This Kindle App Review Blog reviews Kindle Apps.
It’s run by 7 Dragons Inc. which is a very confused company because our IPO only opened up 77% even though we were desperate to make our bankers lots of free money.
Who are 7 Dragons?
We are a company of artists. We focus on – making the best Kindle and eReader apps that provide the most value for money, look the best, run the fastest, and make the most profit.
Yes, it is rather shallow and materialistic to focus on making apps that look great and make a lot of profit – but we can’t help it.
Ultimately our aim is to provide the most value to Kindle owners of any app company. And to make the best Kindle Apps which make our art proud of us.
Does 7 Dragons have a motto?
Yes, thanks to a very wise and well-travelled Guru we have found our true motto:
Do No Evil … Leave That To Us.
What do you think of Raspberry Popsicles?
We approve very strongly.
Especially the ones that are only 50 calories and stain your teeth and mouth red and make you look like a healthy vampire.
Why run a Kindle App Blog?
We’ve always been very interested in apps for eReaders. We have been working on Kindle Apps since March 2010 and a blog was a good way to get customers for free.
It’s also a great channel to reach Kindle owners where they can suggest ideas that make our apps better and make us more profit.
Why make Kindle Apps?
Because we really like Kindle owners. Because it’s a new platform. Because we’re artists and it’s a challenge to make great apps for eReaders.
It’s mostly because we love capitalism and nothing spells capitalism like a new emerging market.
Is there a History to 7 Dragons?
Oh Yes. The true tale is lost because the people who were supposed to write it ended up writing a Harry Potter-Twilight rip-off instead. However, there are a few things that historians and barkeeps both agree on -
- A few of the 7 Dragons are still missing in action. It’s probably because they are easily distracted by the most vaguely interesting things.
- The story spans several continents.
- The Fates are always smiling on us. And on you if you trust in them.
- We are more like the Dragons of Eastern Folklore – benevolent and lucky. Not like the Dragons that kidnapped princesses and killed foolhardy Knights.
- Actually, we do on occasion kidnap princesses. Unfortunately, the Department of Princess Security made us take down the application page for princesses who wanted to get kidnapped.
- We love gold and treasure. However, we certainly don’t like dark and dreary caves. In absence of treasure Kit Kats and Mentos will do.
Is 7 Dragons Good or Evil?
Very, very Evil. We only do Evil.
We even have the perfect motto for our evil ways – Do No Evil … Leave That To Us.
We are also the most candid company ever. We love capitalism but we don’t pretend that we love Penguins. We’ve never even met any Penguins.
We don’t have free lunch or free doctors or free soft drinks. We did have free overtime but then got rid of it when the Unions threatened to burn us down.
We decided we were going to lie to our customers and pretend to be doing one thing while doing another. We were going to sell your information and ask you to reveal all your secrets to advertisers. We were going to track your location like a psycho ex-girlfriend.
Then we found out it is far more evil to just sell you stuff. C’est la vie.
Why are we named 7 Dragons?
For luck. 7 and Dragons (the eastern ones) are both lucky.
It’s a cool name.
What other apps will 7 Dragons be releasing?
Ummm … we aren’t allowed to say.
So far we have 5 apps and there’s a definite pattern there.
How to get in Touch?
Kindle owners are always welcome. Please leave a comment or send us an email at booksummit at ymail dot com.
We shy away from the press since that one time one of the 7 Dragons ate a reporter and we got some rather nasty press coverage. Of course, if you want to put us on the cover of your magazine and promise to include a grand piano and a unicorn and lots of puppies and kittens then we will have a hard time saying no.
I’d like to see a 7 dragons ap that I can use (either in Kindle for PC or by itself) to convert office, Word and Works/Power Point documents into Kindle format.
— Like copy from Works/Word/Power Point and Paste into 7 Dragons Ap, and voila, it’s a Kindle document.
That would be cool.
Rhonda, that’s not on our radar at all. It might be a lot of work. We’ll explore the idea and I’ll add an update if it’s something we decide to do. At this point I’d say it’s a bit unlikely.
Check out Calibre by Kovid Goyal. It helps to you convert files in a variety of popular formats to the Kindle format (and other eReader kinds of formats).
I love your Mahjong Solitaire. I play it every night before I turn off the lights and go to sleep. It’s a great relaxer.
Thanks very much.
Jack, Mahjong Solitaire is actually by Mobigloo.
I would like to try this but it says not available why? so how do I get this app
Bob, it’s only available in the US at the moment. when Kindle apps are made available internationally we’ll definitely make Notepad available outside US.
Hurry up on that, making apps available internationally. !
