Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Kindle Tips: Kindle for IOS update version 4.5 mid Sept 2014 (and v4.5.1 yesterday) . Customer forum tips on handling oddities that may occur with iOS 7 and 8.x

 
The Kindle Forum has a recent announcement that Kindle for IOS, v4.5 has been ready for download.  Apple's problems with iOS 8 and then the abrupt recall of iOS 8.01 last week due to suddenly non-functioning features, for too many, appeared to affect apps.
  Apple's problems with iOS v8.01 update included loss of cellular and WiFi connectivity, lag, sync'g issues, and Touch ID not working for many.

  I waited for things to settle down a bit and am logging this Kindle for iOS update and adding tips and workarounds from customers and Kindle Forum moderators.

  As of a couple of days ago, Apple released iOS 8.02 Friday to fix the problems with iOS 8 and 8.01, but unfortunately, customers are still reporting both cellular call and WiFi problems as well as slowness, affecting several earlier iPhone models.  These will affect apps on the devices too, of course.

  PhonesReview requested feedback on v8.02 and it's not good news.  From the feedback, the problems seem worse for too many.

  But it's time I logged here what the Kindle for iOS update v4.5 has in enhanced features.  Customer and Kindle Support tips from the forum will be below the announcement by Amazon.  ((V4.5.1 was reported by one customer to have been received yesterday.)

 Here's a copy of the announcement (Any bolded emphases are mine).
' Initial post: Sep 18, 2014 01:56 AM PDT
Megan H. - Forum Moderator says:
(AMAZON) (AMAZON OFFICIAL)

We're pleased to announce the latest version of Kindle for iOS is now available in the Apple App Store.

What's New in Version 4.5?

Kindle for iOS Version 4.5 makes reading multiple books easier with the handy Kindle Today Widget. Customers also get the ability to copy passages from their books and paste them into text messages, e-mail, and other applications on iOS outside of Kindle.  Readers who encounter words or phrases in other languages can quickly comprehend the author's meaning with a convenient translation feature. This release also includes iOS 8 support, bug fixes, and stability improvements.

* Kindle Today Widget (iOS 8 only - Multi-book readers can now surf between books from anywhere on the device by pulling down the `Today' view and tapping on one of the three titles in the Kindle Widget. They can choose from their most recently opened library titles, like the `jump' function on a TV remote.

* Copy & Paste - Customers asked and we listened. Version 4.5 includes the ability to copy passages from your books and add them to the iOS clipboard for pasting into a text message, e-mail, social media, or other iOS applications outside of Kindle.

* Smart Lookup Translation Card - Authors often include phrases in other languages to add depth or meaning to a story. Readers can now get a full understanding by selecting the word or phrase and viewing the translation card. '

Re the Copy & Paste
Remember that, as with Notes Export, there's an alternate way for you to export notes and highlights from any Kindle book, not just the "Print Replica" textbooks.  Kindle-compatible device- or app owners have a personal, password-protected website that holds your annotations for each book.  You can view them by Your Highlights (which are grouped secondarily by book) or you can choose 'Books.'
You can copy (for emailing or personal logging) and print sections from these.

A few customer tips and feedback from Amazon's Kindle Community forum
The first report was that the app works fine with iOS 7.  Here are some responses of possible interest to readers here:
' Dorsie says
You press the word at the start of the section you want to copy.  When the highlight color circles appear, drag the right control to the and of the last word in the section.  It will allow you to drag to the next page if you need to.  The highlight control bar shows four colors and three b/w controls.  The b/w control third from the right and just to the right of the orange color looks like two overlapping pages.  Press that and the word Copied will pop up.

Now the whole section is in the clipboard and can be pasted into any other app when you press and hold in an input section and select Paste. This could be a word processor or e-mail or any app that allows text input.

~~~
LASoundCrafter says:
Great copy function.  Also, they kept the reading feature: I use the triple tap on the home button to turn on "voice over" and the "double swipe" down and Siri starts reading on and on ... The translation feature is very good.  Overall a very stable upgrade.

