Samsung and Amazon today announced a new custom Kindle experience for consumers who own Samsung Android hardware. This eBook service, Kindle for Samsung, is available to all Galaxy hardware running Android 4.0 or above. If you're using a smartphone from another vendor, fear not as the official Kindle app will remain available for download.
What's interesting about Kindle for Samsung is the new service includes Samsung Book Deals section as part of the deal. It's a neat concept as Book Deals will provide up to 12 free eBooks per-year, enabling readers to choose a free book each month (from a selection of four). The app will also open up the Kindle catalogue for books to be purchased and comes with some neat functionality.
- Download: Kindle for Samsung from Samsung apps
Press release:
17th April 2014, London, UK – Samsung Electronics and Amazon today announced a partnership to launch Kindle for Samsung, a custom-built eBook service. The app will debut in April starting with the Galaxy S5 along with existing Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets that have Android 4.0 or above. As part of the service, Amazon and Samsung will launch Samsung Book Deals, available to everyone using Kindle for Samsung.
Samsung Book Deals will provide up to 12 free eBooks a year to all referred Galaxy device customers who use the service. People can choose a free book from a selection of four different titles every month. Each book is chosen specifically for Galaxy smartphone and tablet owners from a wide selection of prominent titles.
“We’re delighted to be able to deepen our long-standing relationship with Amazon and offer Kindle for Samsung as the perfect app for reading on a smart device. With this service we demonstrate our commitment to creating and broadening key content partnerships that deliver rich and personalised experiences for our customers,” said Lee Epting, Vice President, Samsung’s Media Solution Center Europe.
“We’re thrilled that Samsung has chosen Kindle as their eBook provider,” said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Vice President, EU Kindle. “With Kindle for Samsung, people around the world will have instant access to the best digital bookstore and reading experience, including more than half a million titles that are only available from the Kindle Store, and innovative features like Whispersync, Time to Read and much more.”
Kindle for Samsung offers millions of best-selling books, newspapers and magazines delivered direct to mobile devices, the range includes over 500,000 titles which are exclusive to the Kindle Store. Other features include Whispersync, which saves and synchronises the last page read, so that a reader can always pick up wherever they left off. Time to Read shows how much time it will take to finish a chapter or a book based on personalised reading speed. Worry-Free Archive automatically backs up the owner’s Kindle books to the cloud, so that they never need to worry about losing their books.
Kindle for Samsung is immediately available in over 90 countries from Samsung apps.
Reader comments
Samsung and Amazon partner up for new custom Kindle experience
Don't see any such app anywhere.
It looks like you can only locate it from the Samsung app store on handset itself. I only find it if I search Samsung Apps for "kindle" from my device. I get no result when I use the link Rich posted or searching the browser based store.
Probably doesn't include my N10 though its made by Samsung, I don't think it's considered a Samsung tablet.
No it is a Nexus, made by Samsung. Big difference from a Samsung device
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Couple of things:
1 - "Kindle for Samsung is immediately available" -- yet there's no search result on their Apps site and the link at the end of the article goes nowhere.
2 - This sounds similar to Kindle First (http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/kindle/botm/?tag=androidcentralb-20&m1k...), an Amazon Prime feature. Wonder if this will simply be extending Kindle First to non-Prime Galaxy users or if it'll be a different selection of books?
So will these free books be in my regular Kindle library after I "purchase" them thereby allowing me to download them to my ipad?
Or readable on my Nexus 7? Cause I'm not reading a book on my phone.
These are the important questions...
I picked a freebie from Samsung's choices on my GS5 via the Samsung Kindle app and then went into the Kindle app on my iPad. Sure enough, the book was in my "cloud" and I was able to download it to my iPad. I'm sure you could do the same with your N7.
i was expecting more hate (or at least more sarcasm) in the comments...Touch Wiz combining with Mojoto! Android/Nexus experience fanboys 2 favorite forks combining all of their features in 1 amazing app :) jk
Don't see what this offers over the current Kindle apps, apart from the monthly book offer.
