Retweeted: 3-25-2010

For those of you not familiar, the Amazon Kindle is a cool device. I don’t own one, but I have several customers that do. You can carry around hundreds of “books” with you in a device smaller than a typical magazine.

It’s also cool since there is an iPhone app and a PC app. They even stay synchronized with your last page position – and that is really cool.

What is not cool is the fact that Amazon locks the ebooks in DRM (digital restrictions management) so that while you paid $30 for a digital book, you can only read it through their app.

Well – to quote Apple: “There’s an app for that too!”

I’m not going to re-post all the instructions, but you can click over to this blog article for a how to. This allows you to at least get the file out of the Kindle App and into .mobi format. While not totally open – it beats being locked into the Kindle App.

As most of you know, I am absolutely thrilled with my iPhone. It has been the one device that has truly begun to transform how I do things. Here is a quick list:

• Accepting credit card payments via CC Terminal by Innerfence
• Time tracking / invoicing via Timewerks
• Synchronized contacts and calendar by Google
• Twitter posting via Tweetie
• Blogging with BlogPress
• e-Books via Stanza and the Amazon Kindle app
• Recording notes and info via Evernote
• Stock trades via the E*Trade app
• Tracking packages with the FedEx app
• Conducting presentations with Air Mouse
• Business VOIP and Faxes with RingCentral
• Client notes with Google Docs
• ToDo List with Remember the Milk

Each and every one of these applications is incredibly easy to use. While the iPhone and it’s apps won’t ever replace my laptop computer, it certainly complements it. There are many cases now where I can go to a client’s location and walk in with just my phone.

I’ve got to hand it to Apple – I know there are other mobile devices that can do many of the same things. However, there is no other device that does them as smoothly.

(Now if AT&T would just get their cellular network up to par, and release some of their restrictions on data  for the “unlimited” data plans!)