Kindle News: Large Kindle for Android Update - new features, customer reactions. Tom Semple adds what he's found.

New update for the free Kindle for Android app - v4.0.1.3

The Amazon Kindle for Android updates:
· New design and user interface: Apparently many customers have told Amazon that they really like the User Interface (UI) of the Kindle Fire, as find it easy to access and navigate the content on the tablet.

  Amazon has extended that design to Kindle for Android by
  1. optimizing the Kindle Store for tablets
  2. improving the library interface
  3. redesigning the home screen, which includes the Carousel option for recent items), and
  4. simplifying navigation through the app.

· Easy access to samples: To help customers new to Kindle or Kindle apps get started, Amazon is making samples of many of the best sellers very easy to find; the samples will be on the home screen of their Kindle app.

More info is at the Kindle for Android details page.

From Google Play store's What's New page

What's in this version:
4.0.1.3
• Redesigned library experience.
• Carousel displays recent items on the Kindle app home screen.
• Navigation panel organizes content for quick access to your Books, Documents, and Newsstand periodicals.
• Browse all your items in the Cloud or just the content downloaded on your Android device.
• Explore and download popular samples in the Kindle Store.
• Fixed a crash some customers reported.

Contributor Tom Semple weighed in early
This guy is the Kindle world's intrepid explorer and is everywhere.
Tom has given permission to quote what he's found so far (I'm just late getting to it, and I saw reports that some are finding that the Table of Contents can be balky under the new update and that customer service has said they are aware of that and are working on it).

  Here's Tom: (Bracketed entries are mine.)

' Kindle for Android finally has a version of the 'Cloud/Device' pattern found on Kindles and Kindle apps, with Recent added to Sort options.  Very welcome.  [Yay!]

  As usual, there's also an experiment: an item called 'Popular Samples' brings up a list of 25 samples that we are to believe are popular (and hopefully not some manipulation on the part of Amazon to direct us to certain books).
    [They say they're from the already "best sellers.]

The Kindle Store experience has been greatly improved as well.  There's also a Carousel view, which thankfully one does not need to use. [ ]  Now, if only they'd add TTS [Text-to-Speech], I would use the app a little more (which I try to do anyway on the assumption that Amazon updates the apps that are used the most).

By my count there are at least 3 features unique to Kindle for Android:
- Voice search
- Send To Kindle (shows up as a Sharing option with a number of other Android apps)
- Popular Samples'

Thanks, Tom.  I use Google Voice search a lot on my Samsung S2 phone and on my 10" Galaxy tablet which I hardly use anymore since I am spoiled by the HD display of the KFires.

  Off topic
  Although we're talking about Kindle for Android and NOT Kindle Fire apps, I just tested my Google Voice app on my Kindle Fire anyway (I downloaded the app from 1mobile.com long ago) and it works really well.  This is just my usual, confusing side note.

  I use Dolphin browser (for its Flash support) on the KFire and when I brought up google search, I touched the side "||" mark to get the Menu on the side and tapped the Star to get Favorites while still using Dolphin browser  Then I tapped 'Voice' and once I did that, the mic icon showed and asked me to say what I wanted and I said, "a kindle world" and it gave me a short list of what I might have said to the mic.  I tapped the correct item and then Dolphin browser took over, and the Google links to the blog showed up.  Can we say 'insular' ? But Google Voice is so smooth -- both on pure Android devices (the topic of this blog article) and even on the Kindle Fire.

BACK to the topic of Kindle for Android devices
The user reviews for the Kindle for Android app at Google play store are an interesting read.  Excerpts from the first few on the top (the most recent):

. Wow, great app to read book - Also, the dictionary is very good as some people mentioned. Great work, Amazon!

. BETTER NOW...The app's interface is much cleaner and modern now.

[He mentions it has List View and that you don't have to use the Carousel.  You can just open the slider on the left, tap books and at the top right, toggle list view or grid view.]

. Best of the DRM readers [Loves the new Recent reads and the Carousel, as well as "the whole new layout. Good job!"]

That was just the first three showing right now, and you have to click on 'more' to read the rest.
  The 2nd page notes some things people want it to do (like TTS].

  Also, it's evident that the phone users are less ecstatic about how the layout fits on the smaller screens -- some of it is optimized for tablets.  Table of Contents links are too close to the edge on some devices, so you might turn back a page instead of going to the chapter selected.  Amazon is working on fixes for any glitches with the table of contents.

  Things to watch for:
  Reading progress was reset in a few cases.
  Some don't realize the Carousel is an option and that you can choose between List and Grid views.

  A mix of really happy and really unhappy reactions :-) depending on the devices.

  AND, at the Amazon app store, here are the reviews sorted by most recent date so that you can see what people are finding - positive and negative - about the update.

  5-star ratings are most evident, but with a few who experienced problems.  You should view these to see what experiences are for the pure-Android device(s) you own.  Again, customer support says they ARE working on an update for the glitches that occur in the Table of Contents for some.