That's the difference, chief
I find it hard to get into a book when im reading it of my phone. It just feel cold for some reason.
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Then get a jacket lol
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Just Samsung preparing their apps for when Tizen is ready. It's only a matter of time.
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I think I will be moving away from Samsung if they move to Tizen. I prefer Android as it offers more independence. I don't want to be corralled into a walled garden approach like the Apple ecosystem.
FUD somewhere else, Samsung and Android will be around a long time together
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I love my GS5, but I refuse to download apps from any store other than Google Play.
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Well Samsung's own apps update through Samsung Apps, not to mention you need to go in there to get things like the excellent Surround Shot for the camera. Why this approach out of curiosity?
I don't use any Samsung apps that update through their store. That's part of the bloat I disable. As soon as root comes to the Verizon variant, I will uninstall it.
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(Tim242) so I take it you don't own any Samsung wearable and never will, right?
Wait till all the cool features become Samsung specific. With no other store options, your Galaxy S6 will be just like a Galaxy S2. (No new features)
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Oh yeah, (Tim242) have you noticed all the ex-iPhone users that have a Samsung device now, but tell you that you should only use Google's Appstore.
Sneaky Apple. Really sneaky, sending your iPhone users into the Android ecosystem trying to tear Android apart from the inside out.
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Avoiding vendor specific stores/crap seems very pro-Android, not pro-Apple. Apple is all vendor specific. Supporting this Samsung stuff is just supporting their efforts to copy Apple!
Yeah, let's have it so that every single vendor is shipping with their own app store, and soon they'll make deals with developers and have exclusives that you can't get anywhere else. 'Want to run Facebook on your Android phone? Download exclusively from the Samsung app store, on approved Samsung devices!' Golly gee, wouldn't that be fun?
On second thought, let's just cut this bullshit off at the knees and use the Play store instead, and side load where necessary.
I avoid the other appstores because I don't want to have to track updates in multiple places. Samsungs and Amazons appstores pale in comparison and they both just need to stop.
I see no reason to stop using the standard kindle app either.
Yeah, I hate competition, too. I love it when a single company can dictate the prices on the apps I buy.
The reason to "stop using" the regular Kindle app that I found is, I got Apocalypse Z on the Kindle for Samsung app... :)
Why do people complain even when they're given free stuff?
That whole "there's no such thing as a free lunch" came from experience. That's why...
I used the Amazon appstore for the daily free app when it first launched. But when my alarm clock app wouldn't let me snooze the alarm until I logged into the Amazon appstore, I uninstalled that shit. I then went and bought the few worthwhile apps from the Google market.
There a poorly designed apps on Google Play, too. And, I have a hunch that a free ebook won't ever screw up your alarm clock. :)
It wasn't the app demanding I log in. It was the Amazon appstore app. Any app from their store, whether free or not, requires the Amazon appstore to authenticate. It will keep the authentication for a while, but if you stay offline too long (2 weeks, I think), none of your apps will launch.
I should clearly have written a slightly more extensive reply. But, you did it yourself. Of course apps that require an authentication through the app store it was downloaded will stop working if it can't authenticate. What I meant was, if that feature was really the only feature that stopped working, it is a bad app design. If you remove Google Play, most of your apps downloaded from there will also stop working.
The apps from Google Play don't stop working when offline like the same app from Amazon does. It isn't one feature that stops working. It's all apps.
Would I use a third-party store if I didn't have access to Google's? Yes. I have. That's how I found out these issues with Amazon's store.
But when I have access to the biggest, most updated, and most supported option, I'm going to use that.
A few free apps or books doesn't seem worth my time and effort.
Oh yes they do, if they have a built in requirement to authenticate with the Play Store. Stop making things up.
I've never had any issues. I've had my Nexus 7 offline for over a month at times and have no issue playing games or reading books through Kindle. Maybe I just don't have any apps that require this constant authentication you speak of.
But my gTablet, that was forced to use Amazon's store, became useless after 2 weeks offline. It wasn't some apps. It was all apps from Amazon's store.
