I’ve had the Kindle app on my iPhone for a while but hadn’t tried to download any books. I finally tried it and it is awesome. We can’t buy books over wi-fi yet here in Vietnam, but that is no big deal. I registered the Kindle app with Amazon and then bought a book – Daemon by Daniel Suarez – from the Amazon Kindle store. It downloaded to my computer and synced with my iPhone in about one minute flat. And it was only $9.99 – which is a pretty fair price for a book. Especially since I don’t have to convince someone coming to visit me here in Vietnam to lug a bunch of books over here for me (or to bring a suitcase full of books back myself every time I go to the U.S. like I’ve been doing).
The only thing that’s not great about it is reading on the small iPhone screen. It can hold about one short paragraph at a time – which is really not enough. Once you get into the groove it’s not a big deal – you just keep flicking along and hardly notice it – but it would be much nicer if the screen was larger and could hold a full page of text at a time. Just less flicking and probably a more immersive/absorbing reading experience.
It really makes me want to buy one of the full-sized Kindle (or Barnes & Noble’s new Nook ereader or whatever). But I think what would be ideal for me would be an iPhone-like device with a larger (and possibly even higher-resolution) screen. I’ve been waiting for Apple to come out with a tablet for a couple of years now, as that would be the perfect device for me. But Kindles aren’t really that prohibitively expensive, and if Apple doesn’t come out with the tablet by, say, January 2010, I’m going to break down and buy a Kindle then – if not before.
But for now – just being able to buy a book for $10 and read it here immediately in Vietnam is awesome. Yay Kindle!
[Update: I had forgotten that Amazon has also announced a freestanding Kindle application for the PC - meaning that you'll be able to read books on your laptop as well - that will supposedly be released sometime in November. That will definitely tide me over while I wait to see what Apple comes out with.]
