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Amazon Releases iPhone Kindle Software

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:52 AM
from the eyestrain-is-fun dept.
Cellphones
palmsolo writes "The Amazon Kindle 2 just started shipping last week, but Amazon surprised everyone late on March 3rd by placing the Amazon Kindle software for the iPhone in the Apple App Store. With the Whispersync technology you can now keep your Kindle and iPhone ebooks in sync and read everywhere you go. Readers on the iPhone also now get access to over 200,000 ebook titles on the Amazon Kindle storefront. Check out the hands-on image gallery and video of the Amazon Kindle software on the iPhone and Kindle 2."
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  • Just what the world needs... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ColdWetDog (752185) * on Wednesday March 04 2009, @10:55AM (#27065209) Homepage
    Thousands of iPhone zombies squinting into tiny little screens, walking into cars, telephone poles, other zombies.This world is getting out of hand.

    Actually, I'm just jealous. I couldn't possibly read that tiny little type.

  • It's About Time (Score:5, Funny)

    by eldavojohn (898314) * <my/.username@@@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 04 2009, @10:55AM (#27065211) Homepage Journal

    Amazon Releases iPhone Kindle Software

    Finally I won't have to huddle around a pile of tinder in the forest, rubbing two iPhones together just to get a spark to light my campfire.

    We lived like cavemen before iPhone software.

  • The article doesn't seem to answer a basic questio (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joeflies (529536) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @10:58AM (#27065251)

    Do you need a Kindle to use this iphone app? The article only talks about the benefits of using the app with the kindle, but for all of those that don't have one, can we use the app and buy ebooks on the amazon store?

    • Re:The article doesn't seem to answer a basic ques (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:04AM (#27065355)

      No Kindle is needed. You can buy books using a web browser on your PC and have the books sent wirelessly to your iPhone/iPod touch.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by theredshoes (1308621)
        I know most of the people here might not agree, but the new iPods are extremely cool and nice. :( Since you don't need the Kindle to use it, buying an iPod would probably be more in line with most people's budgets. And this would be great way to read on the subway or on a break with coffee, if your vision is decent.

        I really like the Kindle too, but if you could have a small portable iPod for your books and music that is really great. For commuters this is a very nice piece of technology and software.

    • I think they focused on the benefit of using this app with the Kindle because... well, the first question that popped into my head was, "If I buy a book on my iPhone and then get a Kindle in a few months, will I be able to transfer my books over to the Kindle, or are they going to try to make me buy them all again?"

      Once I had gotten past that thought, my next question might have been, "Well how hard will it be to transfer books from one to the other? Will Amazon provide a mechanism for that?" If I had gotten past those two, I'd like to think I'd be clever enough to ask at some point, "Can they provide any method for me to read on my one device and have my place synced over to the other so I can pick up right where I left off?"

      It looks like Amazon may have covered their bases pretty well.

    • No, the app works just fine if you don't own a Kindle.

  • Sitting ducks again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mastropiero (258677) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @10:58AM (#27065261) Journal

    Cue the author's guild bitching about how they lose money because now their ebooks can be read by two devices instead of just one in 3...2...1...

        • Re:Text-to-speech will squash audio books (Score:5, Insightful)

          by blhack (921171) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:29AM (#27065687)

          I think the quality issue will change.

          I don't know about this, at least not in the near future, and probably not on a device as weak (computationally) as the kindle.

          There is a lot *more* to speech that the words, the sounds of the letters. Speech is music, words are like tabs.

          Every tried to play a guitar song by looking at a tab and having never heard the song before? Or tried to sing karaoke? Its hard. Its almost impossible to get it right.
          Computers are trying to do the same thing with text-to-speech. Text doesn't tell you what sort of inflection to use, what sort of cadence to use, says nothing of dynamic range. (can you see that I'm trying to draw a correlation between speech and music).

