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Amazon Launches All-New Kindle Apps for Android, Windows, iOS

Amazon has launched a new mobile Kindle app for Android and iOS (there’s also an update for the Kindle Windows app).

According to an early report over at MobileRead, the Kindle for Windows app (v1.21) includes a couple small features that help the app catch up with the previous versions of the Kindle mobile apps:

  • Ragged Right Alignment: You can now read using left-aligned (ragged right) text instead of full justification. This new alignment option can be selected from the Display Settings (Aa) menu in books.
  • Line Spacing: Further customize your reading experience by selecting from 3 different line spacing options. This new feature can be controlled from the Display Settings (Aa) menu in books.

You can find the app on Amazon.

Currently stuck somewhere between launch and delivery, the Android and iOS app features a new interface and a new search function. You should be able to find these apps in Google Play and iTunes, but the Android app is not available to all (I am still waiting to upgrade).

According the press release, the new Kindle mobile apps features include.

  • All-New Look–The Kindle app features a new look and feel inspired by books. Details include larger book covers, new fonts, a new app icon, and new light and dark background themes to choose from.
  • One-Tap Access–New bottom bar navigation automatically shows an icon of the book you’re currently reading, making it easier than ever to get back to reading at any moment. The bottom bar also provides quick access to Kindle’s most popular features allowing you to switch between the pages of your book, your library, your personal bookstore, and more.
  • Easy Search–The search bar is now always available throughout the app, so whether a book is in your library or among the millions of titles in the Kindle Store, it’s easier than ever to find it.

Discover and Discuss Books with Friends and the Goodreads Community on Kindle for iOS

The new Kindle for iOS app also helps customers discuss and get book recommendations from their friends, authors, and other readers with the Goodreads community now built right into the app. Goodreads, an Amazon subsidiary, is the world’s largest community of readers, with more than 65 million members.

"For as long as there have been books, people have discussed them with friends," said Otis Chandler, CEO and co-founder of Goodreads. "When you finish an amazing book, you can’t wait to find out if other readers feel the same way. Readers trust their friends for recommendations, with around half of them saying they discover books through word-of-mouth. With the new features on Kindle, connecting with your friends and similar readers in the Goodreads community is now built into the app."

Reading is better when you can discuss it with friends. In Kindle for iOS you can now:

  • Find New Books to Read–Browse the new Community tab to keep up-to-date with what friends and readers you follow are reading. When you find a book you are interested in, you can add it to your Want to Read list for quick reference when you are ready to start your next book.
  • Connect with Readers Who Like Similar Books–To help you get recommendations from readers who like the same books, Goodreads also suggests people to follow, including authors and popular Goodreads reviewers.
  • Share Your Thoughts About Books You’ve Read–Post notes and highlights from your book for friends to see and comment on. Easily share when you start reading a book, as well as your rating/review when you’ve finished a book.

Starting today, the Community tab featuring Goodreads discovery and discussion features are available on Kindle for iOS (in the US only), and will be coming to Kindle for Android in a future release. To learn more about how Kindle helps you read anytime, anywhere visit www.amazon.com/kindleapps.

 

image by chrismccorkle2

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Comments


Tom S October 24, 2017 um 9:03 pm

There is some glitch with App Store: shows ‘version 6’ in store listing but is not flagging the installed Kindle app as having an update even though it is version 5.15.2. I guess you can uninstall and reinstall but I’d have to download a bunch of audiobook companions all over again (3GB worth). I think I’ll wait to see if it gets fixed.

Tom S October 24, 2017 um 10:06 pm

I went ahead and updated my iPad (uninstall reinstall) as it isn’t as loaded up. Library screen is nicer, goodreads seems more comfortably integrated. Cosmetics. From reading mode it now takes only 2 instead of 3 taps to get back to Library (like Kindle/Fire/Android). So one annoyance gone.

Tom S October 25, 2017 um 11:09 am

Version 6.0.1 showed up last night and fixes the update-not-flagged problem.

My Lollipop (Android 5.1) device has not updated yet.


Mary October 25, 2017 um 9:02 am

The update was available yesterday on my iPhone, and then this morning on my iPad Air 2. But nothing yet on the iPad Mini 4. I do think that odd that it would not present itself everywhere at the same time My big panic moment on the phone yesterday was when it started up in Grid mode with the covers showing. For quite awhile I could not find List mode but when I did, all was well again The social media stuff means nothing to me, and I suspect that is the main change, since the emphasis on the press release makes so much of it.


Marilynn Byerly October 25, 2017 um 1:36 pm

The Kindle Reader I have on my Android Nook changed its look yesterday. I hate it so far because it’s all about buying books, not about dealing with the ones in my library. I spent ten minutes last night trying to figure out how to delete a library book icon for a book I returned and never did figure out how. People rave about how wonderful the Kindle Reader is over the Nook reader, but, using both, I heartily disagree.

Nate Hoffelder October 25, 2017 um 1:39 pm

Ah, it sounds like you are stuck with the same experience I have on my Fire tablet.

I am sorry to hear that.

Tom S October 26, 2017 um 11:16 am

To remove a previously borrowed and returned library book from your collection, you have to go to Manage Your Content and Devices. If you have the Amazon Store (Shop Amazon) app on your device , this can be found in Your Account->Content and Devices. You can scroll to Borrowed Expired items or set filter to see only Borrowed items. Then tap the ‘…’ button and there should be a Delete option. This is the same place you need to go to return a book before lending period has expired so you can do both things while you are at it.

Tom S October 26, 2017 um 11:27 am

Of course you can also use a web browser to go to Content and Devices, but on a mobile device using the app is probably a little more convenient.

I like the redesign very much (if you think it is all about buying books, just stay on the Library page – nobody is making you visit Home or Store). Or get an iOS device, which makes it impossible to buy anything in the app.

