Now It’s Amazon’s Turn

I often castigate Microsoft here on the blog for their seemingly boneheaded decisions. Now it’s Amazon’s turn in the spotlight of shame.

I’ve been using their Kindle app for Windows 8 ever since it was launched back in 2012; never saw the need to buy an Amazon Kindle e-reader device.

Now Amazon has announced that they will be withdrawing the Kindle app from the Windows store later this month, and advise people to install the Kindle desktop application instead. Hooray – let’s all go back to 2005. Why on earth Amazon isn’t putting its development effort into a UWP version of the Kindle app instead, I have no idea. If they did, the app would be usable across all Microsoft Windows devices (PCs, Phones, Xbox, HoloLens, etc.).

It also rather begs the question as to what will happen to the existing Kindle app on Windows Phones. I’ll be prepared to bet that Amazon will shortly announce that it will be withdrawing that as well. Since you can’t use the Kindle desktop application on a Windows Phone, the only possibility will be to use the browser-based version of the Kindle reader on the phone. That promises to be such a poor experience that I expect to be giving up using my phone for Kindle books.

Amazon – what on earth are you playing at?