Let me start by saying that I don't actually own a Kindle device. However, I have played with one or two (and bought one as a gift for a friend), and I have the Kindle Android app loaded onto my smartphone. So I was interested in trying out the Kindle Cloud Reader, Amazon's new desktop app, which currently works with the Chrome browser, Safari for iPad and Safari for desktop.
For the unacquainted, the Amazon Kindle is an e-ink portable reader that allows you to download and bring over a thousand books with you wherever you go. The Kindle syncs to your Amazon account so managing your books, magazines and blogs couldn’t be easier. To store a book for offline access, choose Download and Pin. To read a book in the Cloud Reader, just tap on its cover art; while tapping in the Kindle app will download the entire book to your. Books Advanced Search New Releases Amazon Charts Best Sellers & More The New York Times® Best Sellers Children's Books Textbooks Textbook Rentals Advanced Search New Releases Amazon Charts Best Sellers & More.
What does it do? The app is meant to allow desktop and tablet owners to read their Kindle books on those devices. I don't own a tablet, so I tried it out on a desktop PC with a Chrome browser.
It took only a minute or two to download and install the app (not unusual for a Chrome app). Once I had signed in to my Amazon account, I had almost immediate access to all the books in my Kindle Library.
The interface is clean and works well with the standard Chrome interface. On the front Library page, you can view a list of your books in either a list or grid view; you can order them by which you've recently read, by author or by title. A sliding control on the upper right lets you control the size of the images and type.
Most of the controls for both the Library and reading pages, however, are located on a dark banner that stretches across the top of the window. (Dark top banners seem to be in fashion these days; Google recently introduced one for its Google+ social network and other applications).
On the Library page, the icons allows you to manage your account (mostly, offering access to a help file and to various legal documents), sync your account and go to the Kindle Store to buy more books.
On the actually reading interface, the dark banner includes a button that takes you back to your library; a back button that returns you to your last location; and a button that will take you to various parts of the book, such as the cover, table of contents, or a specific location (using Amazon's rather impenetrable method of figuring location; for example, my copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes asked me to enter a location from 1 to 4672).
You can also change various aspects of the page: font size, margins and color mode. An icon toggles a bookmark on and off for the page you're currently reading; another offers a list of your bookmarked pages, and the pages that you marked and/or highlighted in your Kindle.
You can page back and forth by either clicking on arrows on either side of the text, or using your PgUp/PgDn keys.
What's cool about it? An interesting feature, especially for tablet owners: You can download a number of your books to your local device. According to Amazon's Help page, you can store up to 50MB of books on an iPad (it doesn't specify how much space it designates on desktop PCs), which means that owners of Wi-Fi-only iPads will be able to read their Kindle books off-line. Any book you open will automatically be downloaded -- and could be removed from the local device when you hit the storage limits. However, the Cloud Reader gives you the ability to 'pin' books you want to keep available off-line.
What needs to be improved? Well, to begin with, it needs to be more widely available. According to Amazon, the Kindle Cloud Reader will soon be offered for other venues, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, the BlackBerry PlayBook browser, and other mobile browsers.
Also, while you can view any text, markings or highlights you've added to your Kindle book, you can't actually add any using the Cloud Reader. Hopefully, that will be included in future additions.
Bottom line: The Kindle Cloud Reader is a fine, useful way to read your Amazon e-books on your tablet or desktop PC.
It will be interesting to see how users react to the Kindle Cloud Reader -- and perhaps more interesting to see how Apple reacts. Amazon has a large user base for its Kindle e-books, and giving iPad owners the ability to download and read those books is a direct challenge to Apple's iBooks app. Will Apply simple count on the quality of its iBooks app (and the selection from its iBookstore) to counter Amazon's services? Time will tell.
Converting Kindle ebooks to ePub format is an indispensable step when we use epub-supported eReaders instead of Kindle devices. Among so many eBook readers, we might not take Kindle preferably. However, among so many eBook stores, books from Amazon Kindle generally come at remarkably cheaper price and of far more diversified genres. Since Kindle books are formatted as exclusive AZW/MOBI/PRC/TPZ/KFX, we cannot directly read them on iPad, Nook, Kobo, Sony Reader, BlackBerry Playbook and other devices. This guide will show you how to transfer Kindle books, mainly Kindle .azw formats, to EPUB for best reading on non-Kindle gadgets.
For standard E-ink eReaders, we have no choice but to manually convert Kindle books to epub for reading on devices like Sony reader, Kobo vox and Nook Simple Touch as 3-rd party reading apps are not allowed to be installed on their closed OS.
Tips: Nearly all of above e-ink devices will also support PDF format, so if you want to read Kindle books with PDF format, please read this guide how to convert Kindle to PDF.
For Android/iOS/BlackBerry tablets or smartphones, Amazon itself has provided a solution with a series of Kindle reading apps aiming at different Operating Systems, thus we just need to install corresponding apps on our devices and read Kindle books at ease.
Solution 1: Convert Kindle books to EPUB through Epubor Ultimate
Some people might confused why we need this tool, there are many freeware or online converter out there. However, nearly all purchased Kindle books (.azw) are protected by Kindle DRM, which are not supported by those converters. There are indeed some software with DeDRM plugins out there, but personally, none of them is convenient enough. Here we convert purchased Kindle books to Epub by using Epubor Ultimate, which is capable of removing DRM and convert ebook formats.
Below is the steps to convert Kindle ebooks to Epub.
- Launch Epubor Ultimate.
- Click “Add ” button or drag book titles from the left side to the right blank space. Once you add your books, they will be decrypted automatically.
- Select EPUB as the output format.
- Click 'Convert to EPUB' button
After the conversion, the converted Epub books will be shown in the pop-up window.
As Epub is a widely supported eBook format, now you can transfer and read them anywhere you like.
Solution 2: Free Online Kindle DRM Removal and Online eBook Converter
Seeing the subtitle, I guess many people prefer this solution. Yes it's online and it's free, but it has a requirement, you should be a Kindle eReader owner.
1. The books are downloaded to computers with Kindle for PC/Mac, we can find decrypting keys generated by Kindle for PC/Mac.
2. The books are downloaded to E-Ink Kindle eReader, we can generate the decrypting keys upon Kindle Serial Number.
Kindle Cloud Log In
As an online tool, the Online Kindle DRM Removal can't scan your computer through the web browser to find decrypting key even if your books are indeed downloaded to computer by Kindle for PC/Mac.
But you can input your Kindle eReader's serial number into this online tool, then it can generate the key with the serial number, and use it to decrypt the Kindle books you uploaded.
After using this online to remove DRM, you can download DRM-free Mobi or AZW3 file, then use this free Online eBook Converter to convert these Mobi or AZW3 books to EPUB.
Summary
How To Download Books From Kindle Cloud Reader
Solution one suits these people: Don't have Kindle eReader, buy eBooks from multiple sources, have large amount of books, want a quick decrypting and conversion process.
Kindle App
Solution two suits these people: Have Kindle eReader, only buy eBooks from Amazon Kindle, occasionally process small amount of Kindle books, have network connection.
Can You Download Books From Kindle Cloud Reader
Ada Wang works for Epubor and writes articles for a collection of blogs such as ebookconverter.blogspot.com.