Amazon recently introduced two new free games for the Kindle called “Every Word” and “Shuffle Row.”  “Every Word” is a speed game where you try to make as many words as you can in empty spaces on a board from a scrambled list of letters.

In “Shuffled Row,” you race to see how many words you can make from 60 letter tiles.  Both games are fun but maintain a literary element.  The best part?  Both of these games are free!  Hopefully, there will be more free or low priced games to choose from in the near future.  Unfortunately, these games are not available for the original Kindle.

The reviews are very positive.  Both games are a lot of fun and addictive.  Even the graphics got good reviews, contrary to the complaints about graphics on Kindle magazines.  As word games, they seem to enhance the core goals of what the Kindle is meant for, which is reading.  Both games are also good fillers for when you are in between books or not in the mood to tackle a whole book.

Has anyone tired these new games?  So far, Amazon is only emphasizing the literary aspect of the Kindle.  It will be interesting to see if Amazon continues to take that route, or whether they will add more games that are not literary in nature.



Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has just released first two Kindle apps: Shuffled Row and Every Word, thus opening the era of Kindle applications. Both applications are currently completely free. Since they are written by Amazon Digital Services and seem to be mostly geared towards promoting the Kindle platform, they are likely to stay free for an indefinite period. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they will be bundled with every new Kindle device sold.

A while ago I guestimated that Kindle 3 launch would be a great opportunity for Amazon to release Kindle App store and take the KDK out of closed beta. This guestimate turned out to be correct.

Both applications are quite predictably word games. Games seem to be the most numerous and popular application type on mobile platforms. Word games in particular are very likely to appeal to reading crowd which is the core of Kindle user base.

The goal of Shuffled Row is to construct words from available letter tiles. Up to 9 letter tiles are available at any given time. New tiles appear pretty fast. Once the rack is full, oldest tile starts disappearing. This process is also pretty fast. Once you construct a word, tiles comprising this word are also gone from the rack. Using rare letters yields more points (Z is 10, V is 4, etc). So does constructing longer words (4 letter word gets 2x multiplier, 5 letter – 3x, etc up to x7 for 9 letter word). If you submit something that game doesn’t consider a valid word, the letters are gone from the rack and no points are awarded. If you finish the game with empty rack you get 10 point bonus. Overall I would say that the game is very exciting to play and it is surprisingly dynamic from an app running on hardware with eInk screen (I’m playing it on 1st generation Kindle DX right now). Amazon did a great job of designing game mechanics in such a way that only small portion of the screen is updated at any given time and even that with just 2 colors (which is the fastest way to update eInk screen). Because “Shuffled Row” is such e dynamic game, I wouldn’t call it a relaxing time-killer but rather a very engaging brain-twister. On the first attempt I’ve scored 321 which is not bad considering that English is my second language. Since 60 letters are shuffled differently every time, no two games are the same.

In Every Word you need to uncover words on the board by constructing them from scrambled sets of letters. Unlike “shuffled row”, constructing the word doesn’t eliminate letters from the board. You can immediately reuse them to construct the next word. Game consists of 10 levels. You advance to the next level by uncovering the one of the longest words on the board. Quite often there is only one longest word on the board and each time that I’ve played it consisted of all of the available letters. Game has “relaxed” and “timed” mode. Relaxed mode doesn’t have a time limit. In timed mode you are given 3 minutes to complete each level. This not much at all. If you are stuck in “relaxed mode” you always have the option to forfeit the game and see the answers (which I do quite often). So depending on the mode the game can be either a brain-twister or relaxing time-killer.

Both games rely on vocabulary and therefore are quite large (around 1 megabyte of compressed data). Both games set a high standard for other Kindle games to come in terms of graphics, dynamics and usability on eInk display.

Both “shuffled row” and “every word” are a welcome addition to my Kindle library as they add useful time-wasting functionality to the device without taking away from it’s main function – reading. While Kindle will never be able to compete in gaming with devices such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad or Nintendo (PINK:NTDOY) DS, adding these games is similar adding a nice crossword puzzle to already interesting newspaper.