          More analogies:
          Text-To-Speech is a lot like trying to get a concert masterpiece from a midi file...except that even the midi file is telling you WHEN to play the notes. The text doesn't even do that.
          A lof of the cues that we use to read speech naturally comes from our ability to "render" whatever scene we're reading from in our head, and use the cues from the scene to act out the part of whatever we're reading (be it the narrator, or a character, or a journalist in a magazine article).

          Is it possible to replace human speech with a computer? Yes, most definitely. Is it practical to do it in something like the kindle with current technology?
          No.

          • Re:Text-to-speech will squash audio books (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Tacvek (948259) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @12:20PM (#27066357) Journal

            Very true. With the top text to speech software available, plus additional annotations amnually added to the ebook, a very pleasent experience could be had.

            Consider the addition of a pronunciation key for text-specific words that the automatic pronunciation deduction gets wrong, along with per sentence (or group of words) metadata to indicate things like tempo, word spacing, pitch, etc. Combine this with a sufficiently configurable TTS engine, and the result could be remarkable similar to an audiobook. Character dialog could be differentiated to the point of giving each character a unique voice, along with the appropriate variations in dialog as per context. An annoyed character may end up talking lower and deeper with a more monotonic quality to the voice, for example.

            Perhaps that sounds like a lot of work. But with some software a person could define the narrator and character voices, along with names, and have the software run through thhe text, and attempt to attch the metadata to text with a variety of algorithms, which can be slightly agressive, since mistakes will be corrected. It should be reasonably possible for software to fairly accurately determine which character is speaking each line of dialog from the text, and mark those, and even look for adverbs on the associated sentence ("1.21 Gigawatts", he correctly quickly.) and attach modifieres to the dialog.

            Then the person would just listen to the book, stopping it wherever there is a problem (mispronounced word, attributed dialog, etc.) and making corrections. I'd imagine the time for the read-through and corrections for many works would be not much more than 5-10 times the final length of the work. Initial setup, especially crafting character voices may add some significant time to the beginning though.

            So it sounds feasible with today's technology to have a near audiobook quality TTS-based reading, although it make take a similar amount of time as recording an audiobook to construct each.

            Of course, if Kindle had such features, the tts-related complaints would probably be valid.

            But that is all a far cry from the TTS accurately inferring all of that from the text on the fly, which of course would be far more desirable.

            • Perhaps that sounds like a lot of work.

              More importantly, it sounds like a lot more work than recording the audio. What's the advantage of the TTS method?

              You no longer need voiceover artists. Instead, you need a voiceover programmer. You still need someone with all the skills of a voiceover producer to make multiple listen-and-tweak passes. I suspect that it takes more producer time to tweak the TTS than it takes to tweak human talent - and producers are more expensive than talent. You'll also have the TTS equivalent of "browser compatibility testing". So your labor costs probably go up with TTS.

              The real advantage of text is bandwidth and storage - and even today, the resource requirements of audio speech are already far more comparable to those of text than those of video. By the time we develop sufficiently advanced TTS workflows, why wouldn't TTS be as quaint a concept as recompressed-for-modem-download JPEGs on web proxies, or SID/MIDI files for popular music? Both were technical solutions that brought media to the masses before the masses were ready. Both disappeared as soon as we could feasibly transmit the real thing.

  • And the Kindle software platform era begins (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vandil X (636030) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:01AM (#27065293)
    Amazon probably makes plenty of money off eBook sales. With tons of iPhone and iPod Touch users using Stanza and other eBook readers, it only makes sense to support this market. Now instead of having Amazon eBook sales tied to Kindle hardware, they can tie to iPhones and iPod Touches too.

    While I don't think this will do anything to get iPhone/iPod Touch users to buy a Kindle, it will certainly quintuple their Kindle eBook sales.

    Watch the Kindle software platform become available on other devices (Android, Windows Mobile) in the near future.

