Software :: Amazon Releases Free Beta Of Kindle For Mac EBook Reading Software
Mar 18, 2010
With Apple's eBook-capable iPad looming ominously in the face Amazon's fledgeling electronic book business, the online bookseller on Thursday released a new application for Mac users as part of its ongoing bid to promote its proprietary Kindle platform and prevent defection of its existing user base to a emerging array of alternatives. Released as a free beta application for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and higher, the software allows Mac users to purchase and download from Amazon's growing catalog of over 450,000 eBooks without the need to purchase its $259 Kindle 2 or larger $489 Kindle DX hardware. With the release, Amazon notes that Kindle books can now be read on many of the world's most popular digital devices, including the iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, Windows PC, Mac, and soon the iPad.
"Kindle for Mac is the perfect companion application for customers who own a Kindle or Kindle DX," said Jay Marine, director, Amazon Kindle. "For those customers around the world who don't yet have a Kindle, Kindle for Mac is a great way to instantly access and read the most popular new releases as well as their old favorites." Kindle for Mac features Amazon's Whispersync technology that automatically saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read across devices. This way, customers reading Kindle books on a Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the free Kindle applications, can always have their reading with them and never lose their place.........................
In addition to their own respective e-ink hardware devices, booksellers Amazon and Barnes & Noble will also release their own separate digital bookstores for Apple's iPad and other touchscreen tablet devices. Both companies revealed to The New York Times that they will create new digital readers and storefronts in addition to their existing applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. The App Store software will also compete with Apple's own iBooks application and accompanying iBookstore, which will also be available for download on the App Store rather than coming preinstalled on the device.
In particular, the Kindle application from Amazon was demonstrated to a Times reporter. It features the ability to slowly turn pages with fingers, much like Apple's own iBooks software. "It also presents two new ways for people to view their entire e-book collection, including one view where large images of book covers are set against a backdrop of a silhouetted figure reading under a tree," the report said. "The sun's position in that image varies with the time of day.".....................
I tried many times serach for the Amzon kindle application but couldnt find it at any time, I couldnt even see the icon of the application. I checked with my friends and none of them had this problem and they all could find the application on the store.
Amazon's second generation of its Kindle ebook reader takes cues from Apple in hopes to make the new product the "iPod of books." Here's a graphical tour of how close Amazon comes to replicating the iPod experience. A much smaller box Compared to the giant box that the original Kindle came in, the Kindle 2 ships in a tiny package the size of a textbook. To slim down, Amazon dropped the large hard-bound book volume case it shipped with the original model.
The smaller packaging will also save Amazon money in materials and shipping. The company already streamlines the ordering process to associate the unit's serial number with an Amazon user account so that the device is ready to go as soon as it is received. It's in the company's interests to push its readers to adopt the Kindle because sending digital books to their Kindle incurs none of the warehousing and shipping of heavy books. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that Kindle e-books now make up 10 percent of the online retailer's total book sales for the books that are available in kindle format (statement clarified - ed)......................
Amazon on Tuesday introduced the Kindle DX, a new multi-purpose version of its digital eBook reader that, thanks to a 2.5 times larger screen, is garnering the support of several universities, newspapers and textbook publishers who've announce pilot programs around the device. Thinner than most magazines at just over a third of an inch, the $489 Kindle DX sports a large 9.7-inch e-ink paper display with 16 shades of gray, making it ideal for newspapers, magazines, and graphic-rich textbooks that include an assortment of images, tables, charts, and equations.
Also new to the DX model is an Auto-Rotation feature for displaying content in landscape or portrait mode, and a built-in PDF reader leveraging Adobe Reader Mobile technology. Like other types of documents on Kindle, users can email their PDF format documents to their Kindle email address or move them over using a USB connection. Each Kindle DX ships with 3.3 GB of memory, which Amazon says is sufficient for storing up to 3,500 books, or more than double that of the Kindle 2 (unboxing, review). The online bookseller will also automatically back up a copy of every Kindle book purchased so users can wirelessly re-download titles from their library at any time....................
