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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Kindle News: New update v3.9.1 for the Kindle for iOS app - fixes freezes, etc..

Kindle for iOS app has now been upgraded to v3.9.1.

This was done for "Stability and performance improvements" over v3.9 that saw problems with the Search function causing not only extreme slowdowns but freezes.

At the Kindle Forums, Kindle Universe contributor Tom Semple points out, re the dictionary function:

' In terms of the update, I cannot use a Russian-English dictionary I have with the 'Bring Your Own Dictionary' feature.  The app detects that it IS a dictionary, and lists it along with the other dictionaries, but when I select it, no definition is returned.

  The same dictionary and Russian text works perfectly on my Paperwhite. Seems like a bug. '

[ AB Note: Tom adds something below that he noticed with Dropbox (which is
    not an Amazon appstore app but is very popular.]

' I don't know if this is related to the update, and haven't tried it for awhile, but I used to be able to open .mobi files from Dropbox (it should offer Kindle as one of the Open In choices).
  This does not work on my iPod Touch, but does work on iPad. '

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Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links.

US: Updated Kindle Fire 2 Basic  7" tablet - $159 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB - $199/$229 * Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16/32GB - $269/$299 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G 32/64GB - $399/$499 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $69/$89 Kindle Touch WiFi - $99 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - $119/$139 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi+3G - $179/$199 Kindle Keybd 3G - $139/$159, Free slow web Kindle DX - $379 $299 (Yes)

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £69 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - ~£89 Refurb'd Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - £109 Kindle Paperwhite 3G, UK - £169 Kindle Fire 2, UK -  £129 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB, UK - £159/199 Canada - Kindlestore, CDN-$ Kindle Basic, NoTouch - $79 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - $129 Kindle Paperwhite, 3G - $199 Kindle Fire HD 7" - 214.00 KFire HD 7" $214,  8.9" $284

*OTHER Int'l pages* Kindle NoTouch Basic - $89 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB Paperwhite WiFi $139, 3G/Wifi $199 KFire HD 7" $214,  8.9" $284 France Boutique Kindle Deutschland - Kindle Store Italia - Kindle Store Spain - Tienda Kindle Brazil - Amazon BrazilRp China - Amazon China [?] Japan - Amazon Japan

Kindle Fire HD 7: * $40 off on both 16GB and 32GB models, 8/4/13, for a limited time.

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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


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Kindle News: Kindle for iOS updated to v3.6.- Updated info

Kindle for iOS Update v3.6

The update was announced in an Amazon Kindle Forum thread yesterday.

Here's the posting there (emphases mine):

' Initial post: Feb 14, 2013 9:13:49 AM PST

Kevin G. - Community Manager says:

Kindle for iOS 3.6 is now available in the Apple App Store. New features include:

* Multicolor Highlights - Four color choices make it easier to distinguish important passages.
* Book End Actions - Just finish your book? Share the accomplishment with friends on Facebook and Twitter. Rate and write your own review.
* Brightness Control - the brightness setting will now be saved across device sleeps.

If you have questions about this update please ask visit the Kindle Help Forum: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/forums/kindleqna '

Nice to have the separate brightness setting.  Hope they make this possible with Amazon's own Kindle devices.
  Update - Commenter Tom Semple adds that he thinks there was a brightness setting before "but the setting didn't persist if you went to another app and returned (iOS apps have to save their 'state' and shut down when you switch to another app). So that's more of a bug fix.
  ":-)

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Kindle News: Kindle app for iOS gets X-Ray feature. Also, new "FreeTime Unlimited" parental control plan. Kindle Fire HD 8.9" software update v8.1.3

Two Amazon announcements this week and a Kindle Fire HD 8.9 tablet S/W update

First:
Photo credit: Ben Rotman at Lost at e minor.

See the larger version of the penguin-x-rays image and more at that site.

  Also, indie publishers, Rotman has an intriguing excerpt (involving a seemingly sleepless child whose nights are spent exploring his urban surrounds on the trains of Paris) from "an as yet unpublished screenplay."

  Also check out the whimsical flip flops by Kusa at the end of the page.
  (I don't know him -- I found his x-ray images for the blog and enjoyed them and the site.)

Others of you who may be more interested in crafts, might enjoy the feature on Izziyana Suhaimi's "black and white pencil and watercolor drawings with colorful ornate embroidery in her seductive textured illustrations."

All right, when here, I've been gathering and organizing material for some HowTo-oriented articles, but they're not ready at the moment.  After that off-topic intro prompted by the X-ray feature, I'll bring you the latest commercial Kindle-related news from Amazon.

  Note to Kindle-Edition blog subscribers: Remember that if you click to follow a link, you can click on an article and then choose Menu/ArticleView to read it in a special book-like format.


Kindle for iOS gets X-ray support
PC Magazine's Stephanie Miot relays an alert on the Kindle for iOS app update.

For those who've seen the name of a character on a page and wondered WHO that was in pages past, Amazon's X-Ray can be a Godsend.  I've appreciated it most in books like Columbine and for the many characters in Steve Jobs's life.  X-ray links you to every appearance of that person in the book, in context of a paragraph for each.  True for topics, ideas, etc.

This update for iOS also has manga image rendering improvements.


