Amazon to Release Kindle for PC Application
By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 10/22/2009 1:49:00 PM
Beginning in November, Amazon will begin offering free downloads of Kindle for PC, an e-reading application that will allow consumers to download Kindle edition e-books to any PC running Windows 7, Windows XP or Windows Vista and read them on the PC. While the new application will allow Kindle owners to read their previously purchased Kindle titles on their PCs, it will also allow anyone with a PC to buy and download Kindle e-books directly to their PCs.The Kindle for PC application follows Barnes & Noble’s launch of its digital reading device, called the Nook, a wireless-enabled reading device that will allow its owners to read their e-books on different devices and even to share them with other consumers. In fact, as the e-book market moves toward open platforms and away from proprietary formats, Amazon has stepped up its efforts to allow Kindle owners more flexibility to read their e-books (Kindle is a proprietary format) on other devices. First, Amazon developed the popular Kindle on iPhone/iPod Touch, and now this PC application. No word yet on a Kindle for Mac app.
The Kindle for PC software will also synchronize bookmarks and the last page read between the Kindle and the PC. PCs with Windows 7 will allow the user to use a finger-pinch to scale the text up or down and to turn pages with a finger swipe. The online retailer says it offers more than 360,000 Kindle format e-books for sale through the Kindle and the Kindle Web site on Amazon.
