Kindle Tips: Kindle Reading app updates for iOS (v4.3) and Android (v4.5) - Switch between reading and listening in the app. Other enhancements for both iOS and Android.

   

Kindle reading-apps for Android and iOS updated with Audible Integration -- switching between reading and listening within the app

Salient points from the Amazon's press release:

The updated apps make it possible for you to "switch instantly between reading a Kindle book and listening to the companion audiobook from Audible—all with just one tap, without leaving the book."

Russ Grandinetti, SVP, Amazon Kindle, points out what they've tried to do here.  “Integrating professional narration into our Kindle apps means you never have to put down a favorite book -- start reading at home, get in the car and simply tap a button to continue listening without losing your place.”

" Audio upgrades are available for as little as $0.99, with upgrades to bestsellers like the Outlander series and The Hunger Games series available for as little as $3.99."

"Professional narration is available for more than 45,000 Kindle books and growing—including popular best-sellers from an array of genres.  You can easily add professional narration to your favorite Kindle books with one click using Matchmaker, a service that scans your Kindle library to find which of your Kindle books have a companion Audible version available.

  Audio upgrades are available for as little as $0.99, with upgrades to bestsellers like the Outlander series and The Hunger Games series available for as little as $3.99."

"For as little" of course means that these are the lowest prices and that other combinations will cost more.

That "Matchmaker page-report is really nicely done and, on my own Kindle books, the report page indicates that the most prevalent audio-addition cost, in my case, is between $3.99 and $6.49 but there is an occasional crazy $12.99, which I would never pay when I already have the Kindle book.  Audible and its authors/publishers should take another look at those.  But I see a couple that I'll probably get for the $4 additional since I often don't feel like (or can't be) reading but often wouldn't mind listening to a book (especially since I'm so behind on the ones I bought).


How does Whispersync for Voice work?
Amazon's Whispersync for Voice page has a clear diagram showing the basics of how the parts relate and how you use this convenient feature (without relying on the computerized voice we heard with the older eInk Kindles that had audio).


If this is a NEW Android app install
If you've never installed the Android app,
• go to Amazon's Kindle for Android app page
• Select "Download now"
• Follow the instructions to download the app to your device
• After installing the Kindle reading app, you'll need to register it to your Amazon account.

Kindle reading-app Updates - Where?
  . Kindle for Android Phone update page at Amazon appstore
  . Kindle for Android Tablet update page at Amazon appstore
  . or, if Google play was the original source anyway, Android Updates from Google play.


Apple's iTunes lists Additional features for the iOS v4.3 update:

• Access to more than 45,000 Kindle/Audible title pairs, including best sellers
• Find audiobooks compatible with items in your Kindle library – audiobooks are delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
• Whispersync for Voice automatically synchronizes reading progress between the Audible and Kindle versions of a book
• Read and listen to a Kindle book at the same time; pages turn automatically
• Narration speeds up to 2x and a sleep timer
• Download an entire collection – gives customers the ability to download an entire collection with the tap of a button, making it easier for readers to download in bulk and load their favorite books on a new iOS device
• Students can now find terms that are in X-Ray for Textbooks by using search – occurrences in X-Ray are shown right above occurrences in the book
• Finding where an X-Ray term occurs on a textbook page is now easier – tap a page thumbnail in the X-Ray feature and you will see the term highlighted in the page of the book
• Performance and stability improvements

Intrepid Explorer and Early Tester Tom Semple points out the ability to download an "entire collection," with one tap, to a new IOS device. Although I wasn't able to imagine why anyone would want to put their entire collection on a phone, Tom points out that their set-up routine shows that they mean "*a* collection" or collection set, not one's entire collection of Kindle books, which makes more sense but I wouldn't want to do even that, to a phone. I'd rather do multi-tagging and find it important to have, on my phone, only the few books I want to read currently.  And, although the good idea of using just one button when there are so many books in a collection, it makes me wonder why on earth one would want a large collection on the phone.  It could be that I've become too 'Clouded' in my approach.