While most who currently own an e-reader have a Kindle from Amazon, a new survey found that a majority of consumers who intend to buy an e-reader in the near future will opt instead for the Apple iPad. ChangeWave recently conducted a survey of 3,171 consumers the week after Apple announced the iPad, and the results suggest that the forthcoming device is poised to make a huge splash in the e-reader market. "In particular, while a handful of e-Reader manufacturers -- most prominently Amazon -- clearly have a major head start," ChangeWave said, "the survey findings show the iPad is poised to profoundly shake up this market."
Among those who plan to purchase an e-reader in the next 90 days, 40 percent said they will buy the Apple iPad. That's well ahead of the 28 percent who will opt for an Amazon Kindle, 6 percent for the Barnes & Noble Nook and 1 percent for a Sony Reader. That would be a major change for the Kindle, which is currently the far-and-away market leader. The ChangeWave survey found that 68 percent of respondents who already own an e-reader have the Kindle, while just 10 percent have a Sony Reader. "While the iPad launch is likely to strengthen overall e-Reader demand, the survey suggests Amazon and its competitors could well find themselves relegated to playing catch-up within just a few quarters if they don't preemptively move quickly to upgrade their own e-Reader products," the analysis firm surmised......................
I actually want an iPad for reading only, but I also have i5 15" MBP (low res glossy). Which one is better in terms of easy to read and easy to use? iPad worth the $?
Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac is*now available*with new features only available on Mac OS X, the company announced today. *Other operating systems will receive them later this year. "The goal of the major new features in Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac is to make Skype easier to use everywhere," said Skype chief operating officer Scott Durchslag.* "Skype Access is perfect for those times when you need to make a few Skype calls or send some instant messages or emails while you're on the go, and screen sharing is a productivity tool that enables collaboration between two parties, regardless of their location."
Skype has partnered with Boingo Wireless for Skype Access, a worldwide, pay-per-minute WiFi hotspot access network.* Skype users will have more than 100,000 Boingo hotspots to choose from worldwide.* Payment of $0.19/minute is taken care of with Skype Credit, no credit cards or log-ins necessary.* A record of your usage is available when you sign into your account on skype. According to the company, screen sharing is similar to a Skype video call, and it works by "capturing, encrypting and transferring the content of the screen" to the other person.* Screen sharing with Windows and Linux users are one-way only in this beta, but later updates will enable those users to send their screens to Mac users in a two-way session.
Other features: Sort chats in the drawer and set priorities Quick Add simplifies adding contacts See mood message updates from friends as chat messages Profile pictures of 256 x 256 pixels now supported (joining Skype 4.0 Beta 2 for Windows) Profile pictures now hidden by default in contact requests because "a small minority of Skype users have profile pictures which others may find unpleasant" Add notes to a contact in the profile window
Apple on Tuesday announced a public beta of Safari 4, a new version of its share-gaining web browser that packs a powerful new JavaScript engine and support for the latest web standards. Dubbed "Nitro," the engine in Safari 4 is said to run JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3. Other new features include Top Sites, for a visual preview of frequently visited pages; Full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; Cover Flow, to easily flip through web history or bookmarks; and Tabs on Top, to make tabbed browsing easier and more intuitive. "Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications."
Performance In terms of performance, Apple claims Safari 4's new Nitro JavaScript engine executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than Microsoft's IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3. It's also said to load HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3. Safari 4 also represents the latest chapter in Apple's efforts to maintain its leadership role in defining and implementing web standards, with built in support for HTML 5 and CSS 3 -- two technologies critical in supporting an entirely new class of web applications that feature rich media, graphics and fonts. Safari 4 Beta tracks the sites you browse and ranks your favorites, presenting up to 24 thumbnails on a single page.
Specifically, the Cupertino-based company said the new browser includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies so web-based applications can store information locally without an Internet connection. A recent technology demonstration by Google highlighted the advantages this technology when it showed off a version of Gmail running offline on the iPhone's mobile version of Safari, which already includes support for some HTML 5 standards. Apple also said that Safari 4 is the first browser to support advanced CSS Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks. Similarly, it's said to be the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project's Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG web standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.
