Kindle for PC app out now, Mac version to soon follow

Amazon has just expanded the potential audience for its ebook format by a few orders of magnitude with the Beta release of its free Kindle for PC application. Doing exactly what it says on the (imaginary) tin, this will allow you to read the locked-down Kindle format on your Windows weapon of choice, though Mac users are left with merely the "coming soon" message you see above. Given that you'll now be able to consume Amazon's ebooks on your PC and iPhone, there's a risk that people might entirely sidestep the Kindle and Kindle DX for more familiar hardware, but clearly the company is willing to undertake it in order to get its wares out to a wider client base. We still think Amazon should do away with the proprietary madness and utilize a common standard like ePUB, but until then we can at least appreciate being given the ability to sync our Robinson Crusoe read across a few more devices than before.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 13th 2009 6:42AM]

Just downloaded.

First impression is that it is really fast. We have two kindles and about 80 books between them. I opened one of my books in about 10 seconds.

No print, copy or clip features at all, which is unlike the Amazon Upgrade -online books, which you can highlight and print one page at a time from.

Agree with the comments here regarding akward reading on a PC, but for books I have for classes or when I already have my laptop along and want to checkout something in one of the books, this application will be very handy.