Amazon Kindle for PC now available

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Amazon announced today the availability of Kindle for PC.

The small application (5MB) allows Kindle users to access Kindle books from the PC. On October 22 Microsoft demonstrated the application and announced that the application takes advantage of the touch features of Windows 7.

The PC application also automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync. Whispersync automatically saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read across devices. Whether you read Kindle books on a Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the free Kindle applications, you never lose your place.

"Kindle for PC is the perfect companion application for customers who own a Kindle or Kindle DX," said Ian Freed, vice president, Amazon Kindle. "Kindle for PC is also a great way for people around the world to access a huge selection from the Kindle Store and read the most popular books of today even if they don't yet have a Kindle."

The full list of features:

Purchase, download and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
Read the beginning of any book for free before they buy
Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon's servers for free
Read books in full color including children's books, cookbooks, travel books, textbooks and graphic novels
Choose from more than 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, and iPod touch
Zoom in and out of text with a pinch of the fingers (Windows 7 users only)
Turn pages with a finger swipe (available in a future release for Windows 7 users)

Kindle for PC is now available as a free download to readers in over 100 countries at www.amazon.com/KindleforPC

#1 Majesticmerc on 10 Nov 2009 - 12:32

Nice, especially given that its free, however I don't really see the market for this. I don't think I'd ever actually read a book sat behind my desk, I generally read in bed or in the living room. I'd also consider a tablet/laptop a bit too bulky to use as an ebook reader.

#2 Bioran23 on 10 Nov 2009 - 12:33

Zoom in and out of text with a pinch of the fingers (Windows 7 users only)

Think you meant "Windows 7 users with touch only".

Anyway, this is pretty cool for old classics and books you really don't want to dish out too much money for and magazines/newspapers, but I don't see it stopping me from buying actual books. It just seems more like "reading" that way.

#3 prabir on 10 Nov 2009 - 12:59

by the looks of the UI, it seems it was made in 15minutes with fewcodes accessing the webservice.

#4 suicide_pact on 10 Nov 2009 - 14:11

The download link won't even show up on that page if you're using a Mac. I was going to grab it now and then move it to my Win 7 partition but I can't even find a d.l. link on that page. I guess it's time for Boot Camp.

#5 BottleTop on 11 Nov 2009 - 04:17

How about making an e reader that will let us read what ever we choose on it. DRM makes a vacuum. I want to be able to read pdf's from my computer or Word docs I compose. The recent controversy over Kindle deleting content from the pad makes me queasy.

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