I’m definitely a fan of the eBook Reader devices. If you’re one who reads many books you’ll want something that’s easy on the eyes – you know, like paper. And e-ink is really the way to accomplish that since unlike LCD screens it doesn’t strain the eyes. But there are those times when it’s nice to “extend” your book to other devices. My wife has used the Kindle app on her iPhone to continue reading a book she’s been reading on the Kindle during times when she’s stuck waiting in line for example.
Today Amazon and Microsoft announced a new Kindle app that lets you extend those Kindle books a little farther – on a Windows PC. Beyond adding yet another device you can access your Kindle eBooks on, this app adds a few additional features to note including multitouch capability and color. Here’s the feature list mentioned on Amazon.com:
- Get the best reading experience available on your PC. No Kindle required
- Access your Kindle books even if you don't have your Kindle with you
- Automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync
- Create bookmarks and view the annotations you created on your Kindle
Why is this a really big deal? I’m glad you asked. This will allow the Kindle books to work on TabletPC’s sporting Windows 7 and multi-touch. Not for me, but I know a lot of you want a multi-purpose computing device that also functions as a usable eBook Reader.
Here’s a nice hands-on look I found on Appscout.com
System Requirements:
- A PC with a 500MHz Intel or AMD processor or faster
- At least 128MB of RAM
- Screen resolution of 800x600 or greater
- Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, or Windows Vista or Windows 7
- 100MB of available disk space
I think this is potentially as big or bigger news compared to this week’s Barnes & Noble Nook eReader. Make no mistake, the day of the eBook breakthrough into mainstream is extremely near.