The iconic Moleskine notebook brand now boasts its very own Kindle case.  As fans of these notebooks would expect, the cases boast the traditional Moleskine look and feel while also offering secure placement for the reader.  The Kindle is held in place against the right side of the cover by four double-stitched corner straps against a plush suede microfiber lining.  On the left side, owners will be able to place soft-cover reporter style Moleskine notepads(2 included) into the case, giving them a place to jot down notes and other useful information.

Now, I get that a lot of people see Moleskine as a highly trendy thing.  It probably is.  They have a huge following though, and not without reason.  This particular design was inspired, according to its creators, by the increasingly large number of people involved in homemade Moleskine “hacks” to modify their favorite journal type book into something with a wider range of uses(one of my favorites being the external hard drive). Whether you are personally a fan or not, the utility of having a decent notepad handy while reading is something almost anybody can appreciate, especially students, and it makes an undeniably great gift idea for anybody you know who loves their Kindle.

Also available for the Kindle DX.

Soth Godin, a blogger and author suggests that Amazon should create a “paperback” version of the Kindle.  Hypothetically speaking, this inexpensive device would only include the bare bones and cost about $50.  It would be small enough to fit in your pocket or purse like a paperback book.  Spending less on the e-reader allows you to spend more on the books.  So, I see Amazon’s revenue jumping in Kindle book sales once the Kindle price comes down.  That is, if the publishers can find a way to balance out the prices of the books, which they will eventually.  E-books are still a relatively new market.

According to an article from Wired magazine, the e-book reader market will soon split into two segments.  One will be for simple, cheap e-readers with monochrome e-ink such as the Kindle.  The other will be for high end e-readers with color touch screens such as the iPad.

The only way to get authors and publishers to embrace this device is to sell 20,000,000 of them. You either become the best and only platform for consuming books worth buying or you fail. And the only way to create that footprint in the face of an iPad is to make it so cheap to buy and use it’s irresistible.  – Godin

It depends on what market Amazon wants to focus on.  If they decide to take the software route and continue to market Kindle for various devices, they are already ahead of the game.  If they decide to create a cheap Kindle as Godin is suggesting, then they should make it around the size of the iPod touch or iPhone, maybe a little bit larger.  Lately I’ve been using my iPod Touch to reach Kindle books simply because it is more portable.

I would purchase a “paperback’ Kindle.  It would be much cheaper than any other device out there, including iPods, not to mention the iPad. It also would have the battery life to beat.  I might even consider buying both the iPad and the Kindle paperback version.  A cheaper Kindle would be a great beach accessory.

A day after Amazon’s May 10 announcement regarding plans to offer Kindle for Android, Amazon announced updates for its Kindle for PC application.  The article from eWeek suggests that Amazon’s recent actions might be in response to increased competition from the iPad, Nook, Sony E-reader and others.

Kindle for PC’s new features include the ability to edit notes and marks, change background color, adjust screen brightness control and includes a full screen reading mode.  Amazon’s Whispersync technology transfers notes, bookmarks and “last pages read” between a PC, smartphone and the Kindle.  By adding these adjustments to the application, Amazon has made it much more user friendly.

Jay Marine, Director of Amazon Kindle wrote: “Kindle for PC lets customers enjoy more than 540,000 books in the Kindle Store even if they don’t yet have a Kindle, and it’s the perfect companion application for the millions of Kindle and Kindle DX owners.” Amazon seems to be heading into the predicted direction of gearing their market towards software, despite solid Kindle device sales.

Amazon also recently announced plans for a new update to the Kindle and Kindle DX called Version 2.5.  In this version, users will be allowed to share passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter.  It will also include Collections, which categorizes books and documents on the Kindle into different sections based on the subject, and Popular Highlights, a passage from a book or document that the Kindle community finds the most interesting.  Content sharing is “the big thing” right now.  It will be an interesting trend to watch in terms how how the Kindle will work with it.

