Kindle for Android

 

Kindle for Android

 

Product Details

• Download restrictions
• • AT;T has enabled purchases from the Amazon Appstore for some devices (Learn more)
• • Amazon Appstore is only available to customers located in the United States
• ASIN: B004DLPXAO
• Original Release Date: June 27, 2010
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 27, 2010 Rated: Children This app may include dynamic content. What's this?
• This application contains content that is downloading real-time, based on inputs from the user or developer. The maturity rating associated with this application pertains only to the static elements of the application and does not cover any dynamic information (e.g. websites, friend postings, tweets). Dynamic content is defined as any content that may change within the application. Content can include animations, video or audio.

By : Amazon.com
Price : $0.00

Product Features

• Get the best reading experience available on your Android phone--no Kindle required
• Buy a book from the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone and get it auto-delivered wirelessly
• Search and browse more than 850,000 books, including 107 of 111 New York Times bestsellers
• Automatically synchronize your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync
• Adjust text size, read in portrait or landscape mode, and lock screen orientation

Technical Details

• Size: 8.3MB
• Version: 3.4.2.4
• Developed By: Amazon.com
• Application Permissions: (Help me understand what permissions mean)
• Read only access to phone state.
• Write to external storage.
• Open network sockets.
• Access information about Wi-Fi networks.
• PowerManager WakeLocks to keep processor from sleeping or screen from dimming.
• Access information about networks.
• com.amazon.STORE_ACCESS

Customer Reviews

I don't own a Kindle, but have been using the Kindle app to read e-books on my cell phone ever since the program was released and absolutely love it. I have since also installed it on my rooted B;N Nook Color, and enjoy it even more.
This is a very convenient way to read since the program offers very stable performance, allows extensive customizations (such as changing font size and screen brightness), and remembers where in the book you last left off. I frequently use this program in the subway, it is great for when you want to relax but you don't have a cell signal to run some other programs.
The real benefit of reading through the Kindle app as opposed to some alternatives is that the checkout process is lightning-fast. You can also frequently get free books for Kindle, so not only am I able to read more conveniently, but more cheaply, too!
I am currently running it on my Droid 2 Global running Froyo (2.2), and have had no problems. While you can't download onto a tablet or AT;T phone through the Amazon Appstore yet, you can get this through the Android Market on those devices.

(12 of 12 people found this review helpful before I rewrote it with intent to improve. Please let me know if you still find this helpful.)
Generally speaking, this Kindle reader compares well to the competition and appears to work better than the Nook. It's features are probably just about everything a fiction reader could want, including easily accessible options to adjust the display to your liking (font size, colors, etc.), as well as to navigate, search, bookmark, and create notes.
For non-fiction study and learning (e.g. studying a book on stock trading), it lacks important features (detailed under Cons, further below).
For all readers, the Android version of this app has two problems (one with Whispersync, and the other with Archiving books; see details under cons).
Cons for users who switch between devices:
1. Whispersync problem. If you switch between devices like I do (for me, it's between the Motorola Xoom and my iPhone), the Whispersync feature is very important. It tells Amazon the furthest point to which you've read. If you later want to pick up your reading on another device, the Kindle app will prompt whether you want to go to the "furthest read" point within the book. This is an invaluable feature, but it fails way too often, and without any way to fix it. (Examples: i. you accidentally click a Table of Contents link that takes you far into the book or to its end, as I have done by accident, ii. you click a superscript that takes you to the index, and the app fails to give a back button, then proceeds to mark the index as your "furthest read" point.) This feature has failed on my a number of times, and there is no way to reset the "furthest read" point. From then on, it becomes very tedious to page through a book and find where I left off each time I switch devices.
SUGGESTION to Amazon: A simple "Set current location as 'furthest read'" option would resolve this issue.
Cons for all users:
2. Unlike my iPhone's Kindle app, the Motorola Xoom app does not show which page you're on. Instead, it only reports how far you are into a book as a percentage.
Cons for non-fiction readers who study to learn:
3. Cannot name bookmarks.
4. Cannot categorize/group bookmarks and notes. A folder system (just like that used for web browser bookmarks) would be great --but one collection per book; not a global (multi-book) collection. Of course, ability to re-organize --versus being stuck with the initial organization-- would be important as well.
5. Unable to archive free books. The iPhone has an Archive option, whereas the Android app does not; instead, it provides a Delete option. Archiving on the iPhone puts any book (whether it was free or not) into the Archive. In the Android version, choosing to Delete a book (whether it was free or not) results in a "Archiving book" message being shown briefly. Afterwards, if the book was a paid book, it will show up in the Archive; if it was a free book, it will disappear altogether. I spent hours downloading lots of classics last night (books by Plato, Aristotle, the founding fathers, Thoreau, etc.), only to discover that if I want to free up my Library (current reading) space, I have to delete them altogether from the app; they are now archived on the iPhone, but if I want to read them on my Xoom, I will either have to leave them in my current reading space (Library) forever, or return to Amazon's store to search for them each time I want to read or reference them and hope that they're still available.