Kindle for Android coming this summer

What was hinted at in those leaked Dell Streak flyers is now official: Kindle for Android. Unfortunately, it's not quite ready to download. Amazon's free Kindle ebook reader -- already out for Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and iDevices -- won't launch until later this summer. When it does, users of Android 1.6 and above (with SD card) will have the ability to search, browse, and purchase (without exiting the app) any of the half million books in the Kindle Store. Like the other apps, Kindle for Android features Whispersync to keep your bookmarks, last page read, notes, and highlights synchronized across all your Kindle-enabled devices. Expect to see this demonstrated at Google I/O starting tomorrow.

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Introducing Kindle for Android

Free Android app for reading allows customers to enjoy over 540,000 Kindle books on Android phones; Amazon offers Kindle apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac, PC, BlackBerry and, soon, Android

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that Kindle for Android, the free application that lets readers around the world enjoy Kindle books on their Android phones, is coming this summer. Kindle for Android enables customers to discover and read from over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store -- the largest selection of the most popular books that people want to read -- including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases from $9.99. Like all Kindle apps, Kindle for Android will include Amazon's Whispersync technology, which saves and synchronizes a customer's bookmarks across their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and, soon, Android, so customers always have their reading material with them and never lose their place. Kindle is the most wished for, most gifted and #1 bestselling product on Amazon.com.

"Kindle for Android is the perfect companion application for Kindle and Kindle DX owners, and is also a great way for customers to enjoy over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store even if they don't yet have a Kindle," said Jay Marine, director, Amazon Kindle. "We think customers are going to love the convenience and simplicity of having instant access to a massive selection of books from Amazon on their Droid, Nexus, Incredible and many more Android devices."

Android owners can take advantage of the features that customers love about Kindle and Kindle app experience, including:

* Search more than 540,000 books, including 96 of 110 New York Times Bestsellers, plus tens of thousands of the most popular classics for free directly from their Android device. Bestsellers such as "Backlash" by Aaron Allston, "Big Girl" by Danielle Steel, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot, and "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown, and hundreds of thousands of other popular books are $9.99 or less in the Kindle Store
* Browse by genre or author, and take advantage of all the features that customers enjoy in the Kindle Store, including Amazon.com customer reviews, personalized recommendations and editorial reviews
* Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon's servers for free
* Synchronize last page read between their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and, soon, Android
* Choose from five different font sizes
* Read the beginning of books for free before they decide to buy
* Read in portrait or landscape mode, tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages

Customers can see a sneak peak and sign up to receive an e-mail when Kindle for Android is available at www.amazon.com/kindleforandroid.

[Elranzer Posted May 18th 2010 9:20AM]

The Barnes & Noble Nook eBook reader runs on Android, and it can run apps. I wonder if someone will get this to work on Nook and we'll finally have a Kindle/ePub super eBook reader.

[Wesley Hester Posted May 18th 2010 9:26AM]

I still waiting for my Incredible to be made, shipped and to arrive around 6/4.

Having said that though, what about the battery life when trying to read a book for an hour or two? Does the screen tech drain less juice than LCD?

Also, not being a Kindle user myself: can 'books' be stored on your PC or re-downloaded? I'm asking because I wouldn't want to fill my 16GB card with just books and would like to be able to 'rotate' them when I had it docked to the PC.

[billin Posted May 18th 2010 10:45AM]

Mad respect for Amazon. They have really played it smart with regards to their Kindle application, putting the software out on a whole host of devices instead of locking it exclusively to their Kindle hardware. WhisperSync, which syncs where you are in a book across all your devices, ties it all together and makes buying Kindle books on Amazon even more attractive.

[CharlesDayton Posted May 18th 2010 10:57AM]

@billin

Amazon business model is similar to the popular razor companies one. They make money of the books mostly. The Kindle hardware is there just to drive books sales, that's why they make the Kindle software available on many platforms.

That also makes the Kindle platform great for users, they are not tied to an specific hardware device. Nice

[Veraxus Posted May 18th 2010 12:48PM]

Google needs to do two things to absolutely secure the throne of Android -

1. Incorporate OS fragmentation solutions effective IMMEDIATELY
2. Make the Android Marketplace the best damn online store the world has ever seen.

#2 is a problem that, ironically, is still faced by iTunes as well. Finding apps is a massive pain in the ass. Why can't you search for some keywords (ie: "SSH") and then sort by popularity, by average review, by number of reviews, by price? If I'm searching for an app that accomplishes a specific goal, I want to not only see all the relevant apps, I want to be able to sort the search results to filter out the shit.

[Veraxus Posted May 18th 2010 12:57PM]

I should add that the reason #2 is important is because it's a matter of market growth. If people are more easily able to browse and shops apps, their more likely to buy apps... and a thriving market attracts developers, which improves the richness, quality, and diversity of the OS's capabilities.

This is why I'm sticking with iPhone for the moment... it's the quality and selection of APPS, including quite a few that I've come to rely on day-in and day-out for work purposes... and which either don't exist on Android... or exist in vastly inferior form, or which I'm simply not able to find due to extremely poor Marketplace usability.

So Google - fix your goddamn marketplace, and do it yesterday - because if Apple has proven anything, it's that apps are vitally important to the success of your platform. If people can't find apps, they wont buy them. If they dont buy them, developers wont make them. If developers don't fill in the functionality gaps for you, your platform suffers.

[dbasner Posted May 18th 2010 5:11PM]

if are smart, they will put the .apk file online somewhere, so when android tablets start coming out (and aren't "with google", so no marketplace) they will be able to use the kindle app, or make versions for the popular tablets. This way, they would be making all android tablets semi-competitors to the ipad in terms of ebooks.