Amazon Kindle - Document Availability

Document Availability

Content from Amazon and some other content providers is primarily encoded in Amazon's proprietary Kindle format (AZW, KF8). It is also possible to load content in various formats from a computer by transferring it to the Kindle via a USB cable or by emailing it to a registered email address provided by Amazon (for a fee via 3G, or free via Wi-Fi); the email service can convert a number of document formats to Amazon's AZW format and then transmit the result to the associated Kindle over Whispernet. In addition to published content such as books and periodicals, Kindle users can also access the Internet, free of charge, via either Wi-Fi or 3G.

The Kindle's terms of use forbid transferring Amazon e-books to another user or a different type of device. However, Amazon now allows limited lending of certain titles. Users can select reading material using the Kindle itself or through a computer at the Amazon Kindle store and can download content through the Kindle Store, which upon the initial launch of the Kindle had more than 88,000 digital titles available for download. This number continued steadily increasing to more than 275,000 by late 2008, and exceeded 500,000 in the spring of 2010. As of July 4, 2011, there were more than 765,000 books available for download, about 36,000 of them in German. In late 2007, new releases and New York Times best sellers were being offered for approximately US$11, with first chapters of many books offered as free samples. Many titles, including some classics, are offered free of charge or at a low price, which has been stated to relate to the cost of adapting the book to the Kindle format. Magazines, newspapers and blogs via RSS are provided by Amazon per a monthly subscription fee or a free trial period. Newspaper subscriptions cost from US$1.99 to $27.99 per month; magazines charge between $1.25 and $10.99 per month, and blogs charge from $0.99 to $1.99 per month. Amazon e-book sales overtook print for one day for the first time on Christmas Day of 2009.

International users of Kindle pay different prices for books depending on their registered country. For U.S. customers traveling abroad, Amazon originally charged a $1.99 fee to download books over 3G while overseas. That charge was quietly dropped in May 2010. Fees remain for wireless delivery of periodical subscriptions and personal documents.

In addition to the Kindle store, paid content for the Kindle can be purchased from various independent sources such as Fictionwise, Mobipocket and Baen Ebooks. Public domain titles are also obtainable for the Kindle via content providers such as Project Gutenberg, The Internet Archive, Retroread and World Public Library. According to Sammy King, the Kindle store has more than twice as much paid content as its nearest competitor, Barnes and Noble.

The device is sold with electronic editions of its owner's manual; the U.S. version also includes the New Oxford American Dictionary and the UK version the Oxford Dictionary of English (not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary). Users can purchase different dictionaries from the Kindle store as specified in the included manual. The Kindle also contains several free experimental features including a basic web browser. Users can also play music from MP3 files in the background in the order they were added to the Kindle. Operating system updates are designed to be received wirelessly and installed automatically during a period in sleep mode in which wireless is turned on.