Windows 7 Launch: Kindle Comes to Windows

Today's Windows 7 launch mostly involved stuff we already knew about, but there was a "just one more thing": Amazon is going to release a Kindle e-book reading application for Windows.

It runs on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, and takes advantage of the new touch features in Win 7 to allow gestures for actions such as flipping pages. It uses Kindle's WhisperSync feature to sync your book library up with any other Kindle-compatible devices you own.

It's a welcome development, and pretty much a mandatory one for Amazon given that the books Barnes & Noble sells for its new Nook device can also be read on PCs and Macs. (No word on whether Amazon will release a Mac app; if it is, maybe it's holding back the news a bit to avoid spoiling Microsoft's party today.)

Few if any PCs are optimized for reading books, and I've never bought an e-book primarily to read it on a laptop. But at this point I've spend hundreds of dollars on Kindle tomes-and the more devices I can read them on, the merrier. Amazon says the free Kindle app will be available next month.