Apps on Amazon's store are typically several updates behind.
Get off your high and mighty horse.
I completely agree with his approach. Samsung has been acting anti-ecosystem for android in various ways for a while now. And by not using their store he is using capitalisms method of rebellion. If everyone did that, samsung might be humble enough to release their apps into the play store like every other OEM.
Lol
Without Samsung, there would be no ecosystem.
How have they gone against it out of curiosity? Don't say tizen, that is new. Don't say design language because they are more right than wrong, so please enlighten me
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Lol
>Their own App store
>Replacing every single one of googles apps with bloat of their own
>Gears only working with samsung phones
>pretending they dont run android - until they need androids top people to defend them in court
>Touchwiz - How on earth is that more right than wrong?
>Tizen is only the culmination. If they switch to tizen, its becasue they have locked down their own ecosystem enough that they think they can do that. No other OEM would be brave enough to move away from android and the play store, becasue they dont have the alternatives like samsung has made over the years.
And without samsung there very much would be an ecosystem Samsung were quite late to the android game really. Yes, they might have sped up mass adoption a little, but android would have been fine without them
It is not a store so much as it is a place to get updates
Tell me an oem that does not offer an alternative to Google apps
They have a cross licensing deal in place, it does go both ways
Touchwiz is more right than AOSP, how can I prove that? Google doesn't even use AOSP anymore. People want the features built in, not to go hunting them
And sure with ought the S2 AND S3 you would still have Android, lagging right there with BlackBerry for market share
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Pretending not to run Android? Are you one of those brainwashed Nexus guys from that Android Police site? So, because the menus have a different colour, they pretend to not run Android?
As others have rightfully pointed out to you. Without Samsung, Android would not be the dominant ecosystem it is today.
And just to educate your ignorant view of the world a bit. Samsung has been developing Tizen since before Google even considered making a mobile operating system. Are you really so manically defensive about "your Nexus" that you even start seeing older things as stuff that's just there to destroy your Nexus?
Hahaha, i dont know why youre getting so angry.
Its no secret that Google obviously thinks the same, and is now forcing people to put "Powered by Android" on boot.
And still no one has pointed out why it wouldnt be dominant. Yes, the S2 and S3 were succesful, but there is nothing to say that HTC couldnt be top selling smartphone manufacturer if Samsung wasnt here. How do you think the market would look? 90% iOS? the others battling for scraps? No way.
And my view of the world is not ignorant, thank you. I am well aware of how long Tizen development has been happening.
Also, i dont know where you guys got the idea from that i have an obsession with Nexus. If Samsung wants to fork android, they can. Or if they want to go tizen they can too. Im just saying its slightly cheeky to build up your own ecosystem while piggybacking the playstore, and then leaving. Amazon at least had the balls to start completely fresh.
You're not making any sense with that typical blog comment section FUD. How would Samsung get the 2-300 million users of Galaxy phones to just switch to Tizen? It's plain and simple FUD, that's not even half thought through, and still people like you keep repeating it as an argument in a serious discussion.
Stop bringing up pointless and made-up things and you might notice that people will sound less angry when they reply to what you write. :)
If Samsung released the S6 and following running on Tizen, 200 million of the average consumers wouldn't know what OS it runs on, decide they liked the S3/4/5 and blindly buy an S6 tada
They wouldn't notice that their apps don't work anymore?
Please stop it. Your argumentations are as dumb as if I would insist that Google has proven time and time again over the last couple of years that they're planning to shut out all 3rd party manufactures from Android.
Keep the tin foil hat discussions at Reddit. Please. Or at least at Android Police or the verge.
(Blucose) don't forget there are places and devices in this world that don't use Google Services. They need Appstores too.
Or better yet. How about devices that run "pure Open-Source" Android?
Different Appstores keep Android strong.
I love my Google over lords, but I love base Android more. Take that iOS.
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Yeah, sure, i get that. And i like that with android you can choose, I would just choose not to support samsung.