Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Will the Kindle 3 really see an ePub App?

Well, here are Andy Ihnatko’s exact words from a podcast  (takes a while to load up, found courtesy S. Lockhart) -

Leo: Does Kindle Support ePub?

Someone: No.

Andy: No. I’ve known a couple people now that there’s an app kit for the … for Android have announced that they are going to come up with an ePub reader for it. I haven’t actually seen.

Someone: Did you say Android or Kindle?

Leo: Kindle is what I’m curious about.

Andy: Aah … I believe now that there’s an actual app development kit for Kindle .. I have talked to a couple of people who have said that they want to build an ePub reader that would run on the Kindle. And Amazon says they don’t care – go ahead.  

He might just be confused because he follows that up by talking about how he doesn’t like the way Amazon lays out ePubs.

If he’s right this is very interesting news.

There are two qualifiers here -

1. He does specifically say that Amazon OK’ed an ePub reader on the Kindle. This is the exact opposite of Amazon’s KDK terms i.e. no generic readers.  
2. He says ‘a couple of people’ ‘want’ to build an ePub reader. There’s a big difference between wanting to do something and actually having it done.

If Andy Ihnatko is right about ePub on Kindle it might mean that in the best case we’ll see an ePub reader for Kindle soon - even in the worst case it would mean Amazon is open to allowing an ePub reading app for Kindle 3 and Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. Either of those is a great outcome.

My money’s on it being a misunderstanding – Why would Amazon let the enemy into the Kindle eco-system?

Free Audiobooks – Outside US definitely, for US Kindle owners perhaps not

These might not work for US Kindle owners – try choosing Canada as your country as that worked for me while US didn’t.

Also, couldn’t get both offers to work so pick the one you want more first.

The two free audiobooks are (courtesy C. Anderson at the official kindle forum) -

1. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.
   

   Today’s download is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, first part of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling Millennium Trilogy published by Quercus Books.

2. Charm Offensive by Armand Iannucci. 
   

   Today’s download is the best of Armando Iannucci’s Charm Offensive, a heady mix of satirical comedy, messed-about archive, chat and outrageous fibs featuring guests Clive Anderson, Phil Jupitus, John Oliver, Andy Zaltzman, Russell Howard, Michael McIntyre, Chris Addison, Miranda Hart & David Quantick.

There will be more free books (one new one every day of the week for 1 week) so check out The Guardian site -

The Guardian and Observer have teamed up with Audible to give away a free audiobook download every day this week.

We do have something for US Kindle Owners.

8 Free Doctor Who Books

The BBC has lots of free Doctor Who Books in PDF and prc format (choose prc if you want text to speech). Books include -

1. Human Nature by Paul Cornell. 
2. The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts. 
3. Nightshade by Mark Gatiss.  
4. Lungbarrow by Marc Platt. 
5. Scales of Injustice by Gary Russell.  
6. The Sands of Time by Justin Richards.
7. Empire of Glass by Andy Lane.
8. The Dying Days by Lance Parkin.

Choose prc format (Mobipocket) whenever possible as the prc versions are way more readable than the PDF versions - the latter are basically unreadable on Kindle 3.

Filed under: free books Tagged: | free kindle books, the case for ePub