Kendall Giles

Amazon just released a kindle reader application (Kindle for iPhone link in iTunes) for the iPhone and iPod touch.

If you were hesitant to buy a kindle 2 book reader (review), but still wanted access to Amazon's huge selection of electronic books, then this free application might be just what you were looking for.

As an example, here is the title page of the book Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School:

With this application you can download books you have already purchased from Amazon for free, read the first chapter of any book before you buy it, and add bookmarks and annotations to your text.

One really neat feature is that your reading location in a book is automatically synchronized between your iPhone and your kindle book reader. Say you stopped reading on page 59 of your book on the kindle, then left your kindle at home to go run some errands. If you have a moment to read whilst out and about, you can pull out your iPhone and your reading location in your book will automatically be in the right spot.

And, of course, to turn the page of a book on your iPhone, you just swipe your finger across the screen, like turning a page on a physical book.

Here's how the screen looks when the application is showing you options for saving a bookmark, changing font size, synchronizing, etc, while reading:

Note that normally when reading these option buttons are not there, so that the entire screen's real estate can be used for book text.

And did I mention that the Kindle for iPhone application was free?