Amazon launches Kindle Cloud Reader no comments
Amazon today announced the launch of the newest member of the Kindle reading app family. The new Kindle Cloud Reader is built from the ground up in HTML5 and allows you to read ebooks from your Kindle library whether online or offline.
The new app syncs your library as well as annotations and last page read with other Kindle apps and Kindle ereaders. You can choose to download ebooks from your library to your device to make them available for offline reading.
Currently Kindle Cloud Reader is available for Safari and Chrome, but versions are in the works for Internet Explorer, Firefox and other browsers. The Safari version of the Kindle Cloud Reader is optimized for use on the iPad and includes access to the Kindle Store — a feature the Kindle iPad app and other ereading apps had to remove recently to comply with Apple’s current App Store rules.
On the iPad Kindle Cloud Reader is very smooth and feels just like reading on the Kindle iPad app before the Kindle Store button was removed, except sometimes there is a very small amount of lag as you perform an action that requires web interaction. Once an ebook is downloaded it is just like reading on a normal app. You can even put an icon for Kindle Cloud Reader on the iPad’s homescreen by tapping the share button at the top of the screen when you first connect and selecting the appropriate option. After you do this you only need to tap the icon to launch Safari and go right into the app. I would say that this is a very elegant and effective response to having to remove the Kindle Store from Amazon’s iOS apps.
Amazon says it is developing versions of Kindle Cloud Reader for other mobile devices. This makes me wonder; might we one day have a version that works for the Nook Color? Of course what goes around comes around and we could see Amazon’s tablet, when released, greeted by an iBooks Cloud Reader and a Nook Cloud Reader. Sounds good to me.
To use Kindle Cloud Reader point your Safari or Chrome browser to www.amazon.com/cloudreader.