It appears that we have a major addition to the Kindle platform’s family coming up this summer.  Kindle for Android has been announced and issued its preview page, where interested users can look into the details first-hand and sign up to be notified the moment the application is openly available.  The features listed are basically those that one would expect:  Availability of purchased books across all Kindle platforms, Whispersync across your entire account keeping track of last page read and annotations, five font sizes to choose from, and a generally intuitive touch-screen page turning interface in either portrait or landscape mode.  All of the features we’ve come to expect from the Kindle Store should translate as well.

While it’s no secret at this point that LCDs aren’t quite as pleasant as eInk displays to read off of, the overwhelming sense of convenience and availability for most people in a day when cell phones go everywhere with us makes this a truly exciting announcement.  It also raises the question of what effect will a Kindle Android app have on the openness of development for the nook.  There was some excitement after the highly successful competing device’s last patch brought the first instance of Android app use and a great deal of speculation about what this could mean.  Perhaps this announcement is related?

It looks like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is looking to become the most cross-platform eBook reader on the market.

New York Times has recently announced that it is raising the price for Kindle subscriptions from $13.99 to $19.99 – a rise of whopping 43 percent. There is some respite for current Kindle subscribers, who will continue to be billed at $13.99 for the next six months. The Kindle edition of New York Times app has been very popular and allows readers to get news coverage of exceptional depth and breadth, as well as opinion that is thoughtful and stimulating.

The timing of this announcement is very interesting and coincides with the launch of Apple iPad in United States. In a related move, an iPad application for New York Times hit the iTunes App Store yesterday. The current NYT iPad app is free and offers a limited selection of automatically updated news, features, videos, etc. laid out with a newspapery feel and offline reading capability; it’s sponsored exclusively at launch by Chase Sapphire. It is expected that a full-fledged paid NYT app for iPad would be launched soon.

The New York Times subscription on the nook is also going up from $13.99 to $19.99. Like with the Kindle, existing nook subscribers will get 6 months at the old price. Many print media veterans have argued that digital subscriptions should be less than their analog counterparts, however the prices for digital editions continue to rise. I wonder if the Kindle vs. iPad battle will help the customers or will it further aggravate this pricing war?

PC World has a good article that compares the Kindle application and the Apple iBook application.  The Kindle is not a device, but a platform, that runs on multiple devices such as the Blackberry, iPhone, PC and Mac.  That is one advantage that Amazon has over Apple because currently,

Kindle for iPad

Apple’s new iBook application is only limited to the iPad.  Amazon recently unveiled plans to provide an application for the Apple iPad, which demonstrates that Amazon’s strives to reach out to the widest audience possible.

Considering that the iPad is a newly launched device, and that the price tag is pretty hefty at $499, Apple’s choice to keep the iBook application exclusive does not appear to be a very smart one.  However, eventually, there will most likely be an iBook application available for the iPhone and iPod touch.  It will be interesting to see if Apple branches out to allow an iBook application on Blackberry and Android.

Another marketing strategy that Amazon has going for it in terms of the Kindle platform is the amount of e-books available to download.  The iBook application only has 60,000 titles currently available.  This number will surely increase over time, but Amazon is ahead of the game at the moment with its much larger selection  of 450,000 titles available for readers.

According  to ReadWriteWeb’s article on comparing the two applications, the Kindle application is simple to use and doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that the iBook application uses.  For example, the user sees one page at a time on the Kindle application, whereas with the iBook application, the user can see two pages at a time and the pages turn in a more “engaging” format.  From a user’s standpoint, simplicity is key to create an easy, pleasurable reading experience.



Amazon has a free application that will let Blackberry users buy and read books from directly from the bookseller’s website.  Unlike Kindle’s app for the iPhone, the Blackberry application lets users purchase content seamlessly from Amazon as well as view the books already purchased for a Kindle. This could be Amazon’s way of thumbing its corporate nose at Apple for handicapping the Kindle iPhone app, making users go through the web browser rather than buy it directly through the application. In any event, Kindle for Blackberry is Amazon’s foray into the single-use device market.

