Showing posts with label kindle for android update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kindle for android update. Show all posts

Friday, September 2, 2011

Kindle for Android Update to v3.1.0


TFTS' Robert Nelson
reports that there is a Kindle for Android update today, to v3.1.0 and is, of course, a free download at Amazon or the Android Market.

This brings a new Home interface, bug fixes, book reocmmendations in your library, and in-app upgrade-notifications.

Nelson explains the update is for those with Android 2.1 or later and is a 3.2MB download.  The screenshot seen here, by TFTS, shows the new Home screen.  The Links at the top are for Home, On Device, Archive and the Store.

If you'd rather see the older layout, touch the On Device link and you'll see something similar to that.  Nelson finds the store easier to access now.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.


Friday, April 22, 2011

Kindle News Roundup: NYReview of Books Kindle Ed., More on rumored Samsung/Amazon tablet; Kindle for Android Update; Amazon Germany's Kindlestore opens; publishing in Amazon.de Kindle Store


KINDLE NEWS THIS WEEK

New York Review of Books
This excellent resource is finally available in a Kindle edition.  The New York Review of Books reviews "...the most engrossing new books and the ideas that illuminate them."  There's a 14-day free trial and you can unsubscribe during that time.

Kindle for Android
The Kindle for Android app has been updated to tailor it for tablet-computers, with enhancements that take advantage of the larger screen. New features include
  . the Ability to pause, resume download at any time
  . enhanced word look-up capability (for Android-based phones and tablets)
    with built-in dictionary with over 250,000 entries and definitions.

Amazon.de Launches German Kindle Store
Amazon's press release says that the Amazon.de Kindle Shop will have the Largest Selection of Any E-Bookstore in Germany.
  It launches with "650,000 titles, 71 of 100 Spiegel bestsellers, and over 25,000 German-language titles with thousands of German classics downloadable for free only on Kindle.  Top German and international newspapers and magazines are also available for single purchase or subscription including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Handelsblatt and Die Zeit."

 Also, Amazon announced yesterday that authors and publishers worldwide are now able to make their books available in the Amazon.de Kindle Books store in Germany, using the (kdp.amazon.de) Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service.

  "German-language authors and publishers can utilize the new German KDP website to make their books available in Germany, Austria, the U.K., U.S. and over 100 countries worldwide. The popular KDP 70% royalty option, which allows authors and publishers worldwide to make more money on books sold to Kindle customers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, is now also available for books sold in Germany and Austria. Additionally, publishers can now receive their payment in either Euros, British pounds or U.S. dollars. For more information and program terms, please visit kdp.amazon.de."

MORE on that Rumored Kindle Tablet via Samsung
Peter Rojas, who wrote the article this week about the probability of a Samsung-built Amazon tablet, was the co-founder and former Editor of Engadget and is now co-founder of gdgt.com.  He has very good connections in the industry and, while there's always the small chance he can receive bad information, his sources are probably more solid than the usual.

Also, on November 5, 2010, I wrote a blog article about the rumor of an Amazon Android tablet being quite strong because Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka cybercinic, had quietly included in a column the following:
' Sources at Amazon tell me that the company will indeed produce a mass-market Android tablet.  I can't tell you its size, pricing, when it's expected to ship, or anything else of substance.  The one thing I do know is that, like the Kindle, it will run Linux with a Java-based interface.  In short, this new tablet Kindle, let's call it "KinTablet," will run Android. '
 Some have said that Amazon would not want to upset its OEM partners by releasing a 'competing tablet' but Kendrick feels it would not be so much a tablet built to compete but "would be intended to extend the company’s retail operation into the next logical space."

  To speculation or hopes that this would be a particularly mighty tablet, ZDNet's James Kendrick writes, "Amazon’s intent would not be to produce a state-of-the-art mobile device" but would instead "be designed to have the Amazon retail system completely ingrained into a decent, economical tablet.  Amazon's own Android Apps store would probably be 'curated' (as Apple's is and B&N plans to be, for Non-rooted NookColors), but in effect, competing with Google's Android market, which is 'open' but also leaves non-computer-intense customers to their own security measures and is disorganized and confusing to many.

  In another article, about the Kindle with special offers and straight-out, large ads on its screensleepers and on the bottom area of the Home screen of book titles, Kendrick writes:
' If only 1 percent of ... Android activations resulted in a Kindle customer, that is over a million new customers every year for Amazon content.  That’s a conservative number, but the size of the Android market is huge.  Most Kindle app users probably buy multiple ebooks from Amazon...it’s no surprise that Amazon is selling so many ebooks..."