Kindle for Android apps - new features
Amazon now seems to have (or is ready to have, in the future) individual apps for Android for phones and for tablets.  They both list the following features (adding "real-time highlighting" - a Kindle Fire HD feature since 2012:

• Read and listen to books simultaneously with real-time highlighting
• Find and purchase companion Audible audiobooks from the app
• Add multicolor highlights to text
• Copy and paste text from your book
• View reading progress from book badges in your Kindle library
• View download progress from the notification shade on your device
• Jump directly to previous locations with “placeholders” on the progress bar
• Tap the Back button to return to your Kindle library while reading

Note that, for the Kindle for Android apps, there's no mention of the ability to download an entire collection (set), via a tap, to a new Android device.  Again, I don't see that as something I'd want to do) -- I might for a tablet with good storage space though.

---

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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Kindle for iOS - Update v4.2 and reactions to it. Other Kindle-apps available. Personal Documents feature gets updates and enhancements

From:

Initial post: Apr 23, 2014 9:24:04 AM PDT

Megan H. - Forum Moderator says:

    

We're excited to announce an update for the Kindle for iOS reading app available in the Apple App Store.

What's new in version 4.2?

Table of Contents: Customers can now access their table of contents from the left panel navigation menu from within most books and see chapter headings and page numbers. Curious readers can tap a chapter to navigate directly to that part of the book.

X-Ray Smart Look-Up: Look up Amazon exclusive X-Ray information without ever leaving the page.  Select a word or name and learn more about the concept, person, or place in the Info Card provided at the bottom of the page.

So far, people do like the new Table of Contents and X-Ray features, and it was also pointed out by Ed at the Kindle Community Forums that "Previously page animations had to be off in order to get 'time left in chapter'.  Now it can be turned on and all works fine. Nice!"

Another Kindle iOS app user who was wondering why he can't copy highlighted text was reminded of something that most I've talked with do not realize -- that we all have our own Amazon Annotations Web Page (if we allow Amazon to back up our highlights and notes), at kindle.amazon.com -- I've described the amazing features (including reading and copying highlights and notes from our Kindle books) in the blog article about our own annotation webpages at Amazon.


Kindle app for OTHER phones and tablets
For those who read Kindle books on other phones and tablets, here's the general Amazon Kindle apps page to get to descriptions for those.


Personal Documents - Updates and Enhancements
Also, recently Amazon updated the Personal Documents feature (Kindle-device owners get 5 gigs free, for personal documents that are sent to our free Amazon server Personal Documents space, and these include non-rights-protected books, articles, and documents.  These will now be placed in the general "Cloud" drive along with other files for which we get additional free space.

  All Amazon customers worldwide also get 5 free gigs for other types of data such as photos, even video (but those can take a lot of space) and music not bought at Amazon.  Here's Amazon's forum announcement on that (emphases mine):

Initial post: Apr 15, 2014 4:51:55 PM PDT
Megan H. - Forum Moderator says:
(AMAZON) (AMAZON OFFICIAL)
We are excited to announce an improvement to the personal document experience on Kindle!

Personal documents are now in Amazon Cloud Drive: Starting today, all personal documents that you have archived in your Kindle Library will be available to access, delete, organize, and share from your Amazon Cloud Drive.  You can see these documents in a new "My Send-to-Kindle Docs" folder on Amazon Cloud Drive alongside all of your saved content, such as photos and personal videos.

There is no action required on your part.  Your personal documents features will continue to work just as they have in the past.  And as always, you can use Manage Your Devices and Content (formerly Manage Your Kindle) to see a list of your documents, re-deliver them to Kindle devices and free reading apps, delete them, or turn off auto-saving of documents to the cloud.  Documents will be delivered just as they have in the past and you will continue to have 5 GB of free cloud storage for your personal documents. Just "Send Once, Read Everywhere."

Documents saved in their native format: Also starting today, new documents that you save to the cloud with Send to Kindle will be kept in their native format (e.g. MS Word, RTF, TXT) so you can access them anywhere from Amazon Cloud Drive.

To learn more about sending documents, news, blogs, and other web articles to your Kindle, please visit http://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

To learn more about Amazon Cloud Drive features and apps, please visit http://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore

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(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!