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2009-03-14

Amazon Cries Uncle

Another tip from Albert: Amazon has released an app that allows all Kindle books to be read on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Wait. Wasn't the point of the Kindle's electronic ink that it produced a reading experience that is supposedly better than traditional media screens, and more akin to an actual page? Guess that wasn't enough for all those people who already own a handheld that plays music and movies, delivers the Internet, and provides phone service to buy one more device just for reading.

This move may save Amazon's e-book business, though I doubt it. Have you ever tried to read Gravity's Rainbow eight sentences at a time? But it certainly marks the Kindle as a failed experiment that was about 10 years behind its time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please resist. Buy books. If you buy enough of them, they will, besides infinitely delighting you, add an extra layer or two of insulation to your home.

By the way, some of the sentence in Gravity's Rainbow will only allow you to read a sentence per screen.

Sheila O'Shea said...

There's already a perfectly lovely ebook reading app for the iPhone called Stanza that does the job nicely. At this point, I've only used it to load and read public domain titles, but, Lord knows, that gives me enough reading material to keep me occupied for ages.