In mid-April Amazon and Samsung announced Kindle for Samsung – a joint effort to “provide the best e-reading experience on your Samsung device.”
For anyone who has been reading ebooks on the Samsung Galaxy device, the biggest news (and a potential source of trouble) is that the current default e-reading app, Readers Hub will be discontinued on July 1, 2014.
Since early May you are no longer able to buy books from Samsung Hub Books. The free titles will remain there until July 1.
On a documentation page, Samsung doesn’t provide any help how users of the Readers Hub could back-up their books, as well as make it available – and compatible – with the new default reading solution.
The biggest challenge will be to convert all epub format (Readers Hub) to mobi (Kindle). If you were feeding your book app with free public-domain books, you will need to either bulk-convert the files, or download them again in mobi format.
Kindle for Samsung is the app dedicated for Galaxy smartphones and tablets (the full list at the end of the post). You won’t be able to download it from Google Play. By the way, the regular Kindle for Android is available there. You can download Kindle for Samsung only from Samsung Apps.
What’s the advantage of going with Kindle for Samsung, and not the regular Kindle Android app? Samsung promises free book promotions.
Users who are signed in with both Amazon and Samsung account can benefit from Samsung Book Deals. Each month consumers may download for free one of four selected titles. Samsung claims they are going to be bestsellers.
This, obviously, comes on top of regular Kindle deals available for all Amazon customers, including Kindle Daily Deal, Kindle Countdown Deals, and Monthly Kindle Book Deals for $3.99 or Less.
Kindle for Samsung runs on Android HoneyComb 3.0+, and is localized in nine languages: English, German‚ Finnish‚ Italian‚ Japanese‚ Portuguese‚ Spanish‚ Castilian‚ Chinese.
The application is already available in many countries. I wonder whether Samsung Deals will be available worldwide, or, what’s more possible, limited only to the US.
Kindle for Samsung
Kindle for Samsung is an app designed exclusively for Samsung customers.
It gives you a free book every month through Samsung Book Deals, and the ultimate e-reading experience optimized for Samsung devices.
Key features:
- Samsung Book Deals—Samsung customers choose one free book a month,
- Massive selection—Millions of books, newspapers and magazines, including the latest best sellers, Kindle Singles, and more,
- Lowest book prices—Over 1.3 million titles are $4.99 or less, over two million are $9.99 or less,
- Whispersync—Saves and synchronizes your last page read, bookmarks and annotations across all of your devices, so you can always pick up where you left off,
- Worry-Free Archive—Automatically backs up your Kindle books in the cloud, so you never need to worry about losing your books—re-download your books wirelessly anytime,
- Time to Read—Tells you how much time it will take to finish a chapter or a book based on your personalized reading speed.
Kindle for Samsung – supported devices
Smartphones
Galaxy S5, Galaxy S4, Galaxy S4 Active, Galaxy J, Galaxy Note3, Galaxy Premier, Galaxy Camera, Galaxy S3, Galaxy NX, Galaxy Grand 2, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy Mega 6.3, Galaxy S4 mini, Galaxy S4 Zoom, Galaxy Express 2, Galaxy Mega 5.8 Plus, Galaxy Mega 5.8, Galaxy Mega 5.8, Galaxy Ace 2, Galaxy S3 mini VE, Galaxy S Relay 4G, Galaxy Stratosphere II, Galaxy S3 mini, Galaxy Ace 3, Galaxy Victory, Galaxy Xcover 2, Galaxy Rugby LTE, Galaxy Stellar 4G, Galaxy Trend 3, Galaxy Core, Galaxy S2 Plus, Galaxy Express, Galaxy Win, Galaxy Grand, Galaxy Grand Neo
Tablets
Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1, Galaxy Note 10.1 Ⅱ, Galaxy NotePRO 12.2, Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2, Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4, Galaxy Tab 3 10.1, Galaxy Note 10.1, Galaxy Tab 4 10.1, Galaxy Tab3 7.0, Galaxy Tab 4 7″, Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 lite, Galaxy Note 8.0, Galaxy Tab3 8.0, Galaxy Tab 4 8.0
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