Category: Book

Competition is good, I guess. The success of Apple iPad makes Amazon works harder and harder to roll out new and exciting stuff. One of the key advantages of Kindle “platform” is you can access your Kindle library anywhere and have your reading synchronized across Kindle devices and multiple smartphones. And this platform compose of Kindle 2, Kindle 3,  Kindle DX, BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, PC, and now Android-powered phones.

As far as I can tell, the features in this Kindle for Andriod is more or less the same as other devices’ applications. However, the screen that shows your book library looks a little bit different.

Another exciting news is the embedded video and audio clips in Kindle books on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Not as crazy as the Alice for the iPad I bet, but still it is the right direction to introduce multimedia to ebooks. Since it is the new new stuff, I just checked and there are only 13 ebooks with audio / video in US store and only 7 available in Asia store.

Anticipated the firmware 2.5 upgrade for weeks but still it’s not available thru the Whispernet, so I told myself it’s time to find another way … by browsing the sites like mobileread.com and kindleboards.com, I found there is a way to do it manually – even though the firmware 2.5 (or 2.5.2) is not available from Amazon website.

In previous firmware upgrades, Amazon placed a link in the help page such that you could download the binary file and upgrade your Kindle manually if you didn’t want to wait for or could not access to the Whispernet. However, somehow Amazon does not do that for firmware 2.5. On the other hand, they placed the firwware binary file in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) and some smart people found it  (and it’s now named 2.5.2) … So, here are the steps and some screen shots of the version 2.5 new features.

(Note: these binary files work for Kindle 2 International version only and the files are available from the download links as of 2010-June-12)

• First of all check your firmware version in your Kindle 2. In my case, it’s version 2.3.2.
• So I downloaded the firmware 2.3.3 and upgraded my Kindle 2 International;

http://rapidshare.com/files/382788816/Update_kindle2_gw_2.3.3.bin

• Then I downloaded the firmware 2.3.4 and upgraded again;

http://rapidshare.com/files/382794043/Update_kindle2_gw_2.3.4.bin

• Lastly, downloaded the firmware 2.5.2 file and upgraded … simple and it worked !!
  

http://www.mediafire.com/?nqy2qmnmyjm

(To upgrade, transfer the binary file to the root directory of your Kindle, then go to Home / Setting / Update Your Kindle, then click yes)

Update 1 : (2010-06-16) The download is now available from Amazon website for your Kindle US and International version !!

Ah, the Amazon development team is really efficient, just after a week from the release of Kindle for Mac they have another new product ready to roll out. Somehow the news is broken not from their official press release, but from a report in New York Times. This is the Kindle Apps for Tablet Computer, and it works on table computers including the iPad as well (obviously, they want people to know about this application, before the official launch date of iPad in early April).

Unlike other Kindle applications (iPhone, PC, BlackBerry, Mac), there are some new fancy features like:

• Tailored to the size, look, and feel of your tablet computer
• Adjust screen brightness from within the app to make reading easier
• Page turn animation replicates the look of turning a page in a book. Or choose Basic Reading Mode for a simpler and unadorned reading experience

In the case of iPad version (assuming Apple will approve it …), the New York Times reports that:

“… large images of book covers are set against a backdrop of a silhouetted figure reading under a tree. The sun’s position in that image varies with the time of day.”

I know you want it, don’t you ? Check out the pictures and have a feel of this new application.