~~~
Cindy says:
No problems with 10000+ books on ipad air.

~~~
C. Petko says:
I just upgraded to iOS 8, have upgraded Kindle for ipad, and cannot see the widget for what I am reading today yes, I have two books started if that makes a difference

~~~
thebeartrack says:
The translation feature is not working on my iPad using iOS 8.  I have deregistered, deleted the app, many times to no avail. It works fine on my iPhone 5s.  Calling Amazon gave me no help at all.  They said it was an Apple problem......SOS

A call to Apple solved my problem.  I needed to restore as a new iPad and then restore my apps. Works like a champ now!!  I love the translation feature!!! Good job Kindle!!!

~~~
R. Thomas says:
I have an iPod, not an iPad, and I wasn't aware of this feature [Kindle Today Widget] until I read your post.

Here's how I figured it out on the iPod, which I just updated this morning.

Pull down the notification pane, the pull down menu from the top - school down and you'll see "edit" and I'm sure you can take it from there.

Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention. I nearly always have two or three books going at once , and this is a very nice feature. THANKS!!

~~~
lonbeehold says:
Go to the bottom of your notification list when you're in the Today tab on your home screen. You will see an edit button. Tap it to see the apps that you give the option to have a notification appear in the Today tab. Tap Kindle to turn the feature on.

~~~
thebeartrack says:
Does anyone have an iPad Air with the Kindle application?  This is what I have but the translation in the dictionary will not function.  It works just fine on my husband's iPad 2 and my iPhone 5s. I have deleted, reinstalled, de registered until I am blue in the face.  I also phoned Amazon and they just told me it is an Apple problem.  Any help out there in the ether????
[ No answer yet ]

~~~
KMH says:
In order to have enough storage space in my iPad, I deleted my kindle app so I could download iOS 8.
When I went to reinstall the app, it is stuck in an installing mode. I tried to delete it and start again but it won't let me delete it. It says "installing" and it's been like that for days. Help!!

~~~
Dorsie says:
If a simple restart doesn't help, try the hard restart done by pressing and holding both the power and home buttons until it turns off. It won't harm any data or apps. After about ten seconds press and hold the power button until it starts rebooting.

~~~
Gabriele says:
...ever since Ive upgraded, my app seems to not download new content.  It keeps saying 'downloading' but never actually does.  Then i'll try a bit later on and it works.  Sometimes i send new content to my kindle app and it doesnt even recognise that i've send anything.  My internet connection is fine and i've tried turning the phone on and off (I read everything on my iphone) but nothing changes.  I've NEVER had this issue before, the only thing i can think of is this upgrade maybe having a bug? Has anyone else had this issue? Any suggestions?

~~~
Anna F. Forum Moderator says:
(AMAZON) (AMAZON OFFICIAL)
Hi Gabrielle, I'd recommend removing the app and re-downloading it.  If you continue to experience delays in downloading, please contact us through this link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/kindle-help.html?ref=cssoc_FM_CU_KIN

~~~
S. Kessler says:
I tried out the copy and paste function, and it's a little tricky to get just what you want in a passage, but once I tried a few things, I got it to work beautifully.  This is absolutely the best update feature.

~~~
shermie says:
...I have been told my older iPad would have difficulties with ios8 so not to update that at this time.

~~~
Sonja S. - Forum Moderator says:
Hey shermie, you'll need to have iOS 7 or greater installed. If you don't have iOS 8 installed you won't have access to some of the features, for example the Kindle Today Widget...

~~~
Ed says:
Yeah, observed the same distraction with page turn animation. Turned it off.
Library>settings>page animations.

~~~
Mary McManus says:
I am using the latest version of iOS7 on an iPad 3 and a mini.  Both of them have the latest Kindle update.  The Kindle app on the iPad3 seems to be working fine but on the mini is very sluggish with page turns, either tapping or swiping there is a delay.  I have flicked the app out of the recently used apps and then did a restart by holding the home and power buttons, but it's still slow.  Any suggestions?

~~~
Dorsie says:
Haven't heard of this one, but it could come from hidden copies of books caused by duplicate registrations. If you find you have to delete and reregister anyway, use IPad Setting, General, Usage and let it bring up memory use for all apps. Select the Kindle app and delete it with the Red Delete button. That will get rid of the orphan books/data too. Then use Manage Your Content and Devices and deregister the iPad and any duplicates from there. That gives you a perfectly clean slate at both companies to redownload and reregister the app...

