Kindle Fