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Old 04-05-2010, 09:51 AM   #1
leebase
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Amazon - please improve the apps

After a weekend of reading on the iPad -- I think Amazon has a great chance to get most all of my ebook money. I like reading on the iPad but it's a bit heavy. It's also nice and large. So at times I'd want to read on my ipad and at times I'd rather read on my nice and small iphone. The great thing with Amazon is it's "whisper sync" technology that would allow me to switch between devices at will and always be at the right spot in the books.

Thing is -- the Amazon apps are sub par on both devices. The iPad app does not do the "two page" view in landscape that the iBook app does, and does not have a way to change the brightness of the screen. On the iPhone, Stanza has it all over the Kindle app (even though Amazon bought Stanza quite some time ago). I know of people that remove the drm from Amazon kindle books just so they can read those books via the Stanza app.

I'll give Amazon some grace on the iPad app. There wasn't much time to develop it, and they had no iPad until this weekend. The kindle app on the iphone/iPod Touch -- it's WAY long past due for Amazon to put in the nice features that the Stanza app already has.

When Amazon gets it's reader apps in shape, it will get all my ebook money. Whispersync is the "killer feature". It just won't be until Amazon gets the reader apps up to the competition.

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Old 04-05-2010, 11:32 AM   #2
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None of the iPhone/touch reading apps are up to the level of reading apps that were/are available for PDAs running PalmOS and Windows Mobile. Perhaps part of this is because the iPhone OS is rather lackluster. But I agree, Amazon needs to improve its Kindle apps for the iPhone/iPad. Too bad they won't allow MobiPocket reader for the iPhone/iPad. It was good on several PDAs, but Amazon (who owns it) has prevented it from being used.

I personally believe Apple needs to open their iphone/iPad platforms to all developers and their apps or the US Justice Department needs to pay them a long and costly visit the way they did Microsoft.
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Old 04-05-2010, 12:02 PM   #3
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Perhaps part of this is because the iPhone OS is rather lackluster
I'm amazed you can say that with a straight face. The iphone OS SDK has a huge feature set and is in continuous development adding even more to it.

The lack of a dream ebook reader is partly due to lack of interest and now even with the big players making apps, first version on a new platform jitters. Also, there's a sort of lack of competition to innovate - You need their app to read their books (excluding people circumventing drm). If you could buy an ereader app to buy and read books from B&N, Amazon, Apple, etc, software writers could step in compete by making the best ebook reader.
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Old 04-05-2010, 12:14 PM   #4
David Munch
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Originally Posted by jswinden View Post
None of the iPhone/touch reading apps are up to the level of reading apps that were/are available for PDAs running PalmOS and Windows Mobile. Perhaps part of this is because the iPhone OS is rather lackluster.
Wow.. Anti-Apple-fanboy alert.. O_o
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Old 04-05-2010, 02:13 PM   #5
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I personally believe Apple needs to open their iphone/iPad platforms to all developers and their apps or the US Justice Department needs to pay them a long and costly visit the way they did Microsoft.
Dislike Apple much?

I had Palm PDAs and Treos and I thought the readers were garbage.
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Old 04-05-2010, 02:14 PM   #6
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I agree that the Kindle App is rather lackluster compared to Stanza. I'm reading a book on my iPhone with the Kindle App and I definitely miss not being able to adjust brightness, background color, night mode or the font.
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Old 04-05-2010, 02:20 PM   #7
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and does not have a way to change the brightness of the screen.
The Amazon iPad app has that.

Touch the Aa icon (font size adjustment) the brightness slider is in that menu in the Amazon app.
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Old 04-05-2010, 02:20 PM   #8
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The Stanza app is "all that and a bag of chips" as far as I'm concerned. I really like it. If they did a port to the iPad "as is" - I'd read with it on the iPad even without the pretty "page turning" graphics of the iPad.

Knowing that Amazon owns Stanza -- and has even improved Stanza -- but has NOT improved their own kindle app -- is frustrating. Amazon lost sales to Fictionwise from me because I adore Stanza and really do not like the Kindle app. It's not enough for them to have an app on every device -- it needs to be a GREAT app on every device.

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