Amazon Kindle 3GAmazon have announced that they’re rolling out a software update to Kindle owners, taking the software version to 3.1. It’s a seamless update that should come through automatically, just as soon as you activate your Kindle’s wi-fi. There’s no information about whether the update comes through via 3G.

There are 4 main features that will become enabled as part of the update and I’ve listed them below in order of importance (from my own perspective). Unfortunately, there’s no change to allow custom screensaver images (as was possible on previous Kindle versions), or to default the images to align with the current book or publication you’re reading. I’d much prefer to see something specific that I choose as opposed to the classics author images that currently pop up.Anyway, the new features are:

  • Ratings – I had originally listed this lower down the list, in terms of importance, but on reflection, I think it is actually quite a useful feature. The main things to consider here are that when you reach the end of a book, you’ll be able to rate the book, receive recommendations based on this rating, find works by the same author, or even share your ratings with your social network. I still have to test this with books not purchased in the Kindle store – but have a feeling that it will be restricted to only books from within the network.  Still, it’s a handy feature to have.
  • Real page numbers – It look as though real page numbers will only work with ebooks purchased through the Kindle store, so the update won’t be much use if you’re using books converted from other formats or ebooks that have been downloaded from any of the free ebook sources I covered in my other article (HERE – resources listed at the end of the article). However, if you’re reading a book purchased through the Kindle store – then your ebook’s pages will match up with the printed version and will also sync across any of the Kindle apps too.
  • Updated newspaper and magazine layout – As with the real page numbers, it appears as though this new feature will also only work with publications purchased through the Kindle store but, assuming you are using a newspaper or magazine subscription (and not the free news feature of Kindle, as referenced in my other article HERE), then the new feature could be pretty handy. Whilst the ability to skip between articles has been available with the D-pad previously, you can now easily access the section and article list, but perhaps more importantly, also access an article summary list that provides a little preview of the articles in each of the sections. In my opinion this provides a much more intuitive, almost web-like approach to browsing through information.
  • Public notes – Apart from text books and educational uses, I’ve never been one to feel the need to annotate novels as I’ve been reading them. Perhaps I’m not challenging myself enough with the literature I choose to read; but if I did need to do this, the update would allow me to do it now. It will also allow me to see what other people have noted about books too, so it could be a handy referral tool to find new authors.

Finally, if you’re too impatient waiting for your wi-fi connection to pick up the software update, download it and automatically install it in the background – then it is possible to download it manually and install it using the USB cable (more info available is available on the Amazon web site).

Other Kindle links you might be interested in are: