Hasta La Ideas

Yesterday, I downloaded the new Kindle application ebook reader onto my iPhone. Like an actual Kindle device, the Kindle iPhone application gives you access to digital books sold on Amazon. I’ve been a big fan of Stanza, so I was interested in seeing how the Kindle application compares.

Immediately, I noticed that there were a few advantages to the Kindle app:

1. With a library of more than 240,000 books, all organized in one central location, the shopping experience is vastly superior with the Kindle app.
2. If you have a Kindle, you can access a book you purchased for it on your iPhone, and vice versa. The program will even tell you what page you were on in the other system. This feature is called “Whispersync.
3. One advantage it has over an actual Kindle is that you can see a book’s cover in full color, instead of 13 shades of gray.
4. You don’t have to carry two electronic devices with you when you go somewhere — put your iPhone in your pocket and leave your Kindle device at home.

Noting these benefits, I think I should also note some of its weaknesses.

1. To buy a book, you have to go out of the Kindle app and into Safari. Once your book is purchased, you then log out of Amazon on Safari, and log back into the Kindle app. Most other programs don’t require that you leave the application.
2. The screen is much brighter than other reading applications and may eat away at battery life more quickly (tried to do a timing, but my service kept changing between Edge and 3G, so I’m not certain the power issue was fully the fault of the application). To read many chapters in a book will definitely require turning your iPhone into Airplane Mode to conserve power.
3. The application wipes out the clock at the top of the screen, which some might think is good, but I found to be annoying. You have to tap the screen to see what time it is.
4. There isn’t a landscape mode. You have to read the text vertically.

Almost all of the other features in the Kindle app are identical to features in Stanza (font size adjustment, scroll through pages, the application itself is free, etc.). I will definitely use the Kindle app for reading newly released texts and books not yet in the public domain. For classics, though, I’m sticking with Stanza.

And, don’t forget the benefits of audio books and how you can buy them from Audible or even download them for free from your public library. Have you tried the new Kindle app for the iPhone? What are your thoughts?