Announced : Kindle Software Update Version 2.5
 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=200324680

Here's a list of the coming enhancements:

Collections: Organize your books and documents into one or more collections.


PDF Pan and Zoom: Zoom into PDFs and pan around to easily view small print and detailed tables or graphics.


Password Protection: Password protect your Kindle when you're not using it.


More Fonts & Improved Clarity: Enjoy two new larger font sizes and sharper fonts for an even more comfortable reading experience.


Facebook & Twitter Posts: Share book passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter directly from your Kindle.


Popular Highlights: See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you're reading.

I wonder who the lucky group will be that gets the first limited release?

Maybe I need to leave the wireless on for a while to see if I am one of the lucky ones :)

I'll need to get the font hack off my Kindle first.

collections? a fancy word for "Folders" or "directories"?
makes me a little skeptical these fancy words..keeping my fingers crossed for simple folders, the way the whole world knows..

PDF pan/zoom is real good news..

mgmueller..thanks for the breaking news..:)

I just turned mine on, and I'll be leaving it that way until the 2.5 arrives. Looks like a Killer update! Collections (sounds like FOLDERS!!!) & PDF Pan and Zoom alone should be worth the price of admission! Password protection? Could be very useful if you're Kindle is nearby nosy people!

Be nice if they made it available as a download as well so we could load it via USB if we chose not to wait.

Sounds like the "limited release" group is going to be the beta test group.

Hoping Kovid or GRiker will be in the "limited release" group so that they can see whether it's possible for the collections to be managed by calibre! :)

But the Facebook and Twitter integration, and Popular Highlights features! Stuff almost nobody was asking for, but I think it is pretty revolutionary, and really sets Kindle apart in a big way (at least for awhile). It's good to see someone in this space making a move in social networking.

I could care less about Collections (as long as it doesn't get in my way, it's fine I guess...), but what about Cyrillic or Han support? any reason to hope they've added it since they have updated the fonts? Or pan/zoom for viewing DX size images on K2 (or with the hidden image viewer)?

Yes, as it is I can't imagine classifying hundreds of books on the Kindle using the crude keyboard and joystick. Which is why I only keep about 40 items on mine (including PDFs and subscriptions, which already have their own item lists)...no need for classifying anything.

I have many questions about what they've done and its ultimate usefulness - if you have to replace your kindle, do you have to classify everything all over again? does it sync to other devices on your account? are the categories mutually exclusive (boo) or not (yay)? If you remove and restore an item, do you have to classify it again? I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Well, I think they would have said folders if it was folders. I bet it will be a single level set of collections like Sony has... I bet they thought "folders" would be to complicated for people... even though everyone that uses a computer understands folders.

I much would have preferred tags to folders or collections.

BOb

Of course, we don't know if "collections" is a hybrid of tags and folders ...

The PDF pan and zoom is a nice-to-have in a pinch to make SOME use of pdf ... but a Kindle 2 really is suited for that format. But, hey, zoom and pan is a plus.

I'm not sure how they get to more fonts and "improved clarity". It's nice to have a little choice in fonts -- a sans serif alternate, for example. I actually rather like the existing serif font. How do we get to "improved clarity"? Denser letters? Isn't that a function of e-ink?

I don't mind a password protect so long as I can turn it off and keep it off. I'm not concerned about the husband, or the cats, running amok with my Kindle when I'm not around.

But the last two: Facebook/Twitter and "see what the Kindle community thinks of interesting passages" ... sounds a lot like that blogger in another thread who had Big Ideas on How To Fix E-Readers. And will any of this apply to non-US Kindles outside of the US? On a clear day, from the top of a tower, I can see Buffalo ....

Firmware update: Sony, are you listening?

Perhaps they are going to implement the font hacks that have been available for a while now.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45660

I admire the hackers and DIYers. But I am interested in the Kindle "out of the box" or as "officially" customized. I know I can "root" my device -- be it an e-reader or cell-phone -- but that's not what I signed up for. I am looking for a turn-key operation! :p

Let me add: this coming update is another reason I genuinely admire and support Amazon in the way they are helping create this industry. I know we all want tech changes yesterday, but Amazon is making the right moves. The only missing piece in this update is some sort of deal to get library books on the device. Then, who needs any other e-reader? What a coup that would be!

It seems it's more like tags based on initial reports. Create Collections that you want to use, then assign them to items from the item list. Items can be in more than one collection. Apparently subscriptions can't be tagged (but they already have their own item list, Subscriptions).

Hopefully calibre will be able to manipulate these as well at some point (so you can use more efficient UI), but it'll depend on the implementation.

I've never needed the font hack on my DX but need it on the K2. Definitely am interested in the new fonts. I wonder if we'll be able to use the "collections" on non-Amazon books. Same with social networking features, will it work with non-Amazon books? Since 99% of my books are not from Amazon this is important to me.

The one raspberry I would give Amazon on the Kindle is that K1 owners, the early adopters.. the people that paid for a lot of the R&D... some of us Paid $400 for our units... did not get the features of the previous update nor does it look like we will be getting this one.

Compare this to Sony that for free upgraded PRS-500 owners in order to support ePub and Adobe DRM. They didn't have to do that and most would probably have understood seeing how old the 500 is.

BOb

On the amazon K forums, someone there got the update. He said the classification is non-exclusive. No idea on the rest of your questions, though

pictures of collection organization.
scroll down.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...375840&#k2sort

Clever move by Amazon making everyone who wants to use the twitter and facebook connections link to their Amazon account. Hey presto - Amazon now have more information on potentially millions of users!

As soon as I've read this news 20 minutes ago, I've turned on the wireless in my Kindle DX International and let it sleep as I've had my breakfast.

