Kindle Books Come to the iPhone

As some had speculated, Amazon today rolled out a Kindle for iPhone app, which lets you read books in your Kindle library on your phone, and which syncs your progress between devices.  I downloaded the app at once, of course, and can report that even with my crummy eyesight, the reading experience is pretty good (and the adjustable text sixe appreciated).  I was surprised at how quickly the book loaded from the Archived Items screen.  Even via 3G, it took just a few seconds for it to pop the book up. 

This strikes me as an interesting segmentation strategy.  Obviously Amazon would love to draw as many of us into their content channel as possible, so that when we buy a book, we buy a Kindle book, and therefore buy from them.  Having the iPhone app gives them an opportunity to pull in people too price sensitive to spring for a Kindle 2, thereby allowing Amazon to sell what I’m guessing is higher margin content without first having to sell (again guessing) lower margin hardware.