Kindle Classic App Reviews

I understand that because of different devices, screen sizes, font sizes and other personal preferences it’s “supposed” to be difficult to implement a page numbering systems. The problem is that we don’t really need a page numbering system, but a page number reference that corresponds to the printed book. So whil I understand a hypothetical Page 75 could be position 248 or maybe 23% progress of the book, it would be nice to have the reference so that when an instructor tells you to turn to page 75 you can jump to the location of the ebook that he’s speaking of and navigate more easily. I don’t care tht it’s position 248, what I care about is when an instructor is on page 75 and starts reading the first lines of that page I can find it faster than trying to guess what the position number or percentage of progress I’m at…. For instance I have to read Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide and page 95 starts at the top of the page “This self-imposed mandate requires…”, the Kindle app, no matter what platform or personal settings could have a small icon that represents a page number and tapping, touching, or mousing over it would show the printed page reference… with my current settings the app shows 36%, Location 1636 of 4619, the status bar at the bottome could also say printed page location 95 and it changes accordingly… why can’t that be implemented in future updates? Otherwise I like all other features of the app… just wish it was more friendly for students...

Reading eTextbooks using this Kindle App for Mac can make annotations, definitions and reading experience very unenjoyable. First, for PDF-based eTextbooks there is no way to display pages side-by-side, like the regular print edition of the textbook would display, or like the Kindle apps for mobile devices allow. You have to look at a narrow, single page at a time, even though all desktop computer screens have wider displays rather than longer ones. Also, scrolling through PDF’s using a trackpad or scrolling mouse will jump semi-randomly through the pages of the book without any notice of the distance of the scroll taking place. Lastly, the annotation and highlighting bar will sometimes appear cut off outside the window of the app, and/or cover up the selection of the eTextbook that you’re trying to highlight, making it impossible to find the end of the phrase you’re highlighting.

Textbooks are useless on Kindle, because you can’t look at two pages next to each other; this ruins scientific textbooks with diagrams on one page but problems on the other, or derivations stretching over two pages.

Why is this on the app store? The current version is 1.17.0. Apparently Amazon has decided that submitting updates to the Apple App Store is not worth bothering with. Sad, especially since their app downloaded from their website lacks any "check for updates" feature as well, so you dont know its out of date until you go and install it again (version not advertised on their site), install it over whatever you have, then start it up and check if the version is different than what you already had. HELLO Amazon, this is ridiculous!

It used to be great, now everytime I open the app it has a spaz attack, won’t let me open any of my books, loses my bookmarks, and forgets my collections. PLEASE fix it.

All the development money obviously went to develop the mobile app. Unlike the computer version here the mobile app is a well designed experience. Despite a laptop having more processing power than a phone they give the computer version less features. I feel like I need to look into converting the amazon book into a PDF because the experince is 10x better.

Does not allow you to see the newest book. Or at least the version on my Mac doesn’t allow that. Hve tp hunt nd hunt and hunt through my large library to find things. Please make the app like the re;l Kindle.

It is annoying reading with this app that doesn’t have an option for continuous scroll mode, unlike almost every other reading app on the market.

in contrast with the iphone app, mac version need much improvements. completely out-dated.

I haven’t had any probems with synicng or anything like that. I’m not a stickler for tons of extra features either… I just want to be able to read the book. That being said, using this app is a nightmare as far as scrolling and overall fluidity. Forget using your trackpad trying to scroll up and down a page. It’s extremely choppy, unresponsive, and overall makes you feel you are not using a Mac approved app. It’s pretty much garbage as far as actual fluidity in the app, and that annoys me greatly.

Companies get comfortable when they have a monopoly, and it’s hard to imagine any other excuse for such a poor product. Once you buy a Kindle book (and I have over 1,000), there is only one program that you can read them on: the Kindle app. I would gladly pay for a better app, such as one that allows annotations with Apple Pencil or other styluses, but Kindle books are locked so that you cannot go to the competitor for a reading app. The result is an app that is years behind development. In addition, although it offers Collections, there is almost no way to rearrange the order of the collections or to have, in effect, subfolders. This is a feature that, if there were competitors for reading Kindle content, would typically appear in the first year. I’m (generally) happy to buy content from Amazon, but it would be far better if the reader was open to competition. One feature I’ve long wanted in a reader—I use the Kindle Voyager most of the time—is the ability to have the book cover I’m currently reading appear as the default image on the face of the reader when it is off. It would be so easy, but unfortunately they don’t bother. Bottom line: open up this sealed system so that we can buy Kindle books but read them on non-Kindle apps and devices. It works as a basic, few-frills app, but that’s it.

Please fix the scrolling. I bought a $20 college book for my class and it’s difficult to read it with zooming in and out features. When scrolling the pages flip, instead of landing on the bottom of the page. It’s hard to read a book from page 1 and then randomly page 12… IT would be phenomenal if this was fixed with an option to scroll.

I really don’t like this app, but what choice do I have? As a college student buying textbooks of A-zon for the Kindle App on my iPad, this is the option I have for a desktop version. The desktop version is the best way to copy/paste for textbook quotes but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Search works ok. That’s the plus. Using an Apple mouse? Did your finger twitch? You are now 5 pages away from your reading spot. This is a maddening reality, and makes this app nothing short of infuriating at times—especially if you’re trying to hammer out an essay. Copying text for quotes in an essay? You’re going to get a glob of junk that acts as their “citation” which is utterly worthless, and you’ll have to clean it up each time you paste a quote in. If you can find a better way to open Kindle books, use it.

Its pretty ridiculous that there’s around a one second load time for every single page… The scrolling is very unsmooth as well… If only I can just buy the pdf version of the books and read them from Preview, which works so much better than this horrible app.

The app does most of the basic things it is supposed to: renders pages very well, is nimble, can download new books. But, if youre going to have a minimalist design, then you have to make it very easy to find hidden navigation. They spent all kinds of resources tweaking the page turning animation — but getting back to your library is still a gigantic hassle. Somewhere, if you do something at the top, and the stars are aligned and the wind is blowing in the right way, and youve sacrificed honey and wheat to Demeter, you can get the navigation to pop up. Otherwise, youre screwed.

On IOS devices the kindle app is great. Its sad to see the desk top version so far behind in features and with such a weak user interface. If anything you would expect the desk top version to be a power house of usability especially in regards to note taking and searching campabilities.

The app store version is rarely updated. The newest version is 1.17.1 at Amazon. DL from there.

Amazon must have forgotten about this app. The Kindle app for Mac really makes reading simple pdfs and epubs a chore. Seriously, use Preview or caliber or something.

The scrolling alone ruins this app for me. In my opinion, it is much easier to control where you want to be if there is a continuous scroll option, not a “jump from page to page” option that makes it easy to lose your place. Also, many times I find my textbook pages don’t fit the screen well. I really like the option for sepia coloring, it makes the pages easier to look.

As I write this I am studying for a test using an E-textbook. Scrolling is a nightmare on my core i5 mac. Between pages, sometimes it does not go up a page and sometimes it does. This is so frustrating and it is literally all they had to do and they failed. I wish I could view this textbook in a Pdf editor but no, i’m stuck with this application. I absolutely will not be using this garbage again. Amazon, I know of at least two engineers who work for you and they’re very smart. Get your s*** together, please