How about a personal organiser/diary app. that is what i really want and given the quality of your notepad you would be brilliant at it…………
Rob, we’ll add it to the queue of potential apps. Could you please email me at booksummit@ymail.com and share some more details on what features etc. you have in mind.
Would be cool if it could sync with my Google calendar!
What a great app. I can’t wait for your next surprise.
Thanks Jane.
Your notepad is a simple and extremely useful application.
I hope you develop:
1) a calendar, with day, week, and monthly views, that you can add appointments into – and the appointments are displayed without the superscript method used by other kindle applications.
2) an address book that is organized alphabetically (or organized in letter pages) and contains the traditional address book fields – name, address, multiple phone numbers, email, web address, and twitter (to name a few).
I am sure such applications developed by you would be as big a hit as the notepad.
David, thanks for the ideas.
OH PLEASE create the address book. Your new calendar is wonderul….
Tammy – Address Book is on the list. No idea when it’ll be worked on/finished/shipped but it’s on the list. We’re listening :) .
How about a baseball scoresheet app for the Kindle? The Kindle is great to take to baseball games and it would be nice to use it to keep score.
That’s an interesting idea. It sounds almost like it’d be a simple set of pages you could fill in. What features/functionality would you want?
I was thinking about this at the ballgame a few days ago. Just a simple scorekeeping app. The numbers would be like the Sudoku app from Puzzazz, maybe. Just something to keep the score without a pencil and paper. Doesn’t have to be fancy.
Unfortunately the Notepad app isn’t available at amazon.com anymore. Is there another way to purchase this app?
Notepad is only available for US Kindle owners at the moment, same as all other Kindle Apps.
At some point, no idea when, Kindle Apps will be available to Kindle owners outside the US. Then, when we are given the option, we’ll be sure to make them available outside the US.
Any chance of creating a speed-reading app? Given that Kindle is for people who like to read a lot, the market seems assured! You can get an idea of the functionality required at http://www.eyercize.com/practice/paste_read
thanks for the idea.
I think it might be very useful to develop some plugins for Kindle to support more ebook formats, such as djvu, epub, or so. Actually in a hacked (and free) system of Kindle these formats (together with many others and many functional enhancements) are already supported.
I think a lot of people will like these plugins, and technically this should not be too difficult. The only thing is that maybe Amazon will not like this idea.
It’s a good idea. Amazon doesn’t allow any generic ebook readers. So, unless that changes, Amazon won’t take any apps that support new formats.
I’m here because I’ve been browsing around looking for a basic music player for the kindle – something that runs in the background, but still allows me to pick the track or tracks I will play, shuffles selected files, and allows basic playlists. Nothing fancy, no pointless equalizer, no weird hypnotic backgrounds, no stealing personal information and beaming it back to the hive mind. I know, I probably should have bought an iPad, but I don’t like the iPad as a reading device and I do like to listen to music when I’m reading……
Thanks for the Idea. Amazon doesn’t provide a sound API. When it does we definitely will look at a music player.
That really sucks that Amazon’s Kindle API does not provide sound…..no wonder none of the timer/clock/stop watch apps have a sound alarm in them……..
yeah. They are brave souls for releasing a clock/timer app without a sound API.
Can 7 Dragons PLEASE create an address book for Kindle?????? Your apps for Kindle are wonderful and very useul. Thanks.
7 Dragons. We need flashcards for Kindle. I think it will be most useful app for children. Can you imagine kids studying spelling bee instead of video games. Nirvana
Nirvana, good idea. Please get in touch with DigiRonin games – they already have 3 or 4 flash card apps for Kids and might release a general, more flexible one if they get enough interested customers asking.
DigiRonin Flashcards for Kids
I agree with Nirvana, save I would take it a step further. I would purchase a flash card creator app for the kindle. I would love to be able to create flash cards on the kindle. Shuffle them and go through them at my leisure. Why create paper bound flash cards when you could create easily organized kindle flash cards. Thank you
I love your calendar app. But, I would like to know do you have in plan to make it sync with outlook or google calendar via wlan?
I think that is the only thing missing.
WLAN usage is not free. So there are no plans for wireless syncing. It’s 15 cents per MB and that basically rules out doing a wireless sync feature unless the app turns into a subscription app.
The other possibility is that Amazon adds APIs that lets Developers know when wireless is WiFi (which is free). If that happens then we might do wireless syncing.
i was trying to send notes from my computer to my kindle using notepad with no success. it is only certain type files that you can put from your computer to your kindle? I was trying to put word documents over onto the kindle but with no success. Am i doing something wrong? Or is it not possible?
Rocky
Rocky, only plain text files are supported.
I recently bought your Notepad app for my kindle and have been loving it!
