate the ability to buy ebooks into their iPhone app. This might make it possible to get a free ebook version of a print book, or a discounted version of the print book with purchas of an ebook. For me, that’d be nice because I do prefer reading print books in bed. And having both would allow me to read the print version at home, and read the e-version while I’m on the go.

B&N can really do a lot to give Amazon some much need competition in the realm of ebooks.

Mini review of B&N iPhone app

I downloaded the app onto my iPhone (1st gen) and fired it up. The app has a nice user interface and loads pretty quickly (using my home wifi network – haven’t tried it out on the slower edge network). I immediately went to the “Store” feature on the app, and let it find the nearest stores near me using the iPhone’s location finder capability (for me, not quite as accurate as I don’t have GPS on my iPhone). But the app immediately brought up several of the closest stores to me and detailed information about each one – address, phone, special events, etc.

The app’s home screen gives you an option to browse books by bestsellers, recommendations,  and lets you access exclusive content. The search function worked about as well as expected. And as mentioned above, you can take a picture of a bookcover inside the app and it will give you reviews of the book and other useful information.

Overall the app is pretty slick. I hope B&N keeps it that way and surprises us with new features in the future.

If you are an iPhone/iPod Touch user, and you have downloaded and used the B&N app, give us your thoughts in the comments below!

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