Amazon Announces New Functionality for Kindle Apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch
Readers can now enjoy embedded video and audio clips in Kindle books on their iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced a new update to Kindle for iPad and Kindle …
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon had already reshaped Kindle for the iPhone interface in 2009 through an iPhone-focused app redesign, and in May 2010 it announced a Kindle app for Android. Adding media playback to Apple-device editions extends Kindle’s reading experience beyond text while Amazon pursues distribution across phone platforms.
The move also separates the capabilities of Kindle’s software from the dedicated e-reader: Jeff Bezos had said a color Kindle device was still far off, while the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch apps can display and play richer book material.
First-order effects
- Kindle readers on Apple devices gain access to books containing embedded video and audio, rather than text-only editions.
- Publishers distributing through Kindle can make media-enhanced editions available to Amazon’s iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch audience.
Second-order effects
- Publishers and rights holders must account for video and audio production, licensing, and file preparation when deciding whether to create enhanced Kindle editions.
- Amazon’s Kindle apps become a more capable cross-platform storefront, increasing the value of app distribution alongside its dedicated Kindle hardware.
Third-order effects
- If publishers adopt embedded media broadly, ebook competition shifts from device-centered reading toward software platforms that can carry richer, format-specific editions.
The trend: Digital reading is expanding from text replication into device-aware publishing formats that use smartphones and tablets’ media capabilities.