Kindle for Mac Review


On December 14th, 2009, Amazon announced that it would be soon releasing 'a Kindle application for Mac platform'. This Kindle for Macintosh applications, like its Windows counterpart, will allow Mac users to read ebooks from the Kindle store for free. Released on 18th March 2009, this Amazon's Kindle application is as of today the world's largest platform for ebooks and digitally distributed magazines and newspapers.

Kindle for Mac Reviews

The free Kindle for Mac application allows readers to read their ebooks on their desktops and also on other devices such as iPhones, Kindles, Blackberrys or Windows machines using the Kindle software. The best part about this application is that if you have been reading a book on your Mac at home and now you are on the train, you can easily read the same book on your kindle. Which means with the Kindle, one can actually read ebooks on virtually any device.

Although clearly geared for those who own Kindles, anybody with a US Amazon account can get this Kindle for Mac even if one does not own a Kindle. Downloads can be done from Amazon's website. However, it requires Mac OS X 10.5 or above. Thus, this 22 MB file is only meant for Intel-based machines, OS X 10.5 and above.

After downloading the Kindle software and logging in with one's Amazon account, you will come across a more or less blank screen with a "Home" screen and an "Archived Items" tab. Those who have already download books to read on other devices like the kindle, etc. and already have plenty of items to fill the Archived tab. Browsing books to purchase has to be done through Mac's web browser and not in the application itself.

Since the Amazon catalog is fairly easy to navigate, finding a book is not difficult. Moreover, the variety will amaze you. With Amazon's Kindle, one can read more than 450,000 books on their MacBooks. However, reading kindle for MacBook pro is not as great as the actual kindle, as the bright white display glares right into your face. Moreover, it adds to the strains on your eyes. Comparatively, reading a kindle is easier and less stressful to the eyes.

The application entails the regular turning of pages with the scroll-wheel of the mouse or arrow keys. One can view notes and bookmarks made on other devices (sync with other devices), however, one cannot create notes. Then again, the simple standard Mac shortcuts to zoom text, etc. such as Cmd+ and Cmd- do not work. To zoom, you need to open one needs to click on a special panel, however, that can leave blank 'cut-outs' in the text once it has been closed.

Moreover, there is no search feature, which means if you are looking for something specific, we need to hunt from page to page, just like our paperback books. Another drawback of this software is lack of 'text to speech feature'. This feature is present on the regular kindle, wherein, one can have the books being read to you, that is the audio book version. Thus, there's definitely lot of scope for improvement.

The new Kindle application gives Amazon yet another platform to reign on. Amazon has said that in the near future, they also plan to bring out the 'full text search' and the facility to create and edit notes and highlights. In the future version, one can click on an image, zoom it to see the larger version and rotate it as well. Let's wait and see what all Amazon has to offer us in the future!

Blog Archive