Amazon Adds Video, Audio to Kindle Apple Apps

Amazon.com added embedded auto and video clips to its Kindle e-reader applications for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Amazon continues to aggressively back the Kindle e-reader device, which displays text on a grayscale e-ink screen, but a robust Apple app would conceivably allow the online retailer to carve off a certain percentage of readers who opt instead to purchase an iPad. Multimedia-enhanced e-reader applications will allow readers to listen to narration during a tour, for example, or watch a demonstration video for a cookbook or home-repair volume.

Amazon.com has added embedded audio and video clips to its Kindle e-reader applications for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch—a feature seemingly designed to leapfrog not only Apple’s own e-reader, but also those of competitors such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The new Amazon feature bakes more multimedia into e-books; readers can now listen to a travel author’s narration during a city tour, for example, or view a demonstration video inside a how-to text.

“Readers will already find some Kindle Editions with audio/video clips in the Kindle Store today,” Dorothy Nicholls, director of Amazon Kindle, wrote in a June 27 statement. “This is just the beginning—we look forward to seeing what authors and publishers create for Kindle customers using the new functionality of the Kindle apps.”

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Amazon-Adds-Video-Audio-to-Kindle-Apple-Apps-365557/