iPad Owners Arise! Just-Announced Kindle for Windows Phone 7 App Will Have Features We Don't--Yet

Microsoft demonstrated the Kindle for Windows Phone 7 today and Amazon.com announced the app will be available “later this year.”

"New features built into an app for the first time" in the Kindle for Windows Phone 7 app might make iPad owners envious.  But Amazon has always extended such innovations across all its apps, so we should be OK.  

So you're not a minute late in learning when Kindle for the Windows Phone 7 is ready to use, stop by this page and leave your email address.

Tucked between the lines in Amazon's press release today seems to be an announcement within an announcement—new features not seen before in any Kindle app. Here's where the “new features” appeared in the press release (bold, blue words added by editor).

“Kindle for Windows Phone 7 will be released later this year, and includes the features customers love about all of the Kindle apps, plus new features built into a Kindle app for the first time, such as personalized book recommendations on your Kindle app home screen and the ability to send a book suggestion to a friend from any book in your library without leaving the app.”

At today's first-look demo by Microsoft of the Kindle for Windows Phone 7 in Bellvue, WA, Microsoft Corporate VP for Mobile Communications Business, looped third party developers into the Windows Phone 7 plus Amazon the Amazon app:

"We designed Windows Phone 7 to bring together a host of services and content -- from Microsoft and third parties -- in a way that seamlessly integrates the things you care about most, from movies to shopping and reading, and Amazon is key to delivering that experience to customers."

The KWP7 app will join the growing long list of devices with Kindle apps that let users read their Amazon Kindle ebooks on any device they choose: the iPad, the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android or their PC.

All the Kindle apps do readers a host of favors.  For example the app saves their place in the ebook “in the cloud,” Amazon's centralized and connected system. Stop reading in the middle of chapter 6 on your iPad, call up the book on your Kindle-app-enabled cell phone, and there you are right back in the same spot in chapter 6.

A demo of Kindle for Windows Phone 7, Amazon said, is to be posted here.  As Planet iPad "went to press," we could not find that specific demo there.  It will be there soon, no doubt.

Amazon's full press release announcing the new app is at this link or, for you convenience, follows:

October 28, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that Kindle for Windows Phone 7 will be the first major eBook application available for Windows Phone 7. Kindle for Windows Phone 7 will be released later this year, and includes the features customers love about all of the Kindle apps, plus new features built into a Kindle app for the first time, such as personalized book recommendations on your Kindle app home screen and the ability to send a book suggestion to a friend from any book in your library without leaving the app. Like all Kindle apps, Kindle for Windows Phone 7 will let customers Buy Once, Read Everywhere--on Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, Android-based devices and in the coming months, on Windows Phone 7-based devices. Customers can sign up to be notified when the Kindle for Windows Phone 7 is available later this year at www.amazon.com/kindleforwindowsphone.

"When you buy a Kindle book, we make it easy for you to get your books on all of the devices you want to read on - your iPhone, iPad, Android-based device, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, and of course your Kindle, Kindle 3G and Kindle DX," said Dorothy Nicholls, Director, Amazon Kindle. "Kindle for Windows Phone 7 extends our vision of 'Buy Once, Read Everywhere.' The app is optimized for the unique user interface of Windows Phone 7, and will include our Whispersync technology, so you always have your library with you and never lose your place in a book as you switch between devices."

With Kindle for Windows Phone 7, readers will take advantage of the following features:

• Access to over 725,000 books in the U.S. Kindle Store - the largest selection of the most popular books that people want to read - including New Releases and 108 of this week's 111 New York Times Bestsellers.
• With Kindle Worry-Free Archive, books purchased from the Kindle Store are automatically backed up online in a customer's Kindle library on Amazon, where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.
• Buy Once, Read Everywhere with the Kindle apps and devices. Amazon's Whispersync technology syncs your place across devices, so you can pick up where you left off.
• Integrated shopping experience that allows customers to shop without leaving the app.
• The opportunity to send an email to a friend with a link to the book you're reading or to any book in your library without leaving the app.
• Customized reading, choosing from five different font sizes and three background colors.
• The ability to read in portrait or landscape mode, and to turn pages by tapping on either side of the screen or flicking.
• The option to try the beginning of a book for free before buying and to receive personalized recommendations on the home screen of your app.

Microsoft demonstrated Kindle for Windows Phone 7 for the first time today, live from its Bellevue campus, during the annual Microsoft Professional Developers Conference. "We are pleased to be working with Amazon to launch Kindle for Windows Phone 7," said Achim Berg, Corporate Vice President of the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft Corp. "We designed Windows Phone 7 to bring together a host of services and content -- from Microsoft and third parties -- in a way that seamlessly integrates the things you care about most, from movies to shopping and reading, and Amazon is key to delivering that experience to customers." To view today's demo of Kindle for Windows Phone 7, visit Microsoft News Center.

About Amazon