It is certainly part of the company’s marketing strategy as the release of the iPad looms in the coming weeks. Many observers agree that Amazon with have to continue to brand its reader with its bookstore while simultaneously making content available to other platforms. Although that’s quite a tight rope to walk, Amazon has the one thing that Apple can’t easily get.   That’s Amazon’s years of experience in both worlds.
As for the Blackberry application, it is designed to work with or without the Kindle. For Kindle users, the app will automatically synchronizes last page read and any annotations between devices. While Blackberry users will have access to Amazon’s 400,000 plus books, newspapers are not yet available through the app.

You may have noticed that as of recently I’ve posted less than usual here and in the new Kindle Apps blog. In fact it took a tsunami to get me to post something here. There is a good reason for that. As of recently I’ve got a new hobby – developing Kindle Apps with the KDK (Kindle SDK).

I would like to say that KDK turned out quite elegant and easy to develop with despite the fact that I’m new to Java development (I’ve mostly coded in C++ and C# in the past). I would love to share my experience but at the moment I’m unsure as to how much I can disclose as the SDK is still in closed beta. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some screenshots sometime soon.

Stay tuned

Since there is very little solid information about any of the upcoming Active Content for Kindle, I’ve taken the liberty to speculate about the following apps that are likely to appear:

• Kindle Chess
• Kindle Checkers
• Kindle Sudoku
• Kindle Email Client
• Kindle RSS Reader
• Kindle Folders
• Kindle Calendar

You are welcome to agree or disagree with these predictions and comment on that.

As of this morning I’ve received an email from Amazon (which resulted from leaving my email at KDK page earlier). Right now Amazon is considering first candidates for the limited KDK beta. You can head to https://kindlepublishing.amazon.com/gp/vendor/kindlepubs/kdk/request-seat and fill out a form with your contact information as well as brief description of the content you plan to develop, hit submit and hope for the best.

With Amazon announcing Kindle SDK (KDK) I’ve decided to launch a separate Kindle Apps blog for reviewing and speculating about Kindle Apps. Since no apps has been released yet and little is known about the KDK itself I’ll be mostly speculating to begin with. The blog can be found at http://kindle-apps.net/

Instapaper lets you bookmark online content through a handy little bookmarklet that sits in your browser. Then you can log on to their website later or use their iPhone App to read the full articles in one place.

Their connection with the Kindle is simple — they have a service by which your recent articles are emailed to your Kindle or Kindle DX. You get charged $0.15 by Amazon for each email but in the end it is worth it to be able to read it on your favorite e-text reading device.

But there is a problem with this service, the emails do not reach the Kindle users every time they are sent. This is in all likelihood a technical problem between the Instapaper’s service and Amazon but it is taking its time getting fixed. So the Instapaper developer thought up an alternative solution.

Instapaper now allows you to download your 10 most recent articles to a .mobi file that can be transferred to your Kindle. You cannot go more than 10 articles per file for now but you can probably save multiple such files. Syncing is via USB, so it is not completely hassle free but it has three distinct advantages for now.

One is that you get to use this service for free. You will not be paying for the emails that Amazon relays from Instapaper to your Kindle. The second advantage is that you are guaranteed that the sync feature will work all the time. The third is that it works for International users as well. The email feature was only for US users. It is still in beta, so you might run into problems but those who use the Kindle with Instapaper know that it is a fantastic service to have. It adds to our already great Kindle experience.

The Kindle is great for what it does, but it is by design somewhat limited to Amazon’s vision.  I’ve written on this blog before about allowing third party developers on the Kindle.  It looks like with the upcoming holiday season, talk over whether Amazon should release an SDK has started again.

New York Times makes the argument that since Amazon won’t likely release any new hardware (Both the Kindle 2 and DX are new enough that they’ve never been holiday gifts), it may be beneficial for them to find some new way to innovate before the holidays.  Creating an SDK where anyone could make and sell applications would not only increase the Kindle’s possibilities, but also give it a sort of iPhone recognition for innovation.

