Category: Personal Technology

Ever since I started using the iPhone Kindle app, I have become a big fan of it. So, I was really excited to see that Amazon has released a Kindle for PC also!

Now, you can download Kindle for free on your PC. I downloaded the PC Kindle during the weekend, and have used it for a few hours since then. It’s a really cool thing to have, and I suggest you get it too. It’s free and as I stated earlier, a lot of good books on the Kindle are free too. The only thing to keep in mind is if you are outside US, then the free books will still cost you 2 dollars because Amazon charges a roaming fee for international downloads.

The PC Kindle will sync with the Kindle books that you already own, and will maintain your furthest read page; it also shows you annotations you made with other devices, but doesn’t allow you to create annotations on the PC.

Other Limitations

It doesn’t let you read newspapers, magazines or blogs, and is currently restricted to just books.

Amazon says that future releases will include the following things:

1. Ability to create notes and highlights
2. Search feature
3. Ability to rotate and zoom an image

Percentage Completed

The one thing I noticed about the PC Kindle was that it showed a percentage completed on the screen. I opened up Myth of the Rational Market, and it showed 42%, which meant that I had read 42% of the book. This feature is not present in the iPhone Kindle, and I think I am going to open up Kindle books on PC, just to see how far along I am. My other work around of computing percentage completed in my head for the iPhone Kindle is not working too well.

Other Resources

Here is an article I found that has tips on finding free books on Kindle for PC. I think it is a useful little article that you should read if you get the PC Kindle.

Amazon also states that they are going to release a Kindle for Mac and Blackberry soon, so that’s good news for Mac and Blackberry users too.

I discovered quite a few features in the Kindle app on iPhone after using it for several hours. I thought a quick post to share these with others will be a good idea.

Everything here is really obvious and if you use the app for any amount of time you will stumble upon these things. This might prove useful for people who are just getting started though.

1. Stop rotation: Screen rotation is a really cool feature, but if you are reading in bed, and twist and turn often, this can become a nuisance. Fortunately there is a way to lock the screen setting so that it doesn’t rotate. Tap gently on the bottom right of the screen, and a little padlock will appear. If you tap on this padlock – it will prevent your screen from rotating. No matter what you do, the screen will not rotate. You can do the same thing to unlock the screen and let it rotate.
2. Rotate on a flat surface: I have noticed that if you keep the phone on a flat surface like a table and then rotate it – the screen doesn’t rotate. To get around this, you can lock the screen the way you want (using the idea in first step), and then read it on a flat surface.
3. Turn pages without flicking: You need to flick the screen to go to the next page on the iPhone. If you are in the middle of a book and have to do it several times in a minute – you start looking for alternates. The alternate to flicking is a gentle tap on the right side of the screen to move forward, or on the left side of screen to move backwards. The area on which it works is probably just 10% of the screen (either side). I say gentle tap because if your touch is not light, then the whole thing with the title of the book and the bottom bar which shows you the option to refresh, increase font etc. appears. Continue reading “Tap tap tap”