Now it's magically version 2.5!

I have no time to be fiddling with it now, but I've already checked out the collections (still have to find out how to display collections in alphabetic orders, right now it looks like they are only displayed the most recent first).

The web browser was limited to amazon's site in my KindleDXi, now I can browse wikipedia and a bunch of other sites. Great news for international users.

I'm already using the password lock protection :)

I'll check PDF features later.

@Over dont be '...whelmed!' (u must get that a lot :P )

Tell us about the collections. is it tags or folders or something else?

Amazon didn't add user settable screen savers. a pity :(

Collections, at least as implemented on the Sony devices, are tags. They are "pseudo folders" in which books which have been given a certain tag, appear.

Is it so helpful to zoom and pan around on a device at a refresh rate of 1 second, especially when the screen is 10 inch size already? Where is the index supporting for PDF after 1 year? Can't help to say this is really a rubbish.

If the facebook and Twitter (Which is a growing hate for in my book) features are as limited as I think they are, the whole teen appeal would somehow shift downwards.

It does not matter to me since I do not have a kindle.

But seriously. Twitter? I'm better off doing productive blogging and linking sources on a journal page.

Personally I'm glad about the tags.

What pdfs really need is the ability to search across pdfs and highlight and annotate within pdfs. Pan and zoom is nice I guess, but not so important. I don't understand why they wasted time with that when they could have been fixing search, highlight and annotate.

I hope it's possible to turn the password thing off. I don't care about locking other people out of my Kindle. I will care incandescently if *I* get locked out of my Kindle.

But tags. That is cool. Way late, and it should be going to the K1 too--but cool.

I don't think this has been asked yet - does the screensaver hack work with v2.5?

Sounds exciting....

But when? And where for USB updaters?

Agreed. I have thought about replacing my K1, and been tempted several times...but the truth is, it works great. Battery life is still excellent. And I'd rather wait for a Kindle 3 at this point.

But it's sad when we don't get the shiny new updates. :(

Nice update features. Looking forward to pdf zoom since I usually keep the auto-rotate locked but occasionally have to turn it back on so that I can use the zoomed-in landscape mode.

Can anyone with code skills who recived the update OTA strip it down and put on rapid$share?

Well, yes and no.

While you can put a book in more than one collection you can't navigate the collections other than a flat list.

For example, if I have the following collections:

SF
Fantasy
History
Read
Unread

I have no way to list ebooks that were Unread and SF.

Reading the Kindle docs on collections someone linked to above it looks like it is the same as the Sony... a single layer of collections is listed.

So, you can call them "tags" but the navigation through the "tags" is limited to a flat list.

Also, I see nothing in the Collections doc about how to sort stuff within a collection... or how it sorts the collection list.

When you display collections does it list ebooks that aren't in a collection also or does it create a psuedo collection called "no collection" or do you just not have access to non-tagged ebooks when viewing collections?

Will collections work with ebooks you didn't buy from Amazon? If so, I assume it won't sync those.

BOb

Screenshots have been posted at Kindle Boards...
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.ph...c,23791.0.html

Where is EPUB support? Or when?

I assume this is for the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX with no update for the Kindle 1?

collections
 

When listing collections you see the names of the collections with the number of items in them, along with all the items which aren't in any collection. When listing by title or most recent instead, you see the collections (always with the number of items), the items not in collections and those in the collections as well.

Collections work with any kind of items, even with my folder of pictures. I have't tried the syncing so I don't know how that works yet, but un Kindle support I have seen something about that.

I've got it
 

I'VE GOT IT ... so I'll try to satisfy some of your curiosity.

1. Conceptually, collections are more similar to tags than to (traditional) folders, even if they look more like folders. You can create a collection, then you select the books/documents you want to “associate” (add) to that collection. But differently from the old-time folders, each book/document may be associated to more than one collection. (So, if you were ER-relationally fluent, you’d know enough just by hearing that basically you can have many-to-many relation among books and collections).

2. The PDF zoom-and-pan support is neat. By pressing “Aa” button, you can pick the zoom size (among the options: “fit-to-screen” (which is default), “150%”, 200%”, “300%”, “actual size”); then a zoom box appears which you have decide where to put on the page and then click to zoom. After that, the scrollbars appear (horizontal and vertical, depending on the level of zoom and on the content to pan) and you can pan with the joystick. With some limited testing, to my knowledge the pan & page refresh is ... as fast as it can get under the circumstance (viz. eInk refresh rate).

3. I might be hallucinating, but the new standard font really seems clearer, neater and creates the feeling of a greater contrast, maybe it's even "bolder". Probably they’ve addressed and tweaked some of the antialiasing & C. issues someone has talked about in the past. It’s a great improvement for the overall readability!

4. I have a DXi and I'm living in Europe, so my Kindle's browsing was limited only to Wikipedia. But now, I can browse, well, just everywhere. (I hope this one isn’t a “bug” that inadvertently slipped into this update, … so, please, Europeans and non-US Kindle owners out there: psst! … don’t mention it to Amazon!)

5. Features like “social networking” and “popular highlights” may be cool to someone, but I’m just not that kind of guy, so don’t expect me to be too enthusiast about that, though I see some possibly interesting things there.

There seem to be some other minor changes and tweaks as well, but some may well just be mirages I'm seeing, as this things happen when you’re sort of a wonkishly satisfied with a device, as I am.

My final verdict?:
I might have not sounded too enthusiastic while trying to be technically accurate above, so ... wow!, … just wow!

Yes, it's great that collections sync, and that collection membership persists for books purchased from Amazon (according to the information on Amazon). I'm impressed with the design they've worked out - I had concerns that it would get in the way or that you'd need to spend all your time organizing and reorganizing things instead of reading.