One of the great things about the Kindle wireless reading device, is that when new upgrades to software come out, you don’t really need to think about them. Once any bugs are ironed out the updates are simply sent out to all devices when they are connected with wi-fi to the Kindle store.
This makes things pretty convenient, but can be a little confusing if you don’t realise what is going on! It also leaves us a little behind sometimes with the improvements that are ongoing to such a device.
The Kindle 3.1 Software Update delivered to devices in Feb 2011 has primarily been met with great customer reactions. Of course a few souls would rather nothing changes, and bemoan the loss of their on page location, even though they now have a location and page number just one click away from the page they are reading! But you cannot please everyone I guess. On the whole though the four upgrades are great, making the Kindle more user friendly, and far more “Social” than ever before. Stephen Fry might have brought Tweeting to our attention, but now even the humble Kindle is getting in on the action. Read on for a little low down on what the Kindle 3.1 is all about…
Kindle 3.1 & Social Media
Yes, the Kindle 3 has had some social aspects since the beginning. But if the latest software update is anything to go by, this trend is going to keep getting more important for users. Two key features have arrived with “Before You Go…” and “Public Notes”.
Before You Go expands on the ability to update your Twitter or Facebook accounts with annotations and excerpts. Now, when you finish a book you are asked to rate and review it. This information can then of course go to your social network of choice, or simply form part of the huge arsenal of reviews on the Amazon site, which will be used to help suggest further titles that you might like, based on what others went on to read, who also enjoyed your just finished tome.
If that simply isn’t interactive enough for you, you can now join forces with other Kindle owners within the Public Notes network. For each book in your library you can choose to share details, such as your progress, your thoughts, notes and annotations. The site then allows you to follow other owners as they progress through their libraries too. On the face of it, this is Facebook for electronic books, but with marketing so important, expect to be able to follow so prominent personalities and authors as the idea catches on. Not for everyone, but great if you need the world to know exactly what you are up to.
Kindle Page Numbers
You could always view your progress through a title, and even see a specific location, that made sense to no-one but another Kindle owner reading the same book, but you couldn’t tell anyone what page of your ebook you were on. Of course this is hardly surprising when the number of pages you read, with your tiny font-size will be smaller than the number I view with my less than perfect vision. But even though it is a small thing, it was pretty annoying at times.
The answer is that wherever you are in your book, you can find out what page you would be on, if you were reading the old fashioned ink and paper version. Each ebook that has page numbers (and though they do not all have them yet, expect this to become the norm), will be allocated a real book counterpart. Compare ISBN numbers and you can see what page you would be on if you were hauling around the real world version.
Kindle Magazine and Newspaper Layout Upgrade
This part of the software upgrade is being a little over-looked by all that fancy social stuff. Frankly we think it is the most important part of the deal. Navigating periodicals has become far less of a chore. You can now view article snippets easily and find exactly what it is you want to read in full. Perhaps not perfect yet, the improvements make reading such items far more like browsing through a paper copy in your hands.
Kindle 3.1 Software
All in all, we feel the Kindle 3.1 is a huge success. No we won’t all be following authors and reviewing our books. But that is the future, there is no doubt about it. More important, personally is the ability to peruse a newspaper and feel like I can glance through the news and then go back to the pieces I really want to investigate further. The aim of the Kindle has always been to be “like reading but better” and in this case I think it really is getting there.
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Excellant much easier than reading paper books.