Of course, Amazon hasn’t already done this for a reason.  Perhaps over the worries of the publishers, or fears of piracy that could result from opening up the ecosystem, Amazon has not allowed third parties into the Kindle.  But here is where the iPhone example really applies.  iPhone apps undergo a nearly draconian review process, yet the iPhone and its apps continue to be a commercial success.  Amazon could easily decide to create a Kindle app marketplace where they vetoed any programs that, say, abused the wireless or allowed ePub on the device.  Some people would definitely gripe about the restrictions, but the sdk would still be an overall success.  Like the NYTimes article suggests, apps could be created for medical or other specialized niches.  The apps would be in high enough demand and would still be okay with Amazon.

One easy entry into Kindle apps could be board games like chess, go, checkers, monopoly, etc. These can be computationally light, especially if you are playing against the Internet server or another human, cause minimal wireless traffic and look well on Kindle’s eInk display. Right now there are two games on Kindle DX – minesweeper and Gomoku. More can be easily added – either free or for a charge. The ecosystem need not be as open as iPhone from the start and can still bring Kindle success. Lets not forget that even for iPhone it took a year for App store to materialize.

Will this really happen? In my opinion it’s a coin toss. Amazon has to come up with something to generate some Kindle buzz this holiday season when competition is stepping on it’s heels. And I’m pretty sure they will. But it might not be an app store.

Also, just wanted to say thanks to the New York Times for linking to Blog Kindle.  Hello any new readers!

As a great example of the Kindle being used in a professional application, Lions Gate has adapted the technology for reading and distributing scripts.  Now, lucky employees no longer need to lug around briefcases full of scripts, only the lightweight Kindle.

The upgrade to eReaders seems to be a hit.  Lions Gate executives love the simplification of being emailed PDF files and having needed documents at the tips of their fingers.  But I’m sure the real reason for Lions Gate’s adoption is the obvious one: the Kindle must be saving them boatloads on paper costs.  More and more, offices will also see this advantage.  Buying a Kindle may be a little expensive up front, but it is an investment that will pay off as it is used day after day.

Of course, script reading is perfect for eReaders in that it’s not much different than reading a book.  A document that’s strictly textual is exactly what the Kindle does best.  When it comes to charts and diagrams, cheap color eReaders will need to be available before the average office is willing to go paperless.

These days if company’s want a device to be a success it has to support as many different standards as possible, be as useful to the user as possible, be as cheap as possible and be as open as possible. There are always exception to the rule, take iPhone for example, but on the whole its an accurate statement.

One way of opening a device up is by offering a software development kit (SDK), I was reading k.indled today and the question came, If Kindle had an SDK, What would you do with it?

One thing I would do is add support for the .epub format, I’m not sure if it would be possible because I am no programmer, but I feel that Kindle must support .epub one day, its the industry standard and I think this will get a lot more publishers on board, especially the ones who have a lot of technical content which isn’t easy to render on the Kindle.

I think Amazon will have to eventually open up the Kindle and they should do it sooner rather than later, having an ‘app store’ similar to the iPhone app store I think would go a long way in helping the Kindle attain mainstream acceptance, and it could open up a while host of other uses for the Kindle.

What would you create with a Kindle SDK?

Source: k.indled

Feedbooks.com — a site we have previously mentioned on this site –  has a new feature which allows Kindle users to download RSS feed directly onto the Kindle in a way creating your very own personal newspaper from multiple feeds.

From MobileRead forums by Hadrien;

Feedbooks provide an easy way for Kindle users to download and read RSS feeds directly on their device:

1. You can create a file for a single feed: http://www.feedbooks.com/feed
2. … or you can create a newspaper with multiple feeds: http://www.feedbooks.com/newspaper/create
3. Generate a Mobipocket/Kindle file and transfer the file to your Kindle through USB or e-mail
4. Once the file is on your Kindle, you can directly update your feeds inside the file, through the link on the cover or in the main menu of the file
5. You can also subscribe to these feeds/newspapers from the main website and download those subscriptions from the mobile website: http://feedbooks.mobi

Here’s an example, just add this file on your Kindle to read the feed from Mobileread: http://www.feedbooks.com/feed/743.mobi

It is a smart idea to provide feeds in an “offline” format for those times when your Kindle had no wireless signal.

