theregoesdave

Right on the heels of the Kindle 2 comes Amazon’s release of the Kindle for iPhone application to the iTunes App store. The application allows you to view and sync e-books from Amazon’s collection on your iPhone using simple gestures.

This is a brilliant move from Amazon in shoring up the e-book market by offering distribution channels directly to the Kindle and now to a potential market of millions more iPhone owners. The first version doesn’t have a very smooth way to browse books from Amazon’s store on your iPhone, but you can use mobile Safari and hopefully the next version will improve that function.

The iPhone e-book market was set to explode with the introduction of other applications such as Scrollmotion and Touchbook.  Scrollmotion is a startup with ties to some of the major publishing houses, while Touchboock started by offering the classics and other books out of copyright.

Some question whether the iPhone’s diminutive size could make the user experience suffer. I find that reading on the iPhone is fairly easy, while navigating complex not-so-mobile-friendly Web sites to be much more of a chore. It would be really helpful to hear from anyone else that’s tried out Kindle for iPhone or any of the other iPhone e-book applications.

• Scrollmotion brings Iceberg E-Book reader to the iPhone
• Google Books now on the Mobile Web
• Is Barnes & Noble making an e-reader for Android lovers?
• Chipotle Mobile Ordering coming (back) to iPhone
• Amazon’s iPhone Application lets you shop from anywhere