Can I add ebooks to my kindle app at iPad/iphone?

[nexgen]

I don't own amazon's kindle device but I've got iphone and ipad where I have installed the kindle app.

Until now, I'm just reading the ebooks I purchased from amazon.

Is there anyway I can manually add ebooks to the kindle app from my computer?

[Rique]

Originally Posted by nexgen

I don't own amazon's kindle device but I've got iphone and ipad where I have installed the kindle app.

Until now, I'm just reading the ebooks I purchased from amazon.

Is there anyway I can manually add ebooks to the kindle app from my computer?

If they were mobi files, you could - or you could convert them to mobi files with Calibre. There's a thread in the Calibre forum which will put you on the right track.

[Stitchawl]

Perhaps the free software, "DropBox" might let you. I use it to load .epub files from my computer to my iPhone to read with the app 'Stanza.'

Stitchawl

[arcadata]

Originally Posted by Rique

If they were mobi files, you could - or you could convert them to mobi files with Calibre. There's a thread in the Calibre forum which will put you on the right track.

The iphone explorer trick only works if you have a Mac though

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by arcadata

The iphone explorer trick only works if you have a Mac though

iPhone Explorer works with Windows as well.

[arcadata]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

iPhone Explorer works with Windows as well.

It doesn't show the Kindle app though on Windows, so you can't sideload mobi books to it, like with Mac using iPhone Explorer.

[Rob_E]

Basically the Kindle application works easiest with Kindle books loaded directly from Amazon. You might be able to trick it into accepting other ebooks, but it's not really necessary. Stanza, iBooks, and other programs are available to handle non-Kindle books, and they handle them by default. No work-arounds required.

[nexgen]

The primary reason I want the ebooks in Kindle is because, kindle can synchnorize between iphone, ipad and pc. I can start reading the ebook in ipad then continue on iphone and then at last I can review it finally on my pc.

iBooks can do as close as to that but it doesn't provide sync to pc or read via pc.

I think tricking the kindle in that way don't provide the whisper sync function which what I really want.

Any suggestion for this?

[HarryT]

You can't. Reading position synching only works with Amazon-purchased content. This is also true with a "real" Kindle.

[bthoven]

You can do the usb transfer if your iPhone/iPad are jailbroken. But non-amazon ebooks can't be synched with Amazon.

See this link: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57286

Now I use iFunbox instead of iPhoneBrowser because with iFunbox you can search for application folder with keyword. For example, I search for "Kindle", and I can find the ebooks folder easily instead of having to wade through all the installed apps folder.

[dhiru]

Originally Posted by bthoven;

Now I use iFunbox instead of iPhoneBrowser because with iFunbox you can search for application folder with keyword. For example, I search for "Kindle", and I can find the ebooks folder easily instead of having to wade through all the installed apps folder.

You can also use iphone folders, it shows application icons so easy to find app folders and its very fast

[dwharrison]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You can't. Reading position synching only works with Amazon-purchased content. This is also true with a "real" Kindle.

Right.

On the other hand, iBooks DOES sync reading position and bookmarks for content that has not been purchased from Apple. To me, this makes it the epub reader of choice right now.

[Rob_E]

Originally Posted by dwharrison

Right.

On the other hand, iBooks DOES sync reading position and bookmarks for content that has not been purchased from Apple. To me, this makes it the epub reader of choice right now.

That's good. That's pretty much how I understood it to be, but I haven't been able to use iBooks yet, so I wasn't sure. There's a lot I like about Stanza, but syncing between devices may be the killer feature that makes iBooks the winner.

So basically, right now, you can only have on-line, "whispersync" capabilities using Kindle books purchased from Amazon. You can sneak non-Kindle books into the Kindle application on a specific device, but it won't sync to other devices.

But with iBooks, you do have bookmark syncing that goes across devices, but
a) it's not on-line. You have to sync one device to iTunes and then sync the other device.
b) both devices have to be iBooks-capable Apple devices.

So if you want to read an ebook that you did not purchase from Amazon on your iPad/iPod/iPhone, and then you want to pick up where you left off by reading the same book on your Kindle or other non-Apple ebook reader, it simply can't be done at this time, as far as I know.

But it would be really cool.

I'm also waiting for the technology that will move the bookmark in my physical book as I read the corresponding electronic book. Where's my ap for that?

[tbergman]

[QUOTE=Rob_E;1050451]
But with iBooks, you do have bookmark syncing that goes across devices, but
a) it's not on-line. You have to sync one device to iTunes and then sync the other device.
b) both devices have to be iBooks-capable Apple devices.

QUOTE]

The syncing between devices does not involve iTunes and happens wirelessly. I find it to be reasonably reliable between my iPad 3G and my iPhone. Occasianally it doesn't seem to know which device was used last but this is rare. I assume Apple has provided some sort of server for this purpose. It does, as you state, require 2 apple devices.
If anyone knows how this actually works, I'd be interested.

[dwharrison]

Originally Posted by Rob_E

a) it's not on-line. You have to sync one device to iTunes and then sync the other device.

To clarify a bit, iTunes is involved when loading the book into iBooks.

I've never done network traces to see what's being sent, but the fact that it can support books not purchased from Apple makes it seem like it is generating a unique ID for the book when it is first loaded into iTunes and then syncing using this ID. Given that it doesn't require both devices to be syncing at the same time, it's pretty clear that it's syncing against an Apple server somewhere in the cloud.

But as tbergman said above, once that's done, sync is over 3G or wifi. It's worked pretty reliably for me provided I make sure to exit the book to the iBooks home screen.

It actually works better than Kindle syncing in one way: it doesn't have the asinine idea that what I wanted synced is the last page I've *ever* read in the book.