Amazon Halts The Holiday Rush With Easy-to-Shop Apps and Features For eBook Lovers, Toy Lovers, Shop-til-You-Drop Lovers

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By Tom Dulaney, Editor

The elves at Amazon.com have been working overtime for months to make this holiday season a terrific one for iPad owners—and, of course, all those Kindle users and just about everyone else on the planet.

Just today the company has added to the big pile of ebook reading and general shopping treats. It is showering the world with such a wealth of goodies its nearly too much to absorb. All you need to claim the bounty is an email address and an account at Amazon.

For iPad and smartphone users, use Amazon's new Windowshop app http://www.itunes.com/appstore for near-total access to everything Amazon.com sells. Amazon did a “total re-write” of itself for Windowshop. Between Windowshop and the Kindle for iPad app, there isn't much you can't buy from Amazon right from your iPad and smartphone screen.  for the Kindle for iPad app for books.

Since Black Friday bears down upon us, let's begin with that Amazon announcement, then go through the whole list unveiled in the last few days, here in one convenient place:

Black Friday Deals: Deals of the Day on Amazon, including massive discounts, doorbuster-style “lightning deals,” all running through Cyber Monday (Nov. 29). Go here to see what's hot each day:  Today, for example, there are no ebooks and the Beatles Stereo Box Set deal is over, but fans on the site are begging Amazon to bring that deal back on Cyber Monday. Tons of other products available at the site.

Price Check: If you venture into a non-virtual store, take your iPhone and use Amazon's new Price Check app. It's limited to the iPhone for now, but maybe they'll make it iPad and Android friendly in the future. What it does: Say you're in a book store, or a toy store or virtually any kind of store, but lets talk books for this example. Tell the app which book you are checking out. Do that by scanning the book's bar code, taking a photo of it, speaking the book's name, or typing in the name. Amazon tells you their price for the book, shows you reviews, lets you share it on Twitter, Facebook or via text message or email. Or you can order it from Amazon on the spot.

Gift an eBook: For the first time, Amazon lets you buy and give an eBook to anyone with an email address—whether they have a Kindle or an iPad or and Android phone or any of the “Kindle for” apps. “No Kindle Required” is Amazon's big slogan this year. Every Kindle Book Store book now has a gift link, with exceptions. The exceptions: free books in the Kindle Store. Do that yourself by emailing the link for the free book to their person, tell them “I am a cheapskate, gifting you with an ebook that was free,” and smile. To gift a paid ebook, click the link, type in the recipient's email address, click and send. Done!  right from your iPad!

More Great Books: Amazon's recent announcements today quietly inserted a new number: 750,000. That's now the official count of ebooks available in the Kindle Store, up from 720,000 a few weeks ago. Joining the ebook lists:

The bestselling Rainbow Magic series of children's books by Daisy Meadows and from RosettaBooks and HIT Entertainment in conjunction with Amazon. Some 73 titles are already available in the Kindle Store
and they are EXCLUSIVE AS EBOOKS IN THE AMAZON STORE.

And Amazon is adding 121 titles and 61 of the finest authors from abroad to the Kindle Store, with an acquisition from The Toby Press. Between the AmazonEncore program, which brings back previously published books, and AmazonCrossing, which published translations of foreign-language books into English, The Toby Press acquisition is just one more way in which Amazon is enriching the ebook world in America.

Best Books of 2010: Need an idea for that gift book? Amazon.com's Editorial Team shares their picks with the Best Books of 2010. Go here  for their “list of lists,” including the Editor's choices, the Top 100 Customer Favorites, and breakouts of the Top 10s by genre and category.

Toys: If you are thinking “toys” for someone on your list, MasterCard and Amazon offer up their 2010 Holiday Toy List.

MasterCard Promotion: If you purchase with your MasterCard and buy $75 worth or more, two-day shipping is free or you get $10 credit for a future purchase if you are an Amazon Prime member. Details here.

Facebook Gift Card Giving:  Let's you tap into your Facebook account, choose a friend, select a gift card design, pick a date for delivery of the card, and insert the amount of the gift card. Santa never had it so easy.

Shop Amazon's Endless.com online store for luxury and unique gift items. Special deals are offered for Black Friday (Nov. 25-27) and Cyber Monday (Nov. 28-29):

Nov. 25-27 (Thanksgiving weekend sale)

30% off regular-price boots, slippers and athletic shoe styles,

 as well as accessories,

 including watches and jewelry

 from endless.com's newly launched jewelry category

Nov. 28-29 (Cyber Monday Sale)

discounts include $30 off $100 orders, 

$60 off $200 orders and 

$100 off $300 orders

And welcome Italy to the fold: The Amazon stores, including the Kindle Store, set up shop from Sicily all the way up the boot through Rome, Florence, Venice and to the Alps by opening their Amazon.it operation.

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.

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