Kindle For iPad

My indispensible brother has sent along a link to a press release about a new update for Kindle for iPad and iPod. His question: Why aren't Kindle owner more upset about the fact that Kindle is producing a more powerful operating system for platforms other than the Kindle. In short, if I buy and iPad and load the Kindle application, I will get the benefit of embedded video and audio clips that I would otherwise not be able to get from my Kindle.

He has a point. I was discussing this with my dispensable friend, Bill this weekend when he had a chance to look at my Kindle. The iPod touch his son was holding seemed to him to be more powerful, sleek and useful then the Kindle. He's right. The Kindle is very utilitarian. Are there some things I wish I could do with it, like access maps appropriate to the book I'm reading (see my Book Review on Shogun) or have music appropriate to the story played while I read it, sure, but that's not what I bought. I bought a reader. That's it. It's like buying a base model car. You get to read with it. Now, it's not like having a car with no AC in Houston, good lord it's a tad better than that, but for the price, you get a tablet to read on.

I will say this for Kindle, with the wireless on, reading it each day, I don't have to charge for a week. Wireless off….two weeks and still going strong. I love that aspect. I can download five books, turn off the wireless, and probably won't need to recharge until I'm done with them. I'd like to see the iPad manage that.

Secondly, I have no problem with Kindle leveraging Apples platform. I suspect that soon enough a more advanced Kindle model will come out and the kinks in the operating system will be all fleshed out by a bunch of Apple dopes.