Amazon has announced the development of an update for the Kindle app for Android and Windows Phone 7 tablets.
The new app will allow users to sync their Kindle libraries on all compatible devices owned by them; even bookmarks and pages will be kept track of by the app, and readers can pick up where they left last time even while using a new device. Kindle Store has various books including bestsellers and older books that are now out of copyright.
While it appears that the app would work well on existing Android tablets such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab; it is meant to work even on Android Honeycomb, a new version of Android for tablets that hasn’t been launched yet. The Kindle app for iPhone was launched last year and became one of the top ten iPhone apps. Amazon is silent as to when it will release the update for Android and WP7.
Between direct competitors Barnes and Noble and Amazon, the latter holds a slight EDGE over Barnes and Noble where apps are concerned because it allows access to audio and video through the iPhone Kindle app; while Barnes and Noble’s Nook app for Android came in to the market pretty late.
Amazon finds it extremely encouraging that the same people often possess tablets as well as Kindles. Users have been found using tablets for movies, web browsing and games, and a Kindle for reading. However, most people do have either a tablet or an e reader, particularly those who bought a tablet first. According to a ChangeWave Research report, Apple’s iPad may still be gaining market share at the expense of e-readers (especially Amazon Kindle). This is where Amazon sees a market for the Kindle app. The director of Amazon Kindle, Dorothy Nicholls, says that the Kindle reader will be customised for different kinds of devices.