~~~
Paul Gorman says:
Looks bad on the iPhone 6 Plus.  I expected to see the whole page like on my iPad mini instead it is an iPhone view.  Don't you know the 6 plus is an iPad micro? :-)

~~~
Dorsie says:
The Accessibility Zoom feature can help with this. It's super easy to use and the screen stays stable as you turn pages.

Here's the iOS 8 online manual.
http://help.apple.com/ipad/8/
The Accessibility options icon is the fourth icon up from the bottom with all the info on how to use the zoom.

I recommend in Settings, General, Accessibility, Zoom turning off the new features "follow focus" and "show controller and set it to "full screen zoom." Zoom remembers the last magnification you used so it's simple to just tap twice with three fingers to turn it on and off. To see any part of the screen clipped by the zoom, drag with three fingers.

Edit to add: The Zoom works identically on iPads and iPhones. Here's the online manual for iPhone iOS 8.
http://help.apple.com/iphone/8/

~~~
Hussain Ahmadi says:
I love the kindle widget on ios 8 it saves time as I can go directly in the book.

However, when I finish reading a book how am I supposed to remove it from the widget? Is there any option for that?

~~~
David O. - Forum Moderator says:
(AMAZON) (AMAZON OFFICIAL)
... Hussain: In Today view, you can jump directly to where you left off in your three most recently read Kindle titles.
[AB Note: I'd think that removing the Kindle book from the device would work also if the developers coded to include in the widget only the most recently read that are still on your device... but i don't know that they did.]
~~~
Paul Gorman says:
I am reading a user manual for a camera which has many diagrams.  Then I loaded a page I had been reading on my iPad mini the diagram was half on the page and half outside the border and the text was huge.

Things improved by making the text much smaller which made the whole page real estate bigger and the images fitted into the page. I guess the images are not scaled like the text can be. The application text is still huge as that is not affected by the text being displayed...

~~~
Mary McManus says:
If your camera manual is a pdf file, I would highly recommend that you open it in the GoodReader app for the iPad which is superb for reading most any type of file: Word, Pages, pdf, jpegs.  But it is especially good for pdfs.  When I was reading books about World War I, I had saved maps from the internet as pdfs and put them in GoodReader so I could refer to them while reading the books on a Kindle.

~~~
Ed says: [in a post dated Sept 29, Monday]
There's a 4.5.1 update for iPad and phones available. '
Forum Source

Kindle reading-app Update - Where?
Go to the page for download instructions.
  If you have iOS 7 or above, the normal steps listed there apply.
The page has an "Important" section for those who are still on iOS versions earlier than iOS 7.




Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

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7 comments:

  1. Looking forward to using this when I get the new iPad Air (assuming I follow through on that). It looks like they have dropped support for iOS 6, which my iPod Touch is marooned on. Copy/Paste is also on the Android app. The widget is an idea I hope they'll port to Android (via notifications). Funny how Apple copies Android (Accessibility Zoom). But what do people with only 2 fingers do?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Since upgrading to ios802 on my iPad mini some of the book covers in my Amazon kindle library have changed to plain blue or white. How do I correct this. Has not happened in iPhone 4s

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are these thumbnails inside a Collection, or do they appear that way in the All Items/Books lists as well? I'm seeing a couple of 'bogus' tiles inside one of my collections, but they aren't on the device and will not download, and moreover, are not in the same (cloud) collection on my other devices. I just long-tapped and chose 'Remove From Collection' to make them go away. This is on iOS6, with the last Kindle version available for that (4.4), but maybe the problem persists in the newer Kindle app as well. I had not synced for a couple of weeks and it took a couple of tries to pick up changes. I think in my case, the grey tiles were left overs from a Kindle Unlimited borrow that I never downloaded to my iPod Touch. But since there's no title shown, it is difficult to say for sure.

      Delete
  3. Does IOS 8.1 works good? I still can't download it thoug has it demands a free space og 4.5GB (have a 8gb phone) need to clear my phone for that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bas, that's an Apple operating-system question you'll need to ask Apple customers about on their forums...

      Delete
  4. Well, thanks for this, I was particularly interested in the coloured circles and icon that appeared. I'm still not quite sure how to save a book cover picture.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bec, You can do a screen shot. How you do it depends on which type of Kindle you're using though...

      Delete

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