CNET Editors' note: The "Download Now" link directs you to the iTunes App Store, where you must continue the download process. You must have iTunes installed in order to open the link, and you must have an active iTunes account to download the application. This download may not be available in some countries.
CNET Editors' review
Amazon's free Kindle app for iPhone may not provide as comfortable a reading experience as the full-size Kindle itself, but it offers many of the same features that make the Kindle such a popular e-book reader for just the price of the book. As with the Kindle, Kindle for iPhone lets you access e-books and samples, advancing the page with a simple swipe of your finger. Bookmarking pages, accessing the table of contents, and adjusting font size are equally easy, though even with an enlarged font, reading anything longer than a few pages can induce some eye strain.
There's also a fairly long list of caveats. Kindle for iPhone isn't conditioned to buying new e-books from Amazon.com--you'll have to buy through Amazon's Kindle store online via Safari on the iPhone or through your desktop browser. It also won't support periodicals and won't sync up sample e-books through the Whisper Sync feature (only those books you've already bought). The omission of an in-app e-book shop in the Kindle for iPhone app is the application's most significant limitation, an annoyance that could irk Kindle owners more than the significantly smaller screen size compared with Amazon's device.
For comic-book lovers, however, the iPhone app's full-color mode may atone for other sins, especially as long as the Kindle displays graphics in more than a dozen shades of gray.
Amazon's Kindle for iPhone could be a free hardware alternative to the Kindle device for casual readers who intend to read slimmer works, or those in short bursts. For voracious readers, the iPhone version is a nice companion app for when you want to pick up where you left off in a story without taking the Kindle out of your home, but not a replacement for the full-featured Kindle 2.
Watch the CNET video review of Kindle for iPhone:
Publisher's Description
From Amazon.com:
Buy a Kindle book from your Mac, PC, or iPhone using a Web browser and wireless transfer the books to your iPhone, read first chapters of any book for free before you buy, download the Kindle books you already own for free they are automatically backed up on Amazon.com, adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle device. Kindle for iPhone also includes Whispersync, which allows you to seamlessly switch back and forth between your Kindle device and Kindle for iPhone while keeping your bookmarks and reading location synchronized between devices.
What's new in this version: Version 2.0.1 improved text contrast.
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"No in-store E-Book store? What's the point?"
Version: Kindle for iPhone 2.0.1
Pros
Pros - well, I can still read kindle books on my iPhone 4 that I've already downloaded through other means...BUT
Cons
I can not read kindle e-book samples on my iPhone nor can I buy new books within the app!? Maybe this doesn't seem quite so ludicrous for someone that didn't already have this capability, but coming from an Android Phone in which I could search new books, download them, download kindle book samples, all from within the Droid Kindle App (which makes complete sense)...this is a huge DISAPPOINTMENT.
My 10 year old daughter has an iPod Touch...the Kindle App works the exact same way for her. So, in order for her to utilize the app, she has to log into her Amazon account through her browser or a computer, download it, then go back to her Kindle App, and update it. She was actually excited about reading a e-book on her iPod, but this makes it overly complicated, especially for a 10 year old.
Anyone have any insight on WHY the Kindle app for Apple mobile devices is designed this way, (with these limitations), when it was already designed better for Android Phones?Summary
Huge FAIL for Kindle App for Apple. The Android version was much better. I really enjoyed trying new e-book samples with the Kindle App for Android before purchasing the Kindle book...but since I can't read Kindle book samples on the iPhone at all, I'll be more hesitant to buy new books and the complicated roundabout way of finding and downloading new e-books makes it overly complicated.
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