Indian e-commerce giant, Flipkart.com has already been operating its digital media store Flyte for MP3 downloads since earlier this year, and has now ventured into the eBooks domain by launching its own eBooks app — Flyte eBooks for Android.
The new Flyte app for Android lets you download eBooks on your Android device from a collection of over 60,000 paid books and about 4000 free titles. You can sign in to your Flipkart account (Google or Facebook login works too) add funds to your wallet and start purchasing books from the integrated store. You can also purchase books online using a desktop computer, and purchases will be synced to your device/s.
Flipkart has decided to go with a proprietary format .fkb, as against more popular cross platform formats like .mobi or .epub. You can download each Flipkart eBook to a maximum of six devices, which is pretty much what the Amazon Kindle allows you to do as well.
The app uses the Android ICS theme, and I must say, navigation is quite smooth, and the overall UI is pretty well designed. Titles are neatly classified into genres, making it easy for you to find what you’re looking for. Paid titles start at INR 30. There is also a section for free classics that you can download at no charge.
Flyte also lets you sample a book before purchasing. Downloading a sample allows you to preview 10% of the eBook, before you need to purchase it. Nice touch that.
The eBook reader app is also quite well designed, and although it lacks advanced options like dictionary support, it is still has most of the essential options making for a decent ebook reader. You can adjust the font size and brightness, and there is a night mode for dimly lit conditions. Bookmarking and annotations are supported, and can be synced across devices which are using the same account.
While there is no fancy page curl animations etc, the standard tap or slide to turn pages works very smoothly, much like in the Kindle for Android app.
If you’re an avid eBook reader in India, using an Android device, the Flyte eBooks for Android app is definitely worth a whirl. Hit the download button below to get it from the Google Play Store for free.
[button link=”https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flipkart.fkreader” icon=”arrow” style=””]Download Flyte eBooks for Android[/button]