  • Also ipod touch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by proxima (165692) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:07AM (#27065393)

    The summary doesn't make it clear, but the article mentions that it also works with the iPod touch. Considering the touch is smaller, lighter, and much cheaper than both the iPhone and the Kindle, this application might give a significant boost to readers looking for a (relatively) inexpensive reader.

    Having read long books on old Palm PDAs, the size of the screen is only a minor annoyance. Those PDAs, though, were not backlit LCDs. Some people might find an iPod screen too fatiguing for long reading.

  • Compromise to DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by A. B3ttik (1344591) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:10AM (#27065433)
    If Amazon starts allowing its software to be used on _any_ platform, whether it be iPhone, Kindle, Laptop, Netbook, or 3rd Party eBook Reader, would that be an acceptable compromise to the fact that their e-books use DRM?

    Valve's Steam has shown that people (even Geeks who notoriously hate DRM) are willing to compromise and use DRM if something of great enough value is offered with it (and possibly because of it).

  • Tried it out (Score:5, Informative)

    by chrisgeleven (514645) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:30AM (#27065699) Homepage

    Surprisingly it is quite readable even on the iPhone's small screen. You just swipe your finger across the screen to flip back/forth through the pages. There is options to change the font size, so really the only complaint you can have is how much/little text fits on the screen before you have to flip a page.

    There are some free books on the Kindle Store (mostly classics like Treasure Island and some religious texts like the Bible), so there is no cost to try out the Kindle iPhone app.

    Really cool how you buy via your web browser. Next time you open the Kindle app, it just automatically syncs what you have just purchased to the iPhone. Since it is just text, it takes just seconds to sync. Should not be painful to use even in poor signal locations and on EDGE. Plus you can download any purchase you make for free again in the future.

    I don't know if if I would buy all of my books this way (I lately have been using the local library), but in a pinch (say on a trip) when I want a book to read and don't want to or can't stop by a bookstore or library, this could work very well.

  • Fonts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by n9uxu8 (729360) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:36AM (#27065789) Homepage
    Always make sure you preview a sample before buying though. The font choices for some of these are just inexplicably bad. Check out Zoe's Tale vs An Autumn War. The AWA font is terrible...

  • iStrain? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rrohbeck (944847) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @12:04PM (#27066159)

    Give me a phone with e-ink display first.

  • And as usual US-only (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MarcoAtWork (28889) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @12:12PM (#27066239)

    Not available in the Canadian app-store (or in Europe).

    I really am saddened by this aspect of 'progress', you can order physical CDs, DVDs, kindles, anything from all over the world and nobody has an issue with that, but the second anything becomes distributed electronically boom, we're transported to this strange super-protectionistic world where things do not move freely anymore.

    I fear for tomorrow's world, where instead of being exposed to music, shows, books, tv, from other countries you will just be able to read, listen and watch to things 'approved' by some company somewhere.

    And let's not talk about people learning a foreign language: say you're studying German and you'd love to read some German books and watch some shows from Amazon.de, sorry, no way. Or maybe you live in Brazil and you'd like to improve your English by reading books, listening to music and watching shows over the internet, nossiree, not gonna happen.

    It seems that modern technology is more and more used as a 'control' technology, vs an 'enabling' technology, which is quite sad as it just promotes an extremely insular world, instead of the free exchange of information.

    I really hope that, as it happened to the music DRM, at some point the 'powers that be' will realize that this attitude is completely wrong, but given the latest salvo by the book authors about the kindle's text-to-speech functionality (which could've helped a lot of blind or non-native-English speakers) I am really not sure if it will ever happen.

  • Now introducing: the iPhondle (Score:5, Funny)

    by ChipMonk (711367) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @12:34PM (#27066543)
    Why not? Most geeks will use it for their own pleasure.

  • Kindle on a Blackberry (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pha7boy (1242512) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @12:39PM (#27066617)
    for those of us that have not fallen to the Apple Side (yet), any chance we'll get a blackberry app from Amazon soon? And for that matter, what about the Windows Mobile application? I would like to be able to read books on my BB, especially when on long flights.