Cover Flow offers a highly visual way of reviewing your site history and bookmarked sites, presenting full-page previews. Safari for Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPod touch are all built on Apple's WebKit, which the company has billed the "world's fastest and most advanced browser engine." Apple developed WebKit as an open source project to create the world's best browser engine and to advance the adoption of modern web standards. Most recently, WebKit led the introduction of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards and is known for its fast, modern code-base. Some of the industry's newest browsers are based on WebKit including Google Chrome, the Google Android browser, the Nokia Series 60 browser and Palm webOS. Safari 4 relocates the tab bar to the top of the browser window to provide "more room for you to enjoy the sites you're reading".
New features Safari 4 also includes a handful of new user interface features, including: Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click; Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they've seen before; Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks "as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes;" Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones; Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history; Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches; Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site's layout and text; built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility; and a new Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications. In total, Apple claims over 150 features in Safari 4. The public beta is available for download here. [ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
I was wondering if you guys knew a good software for Mac to convert PDF and Word to Kindle 2 format. I have used Stanza but it didn't work well, the text was all messed up when transfered to my Kindle.
My add-ons are all installed, and enabled, but most are not working. The plugins are all just gone, such as flash. I installed flash again, restarted, and it still doesn't have flash.
I like Safari's U.I. very much, but, everytime I load around 5 pages at the same time it starts to freeze and give me the rainbow circle on the mouse pointer. If I open the same sites with Camino everything works great and even faster than Safari.
I do not want to quite switch to Camino, because its UI is ugly, but its really superior to Safari on speed terms and has the same compatibility as Firefox, because its Gecko engine (?). I will miss Top Sites and Safari's UI so much
How your Safari works? Is it fast and freeze free?
I used to use a program called "virtual Cover Creator" for windoze and am looking for a similar program from the mac. The software generates 3d software boxes, books etc for display on the internet. You can see an example at (URL).
I have a MacBook Pro and a MacPro both running 10.6.1. My Sony PRS600 is on its way so I can't test how well it works yet, but I have installed the Sony eReaderLibrary software on both machines. On the laptop it appears to be running OK. On my MacPro I double click on the app and it starts, but although it starts, no window appears and nothing works. If I click of anything in the menu bar - ie about, edit, file, view help etc absolutely nothing happens. I have Adobe Digital Editions on both machines and that works fine. The only difference is that I installed the Adobe software BEFORE the Sony on my MacPro and AFTER on my laptop.
Well, as some of you may think that VelociRaptors are dead, they aren't. They were great few years ago when there were no SSDs for reasonable price but got then owned by SSDs due their fast speed. WD has came up with two new VRs, 450GB (299$) and 600GB (329$). They are both 10 000rpm drives and improvements for last generation are 32MB cache instead of 16MB, SATA 6Gb/s, 0.4ms seek time (was 0.75ms) and transfer speed of 145MB per second (was 128MB/s). Platter size has also increased from 150GB to 200GB so they were able to keep the same form factor (3.5") and come up with larger capacities.
Still can't beat SSDs in speed but the price is five times cheaper per GB than in SSDs. Very detailed and massive article available in AnandTech (thanks Eidorian for letting me know about that site, love it!)
Does anyone think Apple will release updated notebooks any time in the near future? I know anything we come up with will purely be speculation, but sometimes Apple tends to follow trends. My 17" i5 MBP was just replaced with a gift card, and I'm wondering if I should wait for a bit (Apple had a Mac event in October to announce the unibody) or go ahead and get what I want now. I suppose I can always sell it later if something THAT much better is released.
Apple this week released new drivers for HP printers in its latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The file, labeled version 2.2., is a 383MB download available from Apple. A number of HP printers, including Photosmart, OfficeJet, DeskJet and LaserJet models, are affected by the driver update. A complete list with numerous HP printers is listed on Apple's Web site. The update requires Mac OS X 10.6.1 or later.
Since the release of Snow Leopard, Apple has advertised new printer-related features in the operating system upgrade. Apple's Software Update will automatically provide you with third-party printer software and updates, "Nearby Printers" is a list of available printers that will appear right inside your printer dialog box, and you can simply connect a USB printer and the print queue will be automatically created.
Adobe releases Flash 10.1.Still no hardware acceleration for OSX.Flash for the Mac still sucks.This is why Jobs had to call your arses out. Fix this, then talk about Flash for the iPhone/iPad platform.