Unfortunately however, I accidently restored and lost all my latest notes!
Is there a way to recover these somehow? I am using a Mac as the computer I connect my Kindle to.
Thanks and hoping for a positive outcome!
Adam
We covered this over email.
If anyone else runs into this – Firstly, you should do a restore from Backup carefully. There is no way to do an undo if you restore.
Secondly, you can use data recovery software to get back notes that were deleted.
I don’t know if this is possible, but since my Kindle travels with me everywhere………
I’d love to have a Checkbook App, where I can easily enter and track my expenses. (checks,atm,debit card etc) right on my Kindle.
Some goes for a Travel Expense App.
What are the chances?
Hey guys, I would love to see a roguelike for the Kindle. They are a favored time waster of mine and a portable version would be great.
Thomas, we don’t do games. Perhaps you can get in touch with EA or A Gamz and ask them.
7 Dragons rocks! Your Calendar and Notepad apps are fantastic! Now if you would come out with a Phonebook or contact manager that is as good as your other apps then I’d have a nearly complete replacement for my now defunct Lifedrive.
Hopefully we’ll have some news for you on that front in the future.
If I have your address book on my kindle, and my daughter, who is on my account, also has the address book on her kindle, can we share addresses? If she backs up her addresses, and I back up mine, who’s addresses get saved? Can we merge addresses? BTW, I love Notepad
Each copy of Address Book is unique. So the Address Book on your Kindle is a completely different copy from what is on your daughter’s Kindle.
You do have two options for moving over contacts.
Option 1/Case 1: If you want to copy over ALL contacts from one Kindle to another (and overwrite existing contacts):
Please see the instructions for making a Backup to your PC in the last section of this file:
4.Backup & Restore Contacts – Backup & Restore Contacts (Kindle Address Book App – PDF Format), Backup & Restore Contacts in Kindle Address Book, and Kindle Address Book Backup Help (Kindle Format).
Copy over the entire user folder from one Kindle’s Address Book folder to the second Kindle’s Address Book folder. Then you will get all the contacts from first kindle on the second kindle.
**********************
Option 2/Case 2: If you want to copy over contacts from first Kindle to second Kindle without overwriting.
You can copy over contacts using Export and Import.
These are the help files – Import and Export contacts to Kindle Address Book (PDF Format), Import and Export Contacts to Kindle Address Book (Word Format), and Kindle Address Book Import & Export Help (Kindle Format).
So what you would do is.
From first Kindle export all contacts (or do a search and export the search results, if you don’t want all contacts) as VCF file. Then import that VCF file into the second Kindle.
If you want to do a merge, then do the following:
1) Export ALL contacts from 1st Kindle. Use the ‘One File per Contact’ option.
2) In the exported contacts VCF files – delete files for Contacts that already exist on the second Kindle Which you don’t want a second copy of.
3) Copy remaining VCF files into the import+vcf folder of second Kindle
4) Do an import on second Kindle.
*************************************
When you are using just one Kindle and doing backup and restore – it never touches the other Kindle.
If you want to duplicate one Kindle’s contacts on another Kindle – just use the method of Option 1i.e. copy over entire user folder.
If you want to merge or just add a set of contacts without affecting existing contacts on 2nd Kindle – then use Option 2: Export Contacts from Kindle 1 as ‘One file per Contact’. Delete the VCF files you don’t want. Import the remaining VCF files into the second Kindle.
***************************
Please let me know if you have more questions.
I put the address book on my Kindle 3g w/ keyboard. I imported the vcard file as you instructed and the contacts appear as they should. The probem is that I get a message every time I open the program to re-import the vcard data. I tried to do this but it simply loaded the data again doubling the entry for every contact. What should I do to to fix this.
Thanks.
Tony Votsis
Tony, I sent you an email with detailed descriptions.
Basically, you can just remove the imported vcf file from your import_vcf folder after doing the import once.
There was probably a wrong record in there and import didn’t fully happen – so file wasn’t moved out.
So (if you didn’t have any contacts earlier) just move everything in the user folder to a backup_main folder. Then redo the import. Then move the Vcard file out of the import_vcf folder.
Who do Canadians have to write to in order to get your apps. moved up the list to be made available to others outside the U.S.??
Shelinstitches
Amazon makes that decision. Please submit your requests to them. At this point they only sell Kindle app within the United States or if you have a US address.
Looking for updated NOTEPAD for Kindle Touch. Old notepad will not operate with touch screen.
We just got access to KDK for Touch a few days ago and started working on it. Not sure how long it will take but it’s in the works.