Kindle FreeTime Unlimited
The key word in the BusinessWire release is Unlimited - and it's an optional upgrade over the free version of FreeTime, which is available for the new Kindle Fire models announced in September 2012.

  For families who could benefit from this new content service "for kids ages 3-8," it features unlimited access "to thousands of titles including exclusive-to-Amazon Android apps and games—all curated for age-appropriateness."

  The new feature is priced at $2.99/mo. per child for Prime members, or $6.99 per month per family ($4.99 per child or $9.99 per family for non-Prime members).  It'll be available "as part of a free, over-the-air software update that will be automatically delivered in the coming weeks."

  Owners of any of the new Kindle Fires can try it at no cost during the first month of use.

  Per the press release, some of the benefits mentioned:
  For children:

• They can explore all the content on their own and pick for themselves what to read, watch or play next
• With individual profiles, everything in their library is theirs—no sharing a home screen with siblings or parents and no losing their place in a movie or TV show when someone else picks up the Kindle Fire
• They can easily explore their favorite topics...

For parents:

• All apps have in-app payments, advertisements and social media removed
• No worries that the young'un will run up a bill
• All-you-can-eat pricing means no negotiations with the kids about what to buy or rent
• All content has been pre-screened for age-appropriateness.

For details on the content (which includes "Popular Kids Movies and TV Shows" and how it all works, see the BusinessWire release.

As an aside, when I worked for a science-education museum, I was advised not to refer to children as "kids" as that word refers more to goats :-).  In real life, that's the general word though.  "The kids [don't] want to do that!"


Software Update for Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch tablet
Software update v8.1.3 was just released and was received at my Kindle Fire Hd 8.9" tablet sometime in the last two days.  When an update happens, your tablet may act strangely when you fire it up and it decides there is enough battery power remaining to download and install the new upgrade.

  The software update info, including how to tell which software version you have currently, and a guide to how to get the update manually (for what appears to be just a maintenance (glitch-fix) update) is on Amazon's KFHD 8.9" software page.

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Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links.
NOTES on newer Kindles.

US: Updated Kindle Fire Basic  7" tablet - $159 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB - $199/$249 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16/32GB - $299/$369 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G 32/64GB - $499/$599 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $69/$89 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - $119/$139 Kindle Paperwhite, 3G - $179/$199 Kindle Keybd 3G - $139/$159, Free but slow web Kindle DX - $379 $299, Free, slow web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £69 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £89 Refurb'd Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - £109 Kindle Paperwhite 3G, UK - £169 Kindle Fire 2, UK -  £129 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB, UK - £159/199

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $89 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB France Boutique Kindle Deutschland - Kindle Store Italia - Kindle Store Spain - Tienda Kindle

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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!

Kindle News: Update v2.6 for Kindle for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, for iOS 6 and iPhone 5 support, more brightness control, new font selections

Be sure to read the Warning below for devices with versions EARLIER THAN iOS 5.

From an Amazon Kindle Forum announcement a few days ago:

'                                               Initial post: Sep 24, 2012 10:27:38 AM PDT

Kevin G. - Community Manager says:


The latest version of Kindle for iOS is 3.3. Recent updates include:
* Optimization for iOS 6
* iPhone 5 support
* Increased brightness control: greater control of lower ranges for
   improved reading in dark conditions
* New font selections
* Minimum supported version increased to iOS 5

To check which version of Kindle for iOS you have, tap the Settings icon (the cog) in the lower right corner of the application Home screen (on the iPhone, then tap "i") and then tap About.  You can download and install the latest version for free from the App Store.  To learn more, visit http://www.amazon.com/kindleapp.

If you need help with this update, please visit the Kindle Help Forums '

Again, note that the minimum iOS version supported is iOS 5.

WARNING for those with earlier iOS versions
M. Ratcheson found a reason for some update problems at the Kindle for iDevices help page (emphases mine).

' Why can't I install the latest Kindle app?

In order to offer new and enhanced features on Kindle for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the minimum requirement for the reading app is iOS 5 and greater.

We are unable to make previous versions of the app available for download due to App Store restrictions.  If your Apple device has software versions 3.0 or 3.1, we recommend that you do not uninstall your current Kindle app as it will no longer be available to download.  Some devices cannot update to iOS 5.0 including iPhone 1, iPhone 3g, iPod 2, and iPod 1.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. '

Per forum responses, the new fonts include Helvetica, and these additional fonts and adjustable margins in 3.2 have improved the reading experience on the iPad.

---

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!

Update v2.6 for Kindle for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad - Real page numbers etc

The Kindle for iPhone (also for iPod Touch and iPad) app has been updated with version 2.6 with the following new features:

• Real page numbers for thousands of books in the Kindle Store.  Now you can make proper citations in the classroom or follow along with people reading print books in a book club.
• View your percentage completed while reading [new for iPhone/iPod Touch].
• Home screen now shows your progress through books in list view.
• Look up words on Google and Wikipedia without leaving the app.
• Instant word lookup on included dictionary with 250,000 entries and definitions

You can see full details and download the new update by clicking the top image at the Kindle for iPhone/iPod Touch app page.  You'll get the same info at the Kindle for iPad app page except that it doesn't include "View your percentage completed while reading" as a new feature for the iPad (it may have been included before).

Thanks to Golf11 (Randall) again for the alert Sunday.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers. 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!