Apple on Tuesday released Snow Leopard Graphics Update, a patch for Mac OS X 10.6 that is said to improve performance and reliability of popular titles like StarCraft II and Portal. The 69.2MB update was released by Apple Tuesday afternoon. It is available from the company's support site, or via Software Update. It requires Mac OS X 10.6.4. According to Apple, the software update contains performance and stability fixes for graphics applications, including fixes that: address frame rate issues occurring in Portal and Team Fortress 2 on certain Macs resolve an issue that could cause aperture 3 or StarCraft II to unexpectedly quit or become unresponsive.
The update addresses framerate issues on the titles Portal and Team Fortress 2 for the late 2009 and mid 2010 iMac and Mac mini; early 2009 Mac Pro; early 2009 and mid 2010 MacBook; and mid-2010 MacBook Pro 15- and 17-inch models. The update also resolves an image corruption issue that may occur when disconnecting and reconnecting external displays while the system is running. Valve, the maker of Portal, Team Fortress 2 and the Steam gaming client for Mac, said in June that it was working with Apple to improve the performance of games running in Mac OS X. The company said that improved drivers from Apple would have the greatest impact on performance. "We are making a lot of progress identifying specific issues that need work inside the game and inside OpenGL and drivers," Rob Barris of Valve said at the time. "Apple, ATI and Nvidia are all involved."[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Apple released a Mac OS X security update Tuesday that fixes a critical PDF vulnerability.The update, labeled Security Update 2010-005, addresses a "heap buffer overflow" in the way CoreGraphics handles PDF files. The vulnerability could allow "unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution" through a malicious PDF file.
It is unclear whether this fix is related to the PDF exploit on iOS 4 that allowed hackers to jailbreak the iPhone. Apple released an update on August 11 that addressed the iOS PDF exploit.Security Update 2010-005 also patches a "stack buffer overflow" that would allow arbitrary code execution through a malicious embedded font. Both the PDF and the font vulnerabilities are fixed through "improved bounds checking."
Also included in the update are several routine fixes to network security flaws.The update affects Mac OS X Server 10.5, Mac OS X 10.5.8 , Mac OS X Server 10.6 , and Mac OS X 10.6.4.
Apple on Wednesday afternoon released version 3.1.1 of its Safari web browser to address a handful of security issues, including one widely publicized vulnerability that allowed a MacBook Air to be compromised during a recent security conference.
The 39MB release, available for both Macs and Windows PCs, is recommended for all Safari users and includes improvements to stability, compatibility and security.
Specifically, Apple said the update patches four security issues, including a heap buffer overflow that existed within the browser's WebKit framework for handling JavaScript regular expressions.
The issue was reported by Charlie Miller, who discovered and exploited the vulnerability on a MacBook Air to win a $10,000 prize at last month's CanSecWest security conference.
The Safari 3.1.1 update also addressed a second issue within WebKit's handling of URLs containing a colon character in the host name. By exploiting that vulnerability, a hacker could use a maliciously crafted URL to lead a cross-site scripting attack, Apple said.
Two other issues with the Safari application itself were also addressed, though they concerned only the PC version of the browser. One of those issues made it possible for a maliciously crafted website to control the contents of a user's address bar, while the other made it possible for maliciously crafted website to cause arbitrary code execution or the Safari application to unexpectedly quit.
Apple has released a software update to address an issue where trackpad clicks would randomly go unrecognized on its latest notebook offerings: the MacBook (Late 2008) and MacBook Pro (Late 2008)."This firmware update addresses an issue where trackpad clicks may not be recognized on MacBook (13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008) and MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2008) computers," the company said. Installing the updateYou can download and install the update from the Software Update mechanism built into Mac OS X. Alternatively, you can download the update manually and follow a two part process: installing the firmware update [Download - 923KB] application onto your hard drive and using the firmware update application to update your trackpad's firmware.
I was wondering if Snow Leopard will work with Kindle 2 if connected to a Mac. Or do I not need to connect it to a Mac because it is wireless? Also, does anyone know if the Kindle 2 will require signature on delivery when shipped and delivered to Canada using Priority International Courier?