  • Thumbs up to Amazon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gozu (541069) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @12:55PM (#27066845) Journal

    I own a first gen kindle and an iPhone and this is a very nice gift from Amazon. A free app that allows me to keep reading my e-books when I'm bored and don't have my kindle handy. What's not to like?

    It's not often that I say this about a huge corporation but Kudos to Amazon for thinking about the consumer and providing more convenience as opposed to the Riaa/Mpaa.

    Now, if only they would get that stupid DRM off their ebooks and slash their (inflated) prices, I'd have nothing left to complain about.

  • No Newspapers or Magazines. Only Books (Score:4, Informative)

    by proc_tarry (704097) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @01:06PM (#27066995)
    I subscribe to the Financial Times on my Kindle. I just installed the iPhone app and FT is not available to download, only the books I've purchased.

    • Re:Predicted (Score:5, Funny)

      by iamhassi (659463) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:09AM (#27065419) Journal
      "It's almost like I predicted this"

      wait... you predicted that Amazon would someday support iPhones? You're amazing!

      What's your next prediction?

      mark me as flamebait/troll, i have karma to burn, but come on, that's a pretty dumb thing to say on /., that you predicted that Company XYZ would support iPhones someday.

    • Re:Just out of curiosity... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PyroMosh (287149) on Wednesday March 04 2009, @11:36AM (#27065787) Homepage

      Do you not think that this would be of interest to slashdot? Do you honestly think that this site, with millions of users, would have nobody submit this as a story, and that none of the editors would post it?

      So what you're saying is that you think it's more likley that this is astroturfing, than just you know, the people who use this site happening to think this is cool news? I for one think it's neat.

    • The trouble is, "pretty much every non-3G app that exists for the iPhone would be just as functional and applicable on an hx4700" if and only if they existed. Apps that don't exist are neither functional nor relevant, no matter how nice the platform they don't run on is or isn't.

      Undeniably, there have been phones with superior specs (and rather more open OSes) floating around for years now. In spite of that, no Kindle support.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by CompMD (522020)

      Mod parent up.

      Marketing, rather than quality engineered products is what people are raving over. They'll take something shiny over something good any day.

      I love my PDA, a Garmin iQue M5. Its 420MHz, has SDIO (I have an SDIO wifi card for it), bluetooth, a solid construction, and the screeen is large, bright, and easy to read. It also has a GPS and performs turn by turn directions. And it was on the market years before Apple even dreamed of the iPod Touch.

      • Re:Even at free... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by clifyt (11768) <sonikmatter@COBO ... m minus language> on Wednesday March 04 2009, @12:23PM (#27066407) Homepage

        "no DRM = (no sale) x millions"

        No, no DRM means no sale to tens of ummmm....tens.

        The anti-DRM lobby isn't as big as folks like to make it sound. Most pirates aren't going to buy regardless of the DRM status...those that make up the millions. The casual copyright infringers may be annoyed but buy the content begrudgingly.

        Personally, I don't like DRM, but so long as there are easy ways around it, I'm not so worried. Every book I found for the Kindle was also easily available online through other sources. I prefer to use my books / music / otherwise how I feel fit, and I respect copyright, so I don't feel bad about finding ways around the DRM...but 99% of the time...I use the content exactly as the publisher expects me to. It is rare that DRM gets in the way of me doing something legitimate....and I'd safely say except for the outliers who choose to use obscure systems or for some religious purpose can't be associated with a product because it isn't F/OSS (then why are you buying copyrighted books!@!!!@!), it is generally a rare event for this to be a problem.

        DRM is not going to put a dent in sales what so ever...personally, I wish the day would come that the GIB IT TO ME FREEEHEEE crowd either grow up or die, so that DRM could go away...ironic that the very people that are most vocally yelling against it is pretty much the reason it exists in the first place.

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