Amazon.com has released its Kindle for PC application in
Beta, allowing users to download over 360,000 volumes onto PCs running Windows
XP Service Pack 2 or later, Windows Vista, or Windows 7. A Mac version is coming
soon, according to Amazon.com's
download page.
Microsoft
and Amazon.com originally announced Kindle for PC during the Oct. 22 launch of
Windows 7. After a presentation headlined by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer,
reporters and analysts were led to a separate exhibition area with touch-screen
PCs running the application. By swiping or pinching their fingers across the
screen, users could flip through digital pages, zoom in on selections of text,
or navigate through a library of stored volumes.
Those PCs running the application during the Microsoft event
displayed sample books’ illustrations in color. That fact, in combination with
Amazon.com’s banner ad for the application showing a color page from Winnie the
Pooh, has led a handful of media outlets to suggest that a color Kindle could be
in development.
Over the summer, Amazon.com
CEO Jeff Bezos suggested that a color version of the Kindle was "multiple years
away."
"I've seen the color displays in the laboratory," he said
during a Q&A session following the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting on
May 28. "They're not ready for prime time."
Whether Bezos was providing an accurate assessment of his
company’s technology, or that statement was a bit of Steve Jobs-style
misdirection, remains to be seen.
The Kindle PC application will use Whispersync to sync
bookmarks, notes and the last-page-read with the Kindle device. Amazon.com
already has an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows users to access
their books on those devices.
Amazon.com faces increased competition on a number of fronts
in the e-reader space, most notably from Barnes & Noble, which announced its
own e-reader, the Nook, on Oct. 20. In addition to promoting the device through
its bricks-and-mortar storefronts, Barnes & Noble is also offering e-reader
functionality through an iPhone/iPod Touch app. Barnes & Noble’s
e-bookstore, launched in July, currently holds over 700,000 volumes along
with 500,000 free public-domain books from Google.
On Nov. 9, Barnes & Noble announced that demand for the
Nook had forced it to push back the shipping date for some pre-orders from the
end of November into the beginning of December. A spokesperson told eWEEK that
the "Nook has quickly become the fastest selling product at Barnes & Noble,"
and that new pre-orders would ship on Dec. 11.
Amazon.com has lowered the price of its original Kindle
device to $259, same as the Nook. The larger-screen Kindle DX, which faces no
substantial competition as yet, remains priced at $489.
However, Barnes & Noble faces a few challenges of its
own. On Nov. 2, small
IT startup Spring Design announced that it was suing the bookseller, alleging
that much of the Nook’s functionality had been copied from its own upcoming Alex
e-reader. Both devices feature a dual-screen form factor, with an e-ink
display paired with a color LCD touch-screen.
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