Kindle for Mac lands on the Mac App Store

Kindle for Mac was one of the apps we'd hoped to see when the Mac App Store launched, and it looks like we didn't have to wait long. Amazon's Kindle for Mac software has landed on the Mac App Store and currently sits at the fourth-most downloaded free app.

Kindle for Mac has been available for a while, and it's always been a free download. The significance of it showing up on the Mac App Store -- and so soon -- is it signals that major players are taking the Mac App Store seriously. Of course, being a free app, it costs Amazon virtually nothing to distribute it through the Mac App Store. And given that the Mac App Store will ship on all future Macs, it's practically a no-brainer for Amazon to make the choice to put their Kindle app -- and the nearly one million Kindle e-books -- right in front of Mac users.

What remains to be seen is if other major developers like Microsoft and Adobe will also add their apps to the Mac App Store. If they do, they'll be giving Apple a 30 percent cut of their profits. That is, unless Apple cuts a better deal with them to get their major apps on the store. What is even more intriguing to consider -- and this is pure speculation on my part -- is now that Kindle for Mac is so easily available to Mac users, might Apple see the Kindle app on the Mac App Store as a threat to iBooks on iOS? After all, the Kindle software beats iBooks if only because it allows you to read books across all your Apple devices; Apple's iBooks currently excludes the Mac. Then again, I can't image that a lot of people read e-books right on their computer screens anymore now that tablets offer a superior reading experience. Still, I'm sure there are some Apple laptop owners that would like to see Apple fill this last iBooks software void.