kindle app for iphone

While not quite the technology convergence of a Roomba getting run over by a Segway, being able to read Kindle books on iPhone is pretty darn close. Amazon just released a new app for iPhone that let's you do just this and it is very slick. You connect it to your Kindle account and all your Amazon book purchases are available, with the last page you're on more-or-less properly synced up.

Very cool.

The reading experience is very good for such a small device, the interface is slick, and downloads quick on even a 1G iPhone.

Downsides? Really the only big problem is that there doesn't appear to be a way to send mobipocket, pdf, or other text files to iPhone the way you can for Kindle. This is a real bummer, as currently 23 out of the 135 books on Kindle are Amazon e-books. The rest are mostly from the Baen library. I hope they decide to fix this, as it makes both devices more valuable to me.

Still, combined with Amazon's new digital publishing platform, Amazon is working hard to create a strong ecosystem around e-books. Great opportunity for authors who can move early, I suspect.