Kindle for iOS 4.1 released

Kindle for iOS 4.1 has been released released. This seems to be a major release with lots of newly added features.

ETA:

• Added Page numbers and time left to page footer
• Added notebook filters
• Updated X-Ray
• Redesigned the Dictionary
• Refined the Collections

[Jessica Lares]

What are "notebook filters"?

Didn't they add flash cards too?

I think the word usage examples in the redesigned Dictionary are much to light to read very easily. They need to change the color of the text to black rather than light grey!

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

What are "notebook filters"?

Didn't they add flash cards too?

You can list your notes using filters. If you have a gillion notes this will be helpful.

They added flashcards and a bunch of stuff. I cannot find a selectable list to copy and paste here, but it tells you in the App Store.

[tomsem]

Also:
- improvements for print replica: Flashcards & improved search

The 'annotation' (notebook) filter is nice. In particular, it makes it easier to use bookmarks as navigation points (which has always been the point of bookmarks/dog ears).

You can now 'star' annotations (notebook entries). Wonder who asked for that?

I didn't notice what changed with collections. Will have to check my iPad before updating it. They still need to add ability to show collection as List and sort it (as with Android app). Also if you open something from a Collection it should return you to that same collection when returning to Library (as with Android). Still both are better implementations of CC than what the Fire update delivered.

And please, when oh when will they add NCX navigator?

[tomsem]

Flashcards are just for Print Replica. Study aids.

The notebook filters let you select what type of notebooks item to show (hiding the others): All, Starred, Bookmarks, Notes, All Highlights, Pink Highlights, Orange Highlights, Yellow Highlights, Blue Highlights. Kindles have had something similar (except for colors of course) for quite awhile, going back to at least Kindle Keyboard I think.

[HarryT]

One thing I've noticed with the new version is that when, from a book, I tap the menu item to return to the library, there's a significant delay (about 10-15s) before the library screen appears, whereas previously it was instant. I do have quite a large library on my Kindle (around 1500 books) which may account for it.

EDIT: Similarly, if I switch away from the Kindle App with the library screen on display, and then switch back to it, everything is frozen for about 10s before the library page starts responding. A real nuisance. I've reported the issue to Amazon - I hope they can fix it!

[Jessica Lares]

Thanks everyone.

I was hoping that the flashcard feature was like the one on the Paperwhite 2, which I really like. It doesn't seem like they made a great choice limiting the use to replica textbooks in the apps. That leaves out tons of other books that are not textbooks so to speak, but are used in colleges otherwise.

But that's really cool about the notebook. I'm going to give that a try this semester.

[HarryT]

Is anyone else experiencing the slowdown with the library page that I'm seeing?

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is anyone else experiencing the slowdown with the library page that I'm seeing?

No slow down here, but most of my books are in the iCloud and that might make a difference. I think I've got only 20 books/docs on the iPad Mini Retina at the moment.

[HarryT]

Yes, I'm sure it is an effect related to library size. Amazon's suggestion is to uninstall and reinstall the App, but obviously doing that would lose all my books. It's taken many hours to transfer them all from Calibre, so I'm reluctant to do that.

Originally Posted by tomsem

Also:
- improvements for print replica: Flashcards & improved search

The 'annotation' (notebook) filter is nice. In particular, it makes it easier to use bookmarks as navigation points (which has always been the point of bookmarks/dog ears).

You can now 'star' annotations (notebook entries). Wonder who asked for that?

I didn't notice what changed with collections. Will have to check my iPad before updating it. They still need to add ability to show collection as List and sort it (as with Android app). Also if you open something from a Collection it should return you to that same collection when returning to Library (as with Android). Still both are better implementations of CC than what the Fire update delivered.

And please, when oh when will they add NCX navigator?

I'm unable to see anything different in Collections on my iPad Mini Retina. They still show iCloud books/docs whether you like it or not. They use a little checkmark in the bottom-right of the book thumbnail to indicate if the book is on your device, but they do not dim or grey the iCloud only book thumbnails. So it isn't readily easy to see what is loaded on the device unless you look for the not so noticeable checkmark. Collections are still in need of a major overhall IMO.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I'm unable to see anything different in Collections on my iPad Mini Retina. They still show iCloud books/docs whether you like it or not. They use a little checkmark in the bottom-right of the book thumbnail to indicate if the book is on your device, but they do not dim or grey the iCloud only book thumbnails. So it isn't readily easy to see what is loaded on the device unless you look for the not so noticeable checkmark. Collections are still in need of a major overhall IMO.

According to the update description:

From the library view, customers can now see which collections a book already belongs to and can add or remove from multiple collections using multi edit.

So it sounds as if it's an improvement in managing which collections a book is in, rather than which books are in a given collection. Useful, but I agree with you that collection management still needs work.

EDIT: I see now what they've done. If you tap and hold the check mark at the right side of the library page alongside a book, you get a popup, one of whose items is "Add to Collection". That takes you to a page allowing you to easily add and remove the book from multiple collections. That's the new feature - it's something that the eInk Kindles have had for a long time.

Originally Posted by HarryT

According to the update description:

So it sounds as if it's an improvement in managing which collections a book is in, rather than which books are in a given collection. Useful, but I agree with you that collection management still needs work.

I read that last night and looked for the changes, but I cannot see anything new. I do NOT see how we can tell which collections a book is in, other than the old way of looking inside each collection. They gave us no instructions for this and it is anything but intuitive. I'll explore some more, but so far I just don't see these changes at all.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I read that last night and looked for the changes, but I cannot see anything new. I do NOT see how we can tell which collections a book is in, other than the old way of looking inside each collection. They gave us no instructions for this and it is anything but intuitive. I'll explore some more, but so far I just don't see these changes at all.

See the edit to my post!