Chris Pine asked:




Amazon’s Kindle was truly a breakthrough device when it was released in 2007. It allows its owners to instantly download books directly onto the device in less than 60 seconds. Even better, the Kindle version of many books usually cost less than the physical version. The majority of New York Times bestsellers are only $9.99, which is often a significant savings over brand new hardcover books. If you visit Amazon.com often, you’ve probably seen the link to instantly download the Kindle version of the book, but were frustrated because you didn’t have a Kindle. Perhaps you don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for a Kindle when new devices like Apple’s iPad are hitting the market. Whatever the reason, the good news it that you actually DON’T need a Kindle in order to download Kindle books. Here are a few ways you can do it.

1. The Kindle App

This is applicable to owners of the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Many users of these devices aren’t aware that there is a free Kindle App available to download in the App Store. Amazon released this App on March 3, 2009, and it has since been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. Even better, this App is also available for the iPad. This means that iPad owners can use their device to read not only the books that Apple makes available to them, but also Kindle’s library of nearly half a million books.

2. Kindle for PC

Another option is to download Amazon’s free Kindle for PC application. This allows you to download Kindle books directly to your computer and to use the Kindle for PC application to read them. The program is simple to use, and it is probably the best computer reading experience available. The only downside is that you cannot make annotations like you can on an actual Kindle.

3. Kindle for Mac

Until March of 2010, Mac users were left out in the cold when it came to reading Kindle books without a Kindle. However, that all changed when Amazon finally released a third method for reading Kindle books without a Kindle. Mac owners had been disgruntled about this and wondered why it was taking Amazon so long to release such a product, but Amazon finally delivered with the free Kindle for Mac software.

By providing all these methods to download Kindle books without a Kindle, Amazon has opened their library of books to an enormous number of potential customers. It is rumored that they are currently working on an App for Google’s Android cell phone operating system. This will increase their reach even further.

Cracked asked:

Amazon.com recently unveiled the Kindle, a "wireless portable reading device" that can store up to 200 books, weighs only 10.3 ounces, and combines your love of reading with your even bigger love of putting your book down so it can recharge for three hours. We here at Cracked were curious when we first read about the Kindle. "What kind of person would actually need 200 books on them at any one time?" Then, we stumbled upon this ad. Now we know exactly what kind of person the Kindle was …