Kindle Classic 4+

The most recent update has managed to fix the issues with logging in but that doesn’t fix the fact the app is just not that great.

Firstly, when logging in and syncing, it can’t handle the size of my library at all. I’ve been a Kindle user for years so admittedly my library is huge now but since I have great internet that shouldn’t be an issue. It froze constantly and took several days for me to finally get it synced properly. It also just freezes randomly now and then shuts down.

Also the functionality is clunky and there is no easy way to download books in bulk. For instance I wanted to download some technical books for a class I was teaching so I can project them onto a screen to show certain pages. I had to go download each book individually. Luckily that was only 72 books but that was still clicking 72 times into each one to download it..

This version of the kindle app was created pre-Catalina, so if at some point the ios app is ported directly across to macos then this review will no longer apply.

This version of the kindle app does the bare minimum that a kindle app needs to do - it displays text and images. It does not, however, support any of the video or sound content that many kindle books nowadays rely upon (especially language textbooks, which tend to build audio into the ebook instead of supplying it separately).

Honestly, if you have either an ios device or a kindle tablet (as opposed to the bog standard readers), use that for your kindle content. If not; just skip kindle altogether and use apple books instead.

I was almost put off this app by the amount of negative reviews but I can only assume that the latest version has cured some of the earlier reviwer’s problems. Initially, it syched almost immediately with my Kindle library (nearly 100 books) and when I opened the one I was reading on my iPad, it was synched to the page I was on. Copying text for quotations worked too. I shall now dowload more photographical books as the iMac screen will be better suited than the iPad for viewing them. One star off for the less-than-sharp operation/presentation of it compared to the iPad - but if you can live with that, go for it - it’s free after all!