Verizon preloads Amazon Kindle app across Android devices

Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) will preload online retail giant's Amazon.com's free Kindle ereader application across Android smartphones including Motorola's Droid 2 and Droid X as well as the Samsung Fascinate. Kindle for Android (also available for download via Google's Android Market) offers Verizon Wireless subscribers access to more than 700,000 ebooks (including new releases and all but four of 111 current New York Times bestsellers), most priced at $9.99 or less.

Signature features of the Kindle for Android app include Buy Once, Read Everywhere functionality enabling readers to synchronize bookmarks for access across multiple devices, as well as a Worry-Free Archive guaranteeing that all Kindle purchases are automatically backed up online for subsequent re-download. Amazon updated Kindle for Android last month, touting a series of enhancements including new search tools: Users can now search the complete contents of Kindle titles via voice or text, look up words or phrases in Wikipedia, view book details on reader-focused social networking site Shelfari, all within the Android app. In addition, consumers can add notes and highlights to books, with automatic synchronization across Kindle-enabled devices, and lock down screen orientation in landscape or portrait mode.

Amazon first introduced Kindle in 2007--the ereader device is now its bestselling, most gifted and most wished for product. In July 2010, Amazon said it now sells 143 Kindle ebooks for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcover titles for which there is no corresponding Kindle edition.

For more on the Verizon Wireless/Amazon deal:
- read this release

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