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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.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button



Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Kindle Tips: Free Android App of the Day - Shred Guitar Mastery - LickJungle. Amazon's rating system and fairness to creators and other customers

Today's Free App of the Day, for Kindle Fire and other Android-based devices
- "For intermediate and advanced players"

Shred Guitar Mastery - LickJungle is a music app for guitar players although NOT for beginners.

  Even if a customer reviewer says that 'tablature' is "very good for beginners" -- the app itself is definitely not for beginners, and app creator AmparoSoft makes that clear in the Product Description.

  But since this app is normally $3.99 and is the free app for the one day only, I thought I should draw attention to it for those who would benefit from it.

As another customer mentions -- if you don't know how to play guitar, there's no reason to download an app that's marketed to intermediate to advanced players and expect it'll be something you can understand.

  Unfortunately, Amazon's policy is to allow customer reviews with lousy 1-star ratings from people who say they've not read a book because they don't like the premise, and Amazon keeps a 1-star review here from a customer who doesn't play guitar and who then gives the poor developer just one star, which lowers the overall rating.  This lowest rating is given even when the customer adds "If you play the guitar you will like it."

  Amazon could leave the words up but just leave the stars blank if they care about being fair to creators and other customers (once Amazon is notified of inappropriateness, since they request alerts that they then tend to ignore).

  I don't play guitar and don't plan to, so I'm not likely to download the app, but if I wanted to -- in case I wanted to learn later -- I sure wouldn't be doing a 1-star review on it.  Amazon really should take another look at their review system for entries which are not reviews.

  At least they've now started requesting 'feedback' on reviews in place of just reports of reviews that aren't 'appropriate.'
  I've seen Amazon intentionally leave 1-star product reviews up when a product was shipped late or not shipped by a marketplace vendor (which is definitely not a review of a product or work), and yet the creator has to see an important marketing tool (genuine feedback on a product that took a lot of work as a sullied by this type of policy, which is not helpful to interested customers.

  Customers who use the 'average customer rating' feature need to be able to trust the overall ratings more.

  Again, all Amazon has to do is show blank stars and not count an entry for 'review' when it's clearly not a review -- OR at least do some weighting of the rating (after people report real problems with appropriateness) that doesn't give that rating EQUAL weight with other reviews.

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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.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button


Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Hotmail App ready for Kindle Fire, which passed Samsung Galaxy Tab as most-used Android tablet, plus those 5-star accessory-reviews

Kindle Fire Edges Samsung Galaxy Tab and gets Hotmail app

I didn't think that very many people use hotmail accounts anymore, but apparently they do, enough, GMA News says, for Microsoft to announce the advantages of their new official Kindle Fire app:

In the Kindle Fire application, [Hotmail product management director] David Law said the new Hotmail app can sync all mail, contacts, folders, and subfolders via the more robust Exchange Active Sync protocol.
  In contrast, he said the native Kindle application [the only option until now] simply downloads mail via POP3.

  On the other hand, he said they had to tweak the app for Kindle Fire because it uses a different implementation of Android. '

GMA News added that "Law said the apps for iOS and Android benefit 12 million active Hotmail users on iOS and over three million active users of Android apps.


Kindle Fire, in first 2 months, edges past Samsung Galaxy Tab as most used Android tablet
  GigaOM's Ryan Kim writes that according to analytics firm Flurry, The Kindle Fire, which wasn't even released until mid-November, had "35.7 percent of application user sessions."

  The numbers compared usage in November and January, before and after the holiday season.  The intriguing graphs are on the Flurry page.  What's considered remarkable is that the Kindle Fire overtook the Galaxy Tab in such a very short time, despite "Galaxy Tab sessions increasing by more than 50%."

As reported by others, Android tablets have been growing aggressively suddenly, and the momentum has been identified as largely Kindle-Fire fueled.

  The ratio of of "Top Paid Downloads":
  Kindle, 2.53 and Galaxy Tab 1.00

  It does seem to reflect Amazon's focus on the razor-razorblade model, with a very low-cost razor driving, of course, sales of razor blades (what else?).  Flurry adds that this

"sheds light on why they [Amazon mgmt] embrace the end-user experience and the religious focus on making the sale of content compelling and easy.  Further, it shows us why launching with an aggressive low price penetration strategy for their hardware, priced at $199, was critical to its strategy.

  Amazon’s distribution model starts with its own roots: books, music and video (aka “BMV”).  Through this move, Kindle Fire is changing the rules of engagement on the Android platform to shape the playing field into one where they, the consumer and the developer win. '

Well, let's hope so.


Watch those 5-star Accessories reviews !
TIME Magazine cites yesterday's NY Times article on VIP Deals ('Vipertek') giving customers rebates for writing reviews while saying it strives for 5-star ones.

  I would add that a $10 case people liked when most cases were priced at $40 was likely also a factor, but the trend of buying reviews should be nipped fast.



Kindle Touch 3G   Kindle Touch WiFi   Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published ones
  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.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!