By Verizon and Amazon today announce that Amazon’s Kindle app for Android will come preloaded on all of Verizon’s future Android handsets. I haven’t taken a good look at the application myself (I’m not a big fan of digital books.) but Amazon’s ridiculously extensive catalog of titles available should please the eBook fan who isn’t too big on Amazon’s actual Kindle eReader. If you aren’t a fan of this being on your device, you’ll probably have to deal with it as I couldn’t get it to uninstall on the Samsung Fascinate (unless you root your device and remove the .apk yourself, of course.) Press details sit below.
Verizon Wireless Brings Kindle Experience to Android Smartphones and Other Devices
Kindle for Android Comes Ready to Go on DROID™ 2 by Motorola, DROID X by Motorola and the Samsung Fascinate™
BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and SEATTLE, Oct. 13 — Verizon Wireless and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) today announced that the Kindle reading experience is now easily found on many Android devices running on the nation’s most reliable wireless network and will be available on more devices in the future.
Kindle for Android lets customers discover and read more than 700,000 books in the Kindle Store and is easy to find on the application screen of the new Samsung Fascinate™ – which boasts a brilliant 4-inch Super AMOLED touch screen display – as well as on DROID™ 2 by Motorola and DROID X by Motorola.
Kindle for Android allows customers to browse, download and start reading their favorite books directly from their Android phone. Features of the Kindle app include:
•Buy Once, Read Everywhere – Amazon’s Whispersync technology syncs your bookmark across devices, so you can pick up where you left off.
•With Kindle Worry-Free Archive, books purchased from the Kindle Store are automatically backed up online, where they can be re-downloaded at any time.
•The largest selection of books people want to read. The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 700,000 books, including New Releases and 107 of 111 New York Times Bestsellers. Over 575,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 80 New York Times Bestsellers.
“We’re very excited to bring Kindle for Android directly to Verizon Wireless customers,” said Jennifer Byrne, executive director, business development and partnerships for Verizon Wireless. “Our smartphones come with great screens that make buying and reading books simple and easy, and Amazon’s commitment to reading and offering a seamless customer experience is directly in line with what our customers want.”
“Customers are already telling us they love Kindle for Android, and we think they are going to be excited to get their Verizon Wireless phones and other devices preloaded with the Kindle app,” said Dave Limp, vice president, Kindle. “We are thrilled to be working with such an innovative company as Verizon Wireless and are excited to have Kindle for Android on these three phones and on other devices down the road.”
Customers can also find the app by searching for “Kindle” in Android Market™. For more information about the free Kindle app, go to www.amazon.com/kindleapps. For more information about Verizon Wireless, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.
Bing and Kindle? any more useless things verizon is going to preload on their phones?
Agreed. More preloaded “value add” that for most will just be some more crap to get rid of once rooted. It’s friggin available in the market and if ONE wants it .. a quick tap and one HAS it. VZW has reverted back to their bull**** ways.
This is outrageous. I’ll never switch to AT&T or Verizon for these very reasons. It’s stupidity at its height…these apps are FREE in the Market if we want them.
I don’t mind it being pre-loaded on my phone (I have a Droid X, so it’s there) as long as I can remove it. Case in point: Need for Speed Shift. The demo is HUGE (almost 100 MB), but I’m able to remove it if I so choose (I haven’t yet).
I can’t do that with Kindle. It’s strange that I can even go into my settings and see NFS Shift as a download, while Kindle isn’t. Very odd indeed.
I hate pre-loaded apps, but I love the Kindle app and my Kindle so I can’t complain too much about this getting added.
Stop the preloaded crap!!!! I use Kindle and love it, however having all this stuff in the phone preinstalled AND not being able to get rid of it is a nightmare
Verizon giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. Their heinous money-grubbing ways are surfacing once again. Their pre-loading of their 2nd-rate Navigator in Froyo (when the superior Google GPS app is available) plus the pre-loading of 3G Mobile and WiFi Hotspot in Froyo, hoping that some dumb f*ckers will click and obtain unneeded services for themselves, and unjustified revenue for Verizon, is proof of Verizon’s voracious and rapacious greed.
