Review of the Kindle reader for iPhone

[crispini]

So, I already have the Stanza e-book reader for the iPhone and I've been enjoying my stuff downloaded from Project Gutenberg and the like. I never explored it as far as checking out the e-books you could buy through Fictionwise, because I was just kind of lazy and I've been putting it off. Well, so Amazon comes out with its Kindle reader app for iPhone and I downloaded and thought I'd check it out. It's not as good as the Stanza reader, because you have to make a little flick of the thumb to turn the page, rather than the tap that the Stanza reader uses. HOWEVER, the real power is that they've got two things that are already really, really ubiquitous in my life -- Amazon, and the iPhone -- and when you put that together, it's almost dangerous as far as the instant-gratification thing. With Amazon one-click ordering, and instant delivery of the book to your phone, this is going to be very, very dangerous for my impulse control of books.

Now, here's the thing, though. I still like paper books. You can lend them, you can sell them, you can arrange them on your shelves. I really don't like the sensation that the book I just "bought" is only available to me via this proprietary format. I read my first book on there yesterday and immediately wanted to lend it to my mom. Nope, no can do.

We'll see. I was impressed by the ease of use of the Kindle reader (although no more so than the Stanza reader) and they sure do have their delivery mechanism for us book junkies tuned to a fine point, but I'm not yet entirely sold. Sure, the quick delivery is great but at the end of the day I'd really rather have a physical book in my hands, when all's said and done.

Ask me again in a month and see how many books I've bought THEN, though! :D