Amazon.com Kindle Store Optimized for Apple iPhone

Amazon.com rolled out a new version of its Kindle for iPhone application May 11 that allows smoother navigation of the Kindle Books library.

A new page in the Kindle for iPhone application, accessible by clicking the “Get Books” button, allows users to scan titles by name, author keyword and category. In addition, the iPhone App includes a partial list of New York Times bestsellers. According to Amazon.com, this provides an easier browsing experience than the App’s previous iteration, which was not tailored specifically to the Safari browser used on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

“The most common feedback we heard from customers was that they wanted a better experience for purchasing new Kindle books from their iPhones,” Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon Kindle, said in a statement.

Amazon.com has been making other high-profile moves in the digital book space lately. On March 3, soon after releasing the Kindle 2, Amazon.com rolled out the first Kindle for iPhone App, making the online retailer’s library available through the Kindle device. The iPhone can download e-books from Amazon.com via the device’s 3G connection.

Amazon.com introduced the Kindle DX, its latest and largest electronic reader device, in a Manhattan, N.Y., presentation May 6 headlined by CEO Jeff Bezos.

Equipped with a 9.7-inch screen, larger than the Kindle 2’s 6-inch display, the device is designed to accommodate reading of not only e-books, but also textbooks and newspapers, thanks to features such as auto-rotation. It retails for $489, versus $359 for the Kindle 2.

The Kindle DX comes equipped with 3G wireless access for downloading newspapers and books from Amazon.com’s 275,000 e-book library. Active PDF support enables the Kindle DX to display business documents without the need to pan, zoom or scroll, and the 3.3GB of storage space can hold around 3,500 books or their data equivalent, according to Amazon.com.

During the presentation, Bezos stated that Kindle sales account for some 35 percent of book sales on Amazon.com. Analyst predictions have the Kindle totaling $1.2 billion in sales by 2010 and $3.7 billion by 2012.