Kindle gets limited lending system and epapers

Owners of a Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader, will shortly be able to lend each other e-books. Lending can only be done with the publisher’s approval and for a maximum period of two weeks. Owners of a borrowed book cannot read it at the same time, but need to wait until it has been digitally ‘returned’. The lending function will also feature on the Kindle app on Apple products and PCs.

With this move, Amazon follows Barnes & Noble, that introduced a remarkably similar function in her e-reader, the Nook, some time ago. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos had nothing good to say about his competitor’s LendMe function, that he found ‘very limited’. Apparently, Bezos has had to submit to the pressure of the publishers, too.

Within some time, users of the Kindle app will furthermore get access to a number of digital papers and magazines. With that move, the app will start to compete with platform owner Apple, that offers apps for several newspapers already.