One of the most interesting things to try once this feature is online will be to read a blook (blog+book), which is basically a serialized novel published on a blog. For the last 2 years, Lulu even created a Blooker Prize to award the best blooks. I’m not a huge fan of LCD screens for reading, but with an e-paper device on my hands, things are much different and I’ll probably start reading a few blooks and hope that I’ll find one that suits me pretty well.

Create your own newspaper for you Kindle at Feedbooks: http://www.feedbooks.com/news. It will be interesting to keep your eye on this service and see how it evolves.

Source: MobileRead forums, Feedbooks

A few days ago we found out that is was possible to once again log into Yahoo Mail using the Kindle, turns out that you now access Yahoo Messenger with the Kindle using the Yahoo mobile service. How cool is that? not only can you read books and browse the web you can now check your emails, instant message your friends/family/colleagues and organise your schedule!

Staying logged into your Yahoo messenger account will cause a significant drain on the battery so its a good idea not to stay logged in for too long. Since the mobile Yahoo messenger site does not use flash or java, you will be required to manually refresh the page to see any new messages you have received.

Now, if only I could log into MSN this device would become perfect! Im sure someone out there is working hard on making that a reality. We already know that meebo.com doesn’t work on the Kindle becuase it uses flash so if anyone knows of a service which allows you to log into several instant messaging services which also works on the Kindle, please feel free to leave a comment.

If you want to try this out yourself, you can follow the link to the Yahoo mobile messenger site:

http://us.m.yahoo.com/p/messenger/

Source: kindlekorner yahoo group

Amazon Kindle was designed for people who like to read on the go, it is a truly mobile device so it makes sense that eventually applications will start making their way onto the Kindle which make use of its mobile nature. I have found that people who read a lot also like to keep organised, what better way to keep organised that to have a regularly updated calender. Enter the Kindle calender!

Here is the product description from Amazon.com:

This is a 2008 Daily Planner for the Amazon Kindle. Like the paper version, each of the 366 days of 2008 is represented by a page. When the font size is large enough, a day’s entry covers two pages instead of one. Each day has hourly slots for appointments or reminders from 8 am until 8 pm. This planner takes advantage of the annotation capability of the Kindle so that the user can add, view, modify and delete appointments. Major U.S. holidays are included.

It is as basic as a calender gets, there is no synchronisation with other calender services which is a big let down and one I feel would have made it a much more attractive device. Just like a real paper planner you can flip through the pages to view your reminders or appointments, but instead of editing your events directly you annotate the dates, just like you would annotate a page on a book. I spoke to a friend who had the calender application and what she tells me that she likes to use the calender to keep track of when she started a book to see how long it took to finish.

At $1.59 it is certainly not going to break the bank and it would save you carrying around an organiser if you use one, however most people have calenders on their phones, Blackberry’s, PDA’s and desktops, so is it really necessary to have yet another calender application to update and carry around.

If you already have a Blackberry/PDA or use any other calender service then there really isn’t a need to get this calender application, however if you don’t use a calender service then this little application would be quite functional, handy and practicable.

You can check out the calender on the Amazon Kindle store by following the link below. You can even get a free sample calender send to your Kindle with a couple of months on it to play around with.

2008 Daily Planner for the Amazon Kindle (U.S. Edition)

When the Kindle first launched you could log into your Yahoo Mail account using Yahoo’s mobile email service through the Kindle web browser, but then for some mysterious reason it stopped working. Now after many weeks of waiting, you can once again log into your Yahoo Mail account through the Kindle web browser.

Log into Yahoo Mail through this link: https://us.m.yahoo.com/p/mail/?_dm=0

Thanks to woody_woodward @ kindlekorner