Bathroom reading ahoy! Now you can download a free iPhone app called Kindle and use it to buy read e-books from Amazon:

The move comes a week after Amazon started shipping the updated version of its Kindle reading device. It signals that the company may be more interested in becoming the pre-eminent retailer of e-books than in being the top manufacturer of reading devices.

But Amazon said that it sees its Kindle reader and devices like the iPhone as complementary, and that people will use their mobile phones to read books only for short periods, such as while waiting in grocery store lines.

“We think the iPhone can be a great companion device for customers who are caught without their Kindle,” said Ian Freed, Amazon’s vice president in charge of the Kindle.


Caught without a Kindle? Isn’t that what happened to Gimli and Legolas when they were in the caves of Aglarond? I forget…

Correction: you can’t actually BUY books directly for the iPhone. You have to buy them through your Amazon account, but then the books can be read on either iPhone or Kindle, picking up where you left off.

1 COMMENT

  1. I didn’t think you could *buy* books using the app on the iphone because apple don’t allow you to buy stuff from within apps?

    You have to buy the book via amazon and then the sync software adds it to the app (or at least that’s how I understand it).

  2. You have to wait for affordable color e-ink. The techies tell me that’s going to be a LONG wait.

    Of course, why black-and-white comics creators haven’t marketed their wares to Kindle is beyond me. Someone shake Dave Sim out of his daily prayers…

  3. Yeah. I know that lots of people think the iPhone is a fine way to read things, but I’m not one of them. Needs to be about 50% bigger at least. Color e-ink would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.

    However, this at the very least should show Apple that there’s some demand for such a device.

  4. I don’t think I’d want to read an 8.5 by 11 comic book on the iPhone. Kindle? Sure, maybe, though there’s a factor of size there, too.

    But I’d read, say, Calvin and Hobbes on the Kindle if the pixelation isn’t too bad. And I have my super-deluxe print version when I want to study Watterson’s linework in detail.

    Of course, I’d need a Kindle first…

  5. Why get the Amazon app when you can get Stanza for free?
    They offer tons of free content (out of copyright books) and allow to download any ebooks that’s on your computer.

    As for a Kindle in color it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

    And the future of comics is already on Iphone, check the titles from Iverse comics (Atomic Robo is selling very well on there it seems).