
Amazon releases Kindle App for Mac OS X - aaronbrethorst
http://www.9to5mac.com/kindle-application-mac-549087340
======
kloncks
I recently sold my Kindle DX because I planned to get an iPad and I was sad
that I couldn't read all the Amazon eBooks I bought.

The first time I saw this headline, my reaction was: "Great! Yes! This is what
I've been waiting for. Now I can just read those items."

After downloading it, I am so deeply disappointed. This app is so horrible, I
would question why they released it. There's no highlighting, note taking,
searching, nothing.

I question how Amazon thinks it can seriously compete with Apple & iBooks when
they release things like these. Ugh.

~~~
silencio
To be fair, the Kindle iPhone app is reasonably decent for reading. I can only
hope the same person?/group? that worked on the iPhone app will also work on
the iPad app, so they'll still be somewhat of a competitor. Especially since
Amazon does sell a lot of books :p

The Mac OS X app is just an utter disappointment, and I ended up deleting it
right after running it for the first time. Wonder why they even bothered?

~~~
kloncks
Completely agree. The question now is whether Apple will approve an iPad
Kindle app or not.

~~~
silencio
I don't see why not, unless Amazon attempts to blatantly sell books in the
app, instead of just linking you to the Amazon website like in the iPhone app.
And even then, I doubt it.

No doubt Apple will make the whole book buying/reading process seamless, and
make the interface appealing enough for people to want to buy books from them
instead of from Amazon. I don't know many people who use the Kindle app on
iPhone as their only Kindle, so to speak, while I do know lots of Kindle
owners that use the Kindle app for when they don't have their Kindle around.

Lastly, given that Kindle books are mostly text and b&w images (lowest common
denominator I suppose), I can't imagine Apple could feel threatened, as the
iPad is larger, has a color display, and has a far larger potential for doing
more interactive/immersive content, e.g. for education, no matter what Amazon
tries to do.

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wooster
As far as I can tell you cannot:

* select or copy text

* highlight

* take notes

* search for text

Making this less useful than paper books or PDFs, which is quite a feat.

~~~
chrisbolt
The press release -
[http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmV...](http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100317006876&newsLang=en)
\- notes that full text search and annotation will be added in the 'near
future.'

------
aaronbrethorst
And here's the direct download link:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/mac/download/ref=amb_link_15...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/mac/download/ref=amb_link_151329822_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0BSJPSH4BS4K9XKPEWSZ&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=1250062022&pf_rd_i=1000464931)

(warning it'll start downloading a 9MB DMG file as soon as you open the page!)

addendum: looks like the app is partially derived from the iPhone source (it
uses the iPhone's standard URL scheme for launching the app... try
kindle://home. I'm still trying to figure out how to launch a particular book.

Also, the Mac version uses QT extensively, and appears to feature some Growl
integration.

~~~
mmastrac
It's pretty decent. Synced up my books that I was reading on the iPhone as
expected.

Still trying to figure out where it downloads the books to.

[edit] Looks like ~/Documents/My Kindle Content

------
stevenp
I'm far more interested in whether Apple is going to approve the Kindle app
for the iPad, or whether I'm going to have to buy all my eBooks again.

~~~
rimantas
There is the Kindle for iPhone, I have read few books on it already. Should
work on iPad too, I assume.

~~~
travisp
They can always change their mind. I had purchased a Google Voice app on the
iPhone too, until they decided to remove it and everything like it from the
store.

------
sh1mmer
Wow. Frustratingly you can't open ebooks on your computer.

So all of those O'Reilly ebooks I got in Kindle format won't open.

Thankfully ORA also allow me to get PDF copies of the books I bought, but it's
still pretty annoying on Amazon's part.

~~~
anurag
DRM-free ebooks work with this app as they do with the PC version. I just
downloaded and opened a DRM-free mobipocket file from here:
<http://www.feedbooks.com/book/88>, so the problem seems to be specific to
your O'Reilly ebook/Mac app install.

------
sh1mmer
Finally. Seriously, I wonder what took Amazon so long. They got some arguably
smaller platforms out quicker.

~~~
anotherjesse
What I find surprising is how unpolished it is.

UI Redraw is slow, small feature set, UI is very crude.

The triangle of: scope, quality, time to release - it seems like this app went
with: none of them.

