Kindle for iOS v 6.5

[tomsem]

- Split View support for iPad
- Scrolling mode
- Pull down in Library to refresh list of books
- Kindle dictionaries for Arabic

I’ve been requesting the first two of these features for awhile, so I’m happy.

BTW to turn on Continuous Scrolling option, go to Settings. Then you can toggle it in Text (‘Aa’) options.

Speak Screen does not work in Continuous Scrolling mode, and pop up footnotes, if present in Page mode, go away and jump to location instead. And no text selection (‘we do not currently support selection and related features while reading with continuous scrolling. Switch to pagination view to use these features’). No setting or display of Bookmarks.

But it is a good start: I assume they’ll fix some of the issues (at least selection) in future updates.

What I like about Scrolling: no orphans, widows, pictures with captions on next page, etc.

And Split View support is very nice to have on iPad.

I still want hotkeys (with external keyboard). Mostly for turning/advancing pages, but one can imagine hotkeys for adjusting text size with +/-, cycling through themes and font choices, chapter navigation, etc.

Auto scrolling could be fun too (tilt to control direction/speed etc.).

[johnnyb]

I think it's a very solid update. However, it is really annoying to see that the iOS version of the Kindle app only supports the old mobi engine for personal documents, which never gets updated with any of the new features and makes books look and feel really crappy (much of this has to do with the fact that it does not support proper hyphenation and popup footnotes).
I get a lot of expensive ebooks via my university's library, books I would never buy directly (but rather just copy the chapters that I need for work) and I really do not like reading them on the Kindle app (and annotations often are too clunky on eink). This is just a small thing perhaps, but I am convinced that I'd feel much better using Amazon's system (and possibly spend more money on it) if I knew that they would treat the personal documents I send them in the same way that they are treating their books. After 15 years, I still feel like I haven't found the ecosystem I really want to stay with and part of my reluctance to spend a lot of money on it comes from the fact that I don't know if there will be a better system coming around at some point in the future and holding back makes moving over easier.
I also really don't get why they haven't switched personal documents over to kfx. That would solve any problem users are having with them.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

I also really don't get why they haven't switched personal documents over to kfx. That would solve any problem users are having with them.

I doubt that will ever happen. Giving you a reason to purchase books from Amazon instead of using a copy obtained elsewhere is probably one of the main reasons that the KFX format exists.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I doubt that will ever happen. Giving you a reason to purchase books from Amazon instead of using a copy obtained elsewhere is probably one of the main reasons that the KFX format exists.

I know. I wish Amazon will one day magically realize that they are losing more sales by people not fully committed because of these restrictions than by people bringing in stuff from the outside that they wouldn't have good, i.e. that it's better to have the best platform than to force people to compromise.
But I already know that my profile is way to specific
I would still jump ship to the manufacturer that comes along with a better ecosystem. Likely that it will be Apple or Google once some other screen tech catches up with eink in terms of readability in high level ambient light conditions. Likely that that will happen before Amazon treats all books equally

[Deskisamess]

My iPhone kindle app was updated but is at 6.4.1

I’m running iOS 11.2.6, what am I missing?

My iPad Pro updated the Kindle app to 6.5. I wonder why the iPhone app won't update to that version. That is the one I'd like the scroll option on.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by tomsem

- Kindle dictionaries for Arabic

BTW, the Arabic dictionaries are:

Oxford Arabic-English
Oxford English-Arabic
Al-Munjid Arabic Dictionary (monolingual)

Amazon also added monolingual and bilingual dictionaries for Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and a monolingual dictionary for Malayalam.

[Dylrob]

For some reason split screen wouldn’t work at all when I first installed the app. Even restarting my iPad didn’t help. I was finally able to fix the issue by reinstalling the app.

[tomsem]

Version 6.6 adds:
- return Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited books from within the app
- support for a more mobile-friendly magazine format for some magazines (I’m guessing it scrolls, allows you to change text size, etc., rather than using fixed pages but don’t subscribe to any magazines via Amazon)
- a setting to enable highlight menu when you select text. This is the same option added recently to Kindle (which added ability to suppress highlight menu when selecting text). It’s also an option in the Android Kindle app - maybe on Fire as well (don’t have mine at hand to check it)?

As a KU subscriber I will definitely use the first of these things. Wonder what took them so long? I’d like to see this on the other platforms as well (return directly from Library view), and be able to do this with books borrowed via Overdrive as well (which currently have to be returned using web interface or the Amazon store app).

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tomsem

- return Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited books from within the app

This feature is also in the Kindle for Android app version 8.6, which was also released today.

Originally Posted by tomsem

- support for a more mobile-friendly magazine format for some magazines (I’m guessing it scrolls, allows you to change text size, etc., rather than using fixed pages but don’t subscribe to any magazines via Amazon)

It allows you to switch back and forth between a page-by-page view and a view that lets you read full articles more easily. (Uses KFX format internally.)

Originally Posted by tomsem

- a setting to enable highlight menu when you select text. This is the same option added recently to Kindle (which added ability to suppress highlight menu when selecting text). It’s also an option in the Android Kindle app - maybe on Fire as well (don’t have mine at hand to check it)?

Yes, this setting is also in the Fire reading app.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by jhowell

It allows you to switch back and forth between a page-by-page view and a view that lets you read full articles more easily. (Uses KFX format internally.)

Perhaps, but that has been available for some magazines for quite awhile, and it is not particularly ‘mobile-friendly’.

I think this is 100% ‘responsive’ design, like I am seeing with magazines I subscribe to elsewhere (New Yorker, Scientific American etc.). If this is correct, then page by page view is gone, except for advertisements, which go ‘full screen’. Screen readers (Speak Screen on iOS) work, and the download size is much smaller.

Still waiting for Kindle update to show up on my Android thing.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Perhaps, but that has been available for some magazines for quite awhile, and it is not particularly ‘mobile-friendly’.

The changes are incremental improvements. Switching in and out of article view is done a bit differently and articles are more nicely formatted using Enhanced Typesetting. You can view a grid of pages in the magazine or in pages just in articles in Page Flip mode.

There may be other, more subtle, changes that I didn't notice.

The file size is about the same. The magazine I tested with, the May 1 issue of Food Network, was 81MB as a single PRC (MOBI) file in the Android app and 87MB as a set of 32 KFX files in the iOS app.

[tomsem]

Ok, good to know.

[tomsem]

6.7: you can now select and annotate text in Continuous Scrolling mode.

Features still missing in CS mode:
- ability to set and view Bookmarks
- immersion reading
- SpeakScreen accessibility

Seems they could also support fixed-layout (print replica) and Kindle In Motion books in CS mode (not to mention PDF & personal documents).

[tomsem]

6.8:

• Adds support for bookmarks while reading in Continuous Scrolling mode
• A re-designed Notebook makes managing your notes and highlights easier.

[jhowell]

Version 6.9:

* Read using the new green theme inside your book, available in the Aa menu.

* A re-designed X-Ray makes exploring the contents of your book easier.