"So this ad-supported Kindle reader will probably get more devices in the hands of new customers, but that’s not the real story.  I wonder if this is Amazon’s first baby steps into developing its own ad network for its future mobile devices that it is probably working on.  I firmly believe Amazon is about to disrupt the mobile space by entering into the mobile space with a tablet device, and take Apple on directly.  An ad network would be another piece of the ecosystem to go head-to-head with Cupertino. '

I wondered the other day if Apple's sudden lawsuit against Samsung (a supplier for Apple), for look & feel concerns, might be explained by this rumored tablet partnership with Amazon.  I wasn't the only one wondering out loud.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   K3 Special, $114   DX Graphite

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 £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Kindle for Android updated. Amazon re Kindle non-lighted cover. Revised

Android Community's Chris Davies reports that there is a large Kindle for Android update today and as a result, it's now called Kindle for Android, v2.0 and is, as usual, a free download.

  The updated version now "includes newspaper and magazine support together with 'Move to SD Card' functionality enabled ... allows access to Amazon’s 100+ periodical titles, and shifts the Amazon store into the app itself rather than kicking you into the web version when you want to buy a new ebook.

Meanwhile there’s also support for sharing your reading progress with social networks. The UI has been tweaked, with the option to use your Android smartphone’s volume keys to control page turns, and the chapter title now included in the reader status bar; there’s also zoom functionality for images and graphics."

SOME AMAZON KINDLE COVERS, NON-LIGHT VERSIONS HAVE CAUSED REBOOTS
There have been various threads at the Amazon Kindle Community forums about what has appeared to be a problem with some batches of the Kindle leather cover without a built-in light but with the hinges that in the Kindle lighted cover make contact with the Kindle to provide power for the built-in light (which goes 'off' when the Kindle is in sleep mode).  In other words, in the lighted-covers, there's no problem but with some of the non-lighted Amazon Kindle ones, the hinges are similar but no electrical contact was intended.

  It's speculated that if the latter's hinges are metal (some seem to be plastic and not causing problems), there is contact made that has caused reboots for some Kindle-3 owners for whom Amazon has replaced Kindles several times to no avail (while other others haven't had any trouble).  And some feel that the problems have shown up more with cold weather.

 In the forums, the customers have been discovering that if they remove the Kindle from their non-lighted Amazon Kindle cover, the reboots stop.

[Edited to clarify this paragraph]
This has been consistent, with what had originally been thought to be problems with certain Kindle-3s but weren't, and the reports about the cover problem for some have been increasing lately.

In a Kindle thread last night, Amazon Kindle Support responded (2nd note from the bottom there) to the increasing frustration due to some inconsistency of response from Customer Support reps at the first-response level:
'                     In reply to an earlier post on Dec. 16, 2010 10:10 PM PST

The Amazon Kindle team says:
(AMAZON OFFICIAL)

There have been some forum discussions regarding the non-lighted Kindle cover, and our engineering team is looking into this.  Regardless, if anyone is having any problem with an Amazon-manufactured Kindle cover, please contact us at kindle-response@amazon.com, and we will be pleased to replace it for free or accept a return for a full refund, no matter when the cover was purchased. '

Side note:  A couple of Kindle owners have solved the problem for themselves by putting electrical tape around the upper hinge's contact point.

  The non-problem lighted-cover costs $25 more, and while many are happy with it, as seen in various forum threads and a good added light will cost an average $15 or so, this will be too much for some even if they have liked the case quite a bit -- and there are less expensive non-lighted cases.  One example is the Acase, a platform type that costs about $11.  While the quality won't be as high (as pointed out in the few customer reviews from confirmed buyers), people still give it 4 stars out of 5 and, at the least, it will keep the Kindle safe while making a decision on a better one.  Others are planning to accept the refund and apply it to the lighted case.
[Edited the link for the Acase cover as I had the general covers link there instead.]

  But there are a plethora of Kindle-3 covers from which to choose.

  I should add that I use a Cole-Haan with hinges but it has caused no reboots and the Kindle is always in the cover; however, it's expensive and I got it when there was a large discount on it briefly.  So any hinge problems would be with certain batches of the official Amazon Kindle non-lighted cover.


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

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.