Late yesterday and without so much as a well timed press release, mega-giant seller of all things on the Internet (aka Amazon.com) released the first Kindle application for the Mac. The free application works on Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.5 and above, and is version number of 1.0.0 beta 1.
The app allows you to download Kindle books you already own and read them on your Mac. In addition, and this is a nice feature, your progress through a particular book is kept synchronized between the application, your iPhone and your Kindle. This is especially great for people like myself who often take their Kindle somewhere but not a Mac. Although, in truth, I usually take both.
The application is defiantly of the simple variety and doesn’t really offer much in the way of bells and whistles. Although, what do you really need? It allows you to read your books on your Mac, adjust the size of the fonts and it keeps track of where you stopped so you can pick the book up later on another device. Plus, did I mention it costs nothing?
This is a great step in the right direction for Amazon. It is a shame that non-Intel Mac users and those not running Leopard or better can’t enjoy the app. But given the way things are moving, maybe those people are going to go ahead and upgrade themselves with a shiny new iPad instead? Hey, with over 150K pre-orders so far, it’s a real possibility.
Speaking of the iPad. I ordered one and will have a full review once its in my hands. Until then, try out this new app from Amazon right here.
