BradPace.com

Anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE my iPhone. I use it for everything and have 7 screens of applications installed. Many are free and quite a few are applications I paid for. But this last weekend I wanted to try the Kindle on the iPhone from Amazon. After all the app is FREE so I had to try it.

First off I do NOT have a Kindle and have never had the chance to try one. I have read several short ebooks on my computer and found it to not work very well for me. Part of it is that I sit in front of my laptop all day (and often late into the night) for work. The idea of reading a book there as well during my free time just does not appeal to me. Also I find the screen to bright and it strains my eyes. I can stare at the screen for 10-12 hours but even I have my limits .

The Kindle app for the iphone intrigued me for several reasons. One is the portability. The idea of always having something in my pocket to read is great. I already have plenty to read on my iphone. I do about half of my time on Facebook from my iphone. Also I read many blogs (like the lifehacker blog from their app) and news (like the USA today and Digg). Plus all my email accounts! But sometimes I want to curl up with a good book. Usually about technology, marketing, church stuff, or sci-fi / fantasy.

The second thing that I thought I would like is the actual presentation on the screen. The lines are short because of the size of the iphone screen. I have not officially taken any speed reading courses (not since 6^th grade at Delta Middle School) but I do know that you should try to read 4-6 words at once and the iphone screen size seemed perfect for this. (My next quest is for a good speed reading course).

So on Friday night in bed I downloaded the kindle application. It took about 15 seconds. I thought it would come with some type of free content or book but it did not. But it had a link to Amazon.com to get a book. I did not want to buy an actual kindle book to test this out but I did find several free books. I navigated the Amazon easily on my Safari browser and “purchased” the free book on the iphone. By the time I could fire up the Kindle app my new book was already there. A fantasy book called the “Assassin’s Apprentice” by Robin Hobbs. I barely read the description of the book before downloading it just because I was conducting a test.

I am now on chapter 20 of the book and on page 5339. Obviously the pages are much smaller . The experience of reading this book on the iphone has exceeded my expectations. I find it very easy to read. There is no vertical scrolling of any page. Just flip the page to the left or right like a real book. Be it a book that is 3”x4” and has 9000 pages! I have spent about 5 hours over the weekend on the book and found that it has not strained my eyes at all. I read in the car, waiting for a movie to start in the theater, waiting for my food at sizzler, and in my back yard. Plus I think the for factor of the pages has helped me to increase my reading speed.

An added bonus has been that I have really enjoyed the book! It is great and has really sucked me in. I like her story and the world she has created for this series of books. Yes it is a great marketing ploy by Amazon to give away the first book in several series to hook you into reading the rest. It will probably work for me. I love the long series of escapism literature.

Overall I give the kindle for iphone app and overall experience of 5 out of 5. It makes me wonder if I would like a Kindle. I probably would but will never fork out the cash to buy one. Why should I when I have my iphone!