I have both Kindle Fire and Kindle Keyboard. Loaded 7Dragons Calendar onto Kindle Keyboard, can’t figure out how to make an event repeat every two weeks. Trying to enter payday’s. My version doesn’t show an every two weeks option.
Regards,
Stephen J
This option is available in Repeats – but only on Kindle 4. On my Kindle 4 I have the following: Does not Repeat, Every Day, Every Weekday, Every Weekend, Every Week, Every 2 Weeks, Every Month (on date), Every Month (on day of week), Every 2 Months (on day), Every 2 Months (on day of week), Every Year.
For Kindle 2, Kindle Keyboard and Kindle DX – we are waiting for approval for Calendar v1.1 and as soon as it is available – I will be notifying users in a blog post.
I am gratified to find your reply (above) about Notepad for Kindle Touch. Hoping the same applies to your other programs.
looking for a calendar and address book for kindle touch is there such an app?
We are working on getting our Calendar app ready for Kindle Touch. Hopefully sometime in January or early February – a lot depends upon Amazon’s review time.
I too am waiting for your notepad and calendar apps to be available for the Kindle touch?
We are working on them. I will do a post announcement as soon as each is available.
Will you make NotePad and a 2012 Calendar for the Kindle Touch 3G?
We are working on Notepad and Calendar (it is not limited to any one year) for the Kindle Touch. Keep watching this site and I will announce when they are available.
Please oh sage dragons update your amazing notepad to work on the humble kindle touch. It is of the utmost importance …
Notepad for Touch is in the approval process with Amazon. It’s a very long process generally so we don’t know when it’ll be out. However, it’s in the process.
Just checked on the Notepad’s product page at Amazon and it now includes Kindle Touch for “Available on these devices” – thought I’d give it a try.
Woohoo! Have Notepad on my Touch. Seems wonderful! Looking forward to experimenting with it. A few questions:
Is there a limit to how many notes it can hold? Other than RAM, I mean.
Would it be possible to have more than one instance of Notepad? So that one could be notes and another could be contact list?
You tell how to retrieve notes onto PC. Can I create notes on PC and put back into Notepad?
(Nope, I Haven’t watched the videos yet. Will soon.)
Is Calendar coming?
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
——Paul——
Paul – glad to have made your day. Please check out the following post: http://kappreview.com/2012/02/02/help-for-notepad-for-kindle-touch/.
I have created documentation specifically for Notepad for Kindle Touch.
Hope I’m not breaking a confidence of some kind but I received an email with further info.
—————-
s there a limit to how many notes it can hold? Other than RAM, I mean.
*** No limit on number of Notes. However, there is a limit on each note size at 3,100 characters. The limit was necessary since apps that could be used as ebook readers are not allowed. Since we allow importing text files there had to be a limit. It does, however, mean that you can’t import in very long text files unless you break them up into smaller parts.
*** Also, beyond 300 to 400 notes the app will be a little slower when doing searches and moving around pages. Adding Notes and Editing Notes should be relatively the same.
Would it be possible to have more than one instance of Notepad? So that one could be notes and another could be contact list?
*** No. You could buy another Notes program and use that as your contact list.
You tell how to retrieve notes onto PC. Can I create notes on PC and put back into Notepad?
*** Yes. The caveat is that they have to be plain text and there might be some characters (special characters like used in foreign languages etc.) that aren’t supported. If a character like that is in the note, then the part of the note after that character will get cut off. To fix such issues – just remove the offending character (the character at which your note got cut off).
Is Calendar coming?
Yes, we’re working on it at the very moment.
****
======================
Somewhere I asked about a Contacts manager and 7 Dragons indicated they did not plant to update that for Touch. There was a recommendation to check with A GAMZ. I did and they replied:
[Removed - Please check with that company if they are OK with you sharing the comment publicly]
Hoping that somehow we can provide enough encouragement to developers to allow them to develop for the Touch.
—–Paul—–
As I mentioned before, I am really happy to have Notepad. Still, I have to mention a minor issue. I realize space on the screen is a balancing act but I find the ‘page forward’ ‘page back’ areas on the Edit Note screen to be a bit too small.
Thank you for making the Notes application useable on the Kindle Touch. Eagerly awaiting the Calendar. Any chance that you will convert the Address book for the Kindle Touch as well???
Hi, I’m an italian kindle user and I need your notepad application on my kindle. Why in Italy it’s impossibile tu buy it with amazon? Can I buy this app in another way?
Please, I’m a writer and as you can understand it’s really important for me… all the other apps are only a stupid document using kindle notes existing function…
Giacomo
Giacomo,
Mi dispiace – but this is an Amazon policy to not allow the active content applications to be sold internationally. Please contact Amazon directly and add your voice to the requests for this functionality.