Sure, Verizon looked a bit reformed and all by allowing WiFi on their phones, but their tactics are now clear. Appear benign, then slowly load back in revenue-generating apps to trap the unwary.
This isnt too bad. I love the kindle app. just downloaded it on my G2. Reading John Carter of Mars :D
This is outrageous. I don’t want anymore crapwware on my phone – don’t root your phone but you are forcing me to do it. I use the nook app and I have a nook, so do I need to have both the nook and kindle because of Verizon poor decision making – heck no – Sprint here I come! I want no ebook reader app preload it – consumers should have the choice. I was an advocate of Skype until VZW forced me to have it installed – no sir!
I understand why they pre-load apps… money! But the fact that they announce it as if it would cause customers to rejoice says loud and clear that they have no clue how much this kind of thing pisses people off. It’s one thing to offer carrier-exclusive apps, but pre-installing apps that are freely available to anyone with an Android phone is just stupid.
Ummm…why are they bundling it with Kindle when nook is the Android eReader? Between this and Bing, it’s like Verizon is trying to slap Google in the face.
Amazon is going into android in a big way. Remember all the hype about how nook was using android? Amazon figured out that instead of competing on hardware, that they would turn the best selling android devices into kindles.
just my 2 cents: I wish the carriers would stop pre-loading apps on phones. Its as bad a buying a computer these days. It takes me a day to gather all the driver info, re-install, and load my security and apps on a new computer. Unfortunately, the only way to reload you phone is to use one of the unsupported root-images. Which I don’t mind, but from what I read those are getting harder to make.
I really think that the carriers should only provide server (either GSM or CDMA) and then the consumer can go buy a phone anywhere, and choose which service to use. From what i understand that’s how it works in europe.
ok, so maybe that was 50 cents. ;)
As a rooter, I’m noticing more and more simple 1-click methods being explored. When these guys master this technique, it’ll only be a matter of time before nearly everyone roots solely to uninstall this junk.
As for Bing… $500 million dollar 5-year contract signed early 2009. I have a feeling every non-Droid phone will be experiencing the wonders of Bing… Luckily, Google has been releasing all their apps to Market.
I’m in agreement. I love Kindle, but this preloaded crap is getting out of hand. I’ve already got a couple of apps on my Droid that I don’t need and can’t get rid of, I don’t need another.
You whiners slay me. Shame on Verizon for trying to make a profit. Shame on them for trying to find alternate revenue streams so they can sell you a $700 phone for $199. They should be jailed for life.
Get a clue. If you dont like the app dont use it.
Dear Mr @Osburn,
#1 I don’t mind that they look alternate of revenue, with all due respect a $700 dollars phone is made for about $200 anyways, what I mind is that ALL THAT CRAP has to be on my phone permanently and guess what it does affect me because it launches whenever it wants, meaning that my battery life will be a lot less, examples cityid, voice dialer, skype… so guess what!? Verizon should *&&%$% themselves!
#2 They shouldn’t be jailed – for what!? They should be put on straight Jackets and you along too!
At the end you are right verizon is not to blame, we are! – I should have gotten a F*&^ Nexus One instead and go to tmobile but of course I chose good network over less headaches… heck with that from now and on. VZW does this and I am cancelling my entire family plan and suggest the same to most of my friends, in fact I would help paying the early termination fee.
I agree that the pre-loaded apps that can’t be removed is terrible! Pre-loading something so that a customer like myself (with no idea about the quality of Bing, VWNavigator, Kindle, etc over any other app) would be exposed to their choice is acceptable – but not letting me remove the crap I don’t need or want is stealing my page space, memory, and time! I’ve been with Verizon for 12 years and like the service – but this stinks.