Moreover on my aging Moto G (1st gen) the app launches and opens much faster than previously. The look and feel of iOS and Android Kindle apps is converging, which makes it less jarring to switch between them. There are still some behavioral differences in reading mode but it is probably better to take a more gradual approach with that (as they have been doing).


Ronnie Sullivan November 2, 2017 um 3:34 pm

I have over 1500 books in my library. The new kindle app has just lumped all of my books into the library, including the ones that I have not read yet. There is NO way to see what is on my device, as they took that option away. Extremely frustrating, as I have probably bought about 50 books that I have not read yet. Now I have to find them, somehow.

Mike Hall November 18, 2017 um 4:53 am

Is this the iOS app? On the Android one the library page still gives you the old choice between "All" and "Downloaded". What I’d actually like to see is a third option, "Archived" – which used to exist in the PC app before being replaced by "All" – so I could see which books I’d not downloaded.


Pam Mortensen November 17, 2017 um 4:38 pm

How do you add books to your collections? How do you get back to the Kindle menu when you are in a book? I already have to use my iPad to find a book because my Paperwhitw is too difficult to sort or search. This is NOT an improvement! I can’t search my own library! I wish there wa# an easy way to mark my books as read.

Mike Hall November 18, 2017 um 4:45 am

My preferred approach is to collections is to use "Manage Content" on my PC when I buy the book and make subsequent changes – after reading for example – on my Paperwhite.

However, it is easy to add a book to a collection in the Android app (I’ve not seen the iOS one so cannot comment on that). In the library view find the book, press on it in the listing until a tick appears to show it has been selected and then press the plus sign at the top of the screen to get the "add to collection" list (which presumably also allows you to remove it from a collection, though I’ve not actually tried this.)

I’m not quite sure what you mean by the Kindle Menu but if you tap at the top of a page whilst reading a book you get a set of icons at the top of the page and the down arrow at the left takes you back to the library view, which comes pretty close to my idea of a Kindle Menu.

I’m afraid I found your comment that your Paperwhite is too difficult to sort or search a little odd. I have 2000+ books on mine and have no such difficulties – its just a matter of making an appropriate change to the way the titles are grouped and sorted and then tapping at the bottom right corner of the screen to bring up the "go to" menu. I guess that if you’ve forgotten the book exists – or don’t recall its title or author – it could be hard to find and maybe you are trying to do different kind of searches?. It would be nice to be able to flag a book as read (and maybe also as started but not finished) but I’ve always achieved this by putting a new books into one (of several) "unread" collections as well as the genre or author specific one where I want to permanently store it. All I have to do is to remember to remove it from the "unread" collection once I’ve finished it.


Pam Mortensen November 18, 2017 um 9:25 am

Thank you for your help. Since my first post I have figured out a few things. I still find it difficult to sift through my books on the Paperwhite unless the books are already in a Collection. Unfortunately I also have over 2,000 books and when I was new to this did not know about collections so a large portion of my library is not in a collection. I wish there was a way to archive books I have already read so they don’t show up in my list of books when I am looking for something new to read. Overall I love my Kindle Paperwhite but Amazon could improve the organization and make it a little more user friendly. JMOHO.

Mike Hall November 18, 2017 um 1:25 pm

I am fortunate enough to have started using collections back when I first got a keyboard Kindle so I do not have your problem. I often put our Paperwhites into "All Items" view, sort by Collections and go to the last page to find anything I’ve missed putting into a collection but this is never more than one or two books and not the hundreds or thousands you would see. I wish I could suggest some simple solution other than the option of working through everything and putting the books into collections, which would be a big and decidedly tedious task. I’d like to be able to mark books as read – other than implicitly by deleting them from the device or moving them to another collection – but I do not have too much trouble finding the next book to read by selecting a collection (based on my current mood) and scanning the contents; it helps that I have a TBR collection for some recently purchased books and another called "Next in series" for those titles where I’ve bought but not yet read the next book.


Ronnie Sullivan November 18, 2017 um 9:38 am

I am still struggling with the NEW* app for android. The downloaded tab helps a bit, but the books don’t always go to my phone as well as my tablet. Sometimes you can download to both, but most times not. Don’t like that ALL tab. And especially don’t like the ADS that come up. Once you read a book, you must go home, find the book, download it "again" to get it to pop up on the top, and then use the pull down menu to "remove from device". The hold, hold and choose was so much simpler. Again, No way to see what has been read or not read in the library.

Mike Hall November 18, 2017 um 1:57 pm

There are quite a few things I don’t like about the android app; for example, the way in which – so far as I can see – you cannot hide collections from view as you can on the Paperwhite, which means that I am presented with a bunch of collections for which none of the books have been (or will be) downloaded to the device. As for the ALL tab, I pretty much try to avoid it unless absolutely forced to do so. Fortunately, any recently purchased books that I’ve not yet downloaded will appear on the HOME page without needing to find them in the LIBRARY page.

However, I’ve not had the problems you report when I want to remove a title from the device. Maybe we have our apps set up differently? I have sorting set up as "most recent" so when I close a book after finishing it it appears as the first entry in the library or collection and is just sitting there waiting to be deleted. A press to select it and it can then be removed from the device (though why you have inconsistent ways of doing it is another matter: you click a rubbish bin icon in the library but in collections you have to hit the 3-dot menu and then "Remove from Device").

As for downloads, I normally do these from the PC when I buy then book – it’s just a question of deciding which devices (in addition to the default selected at purchase) that the titles are to go to – and I’ve never had problems with this method. I adopted this approach as I also have a Kindle Fire and this has sometimes proved reluctant to download books when I clicked on them. However, my phone and standard android tablets have never had a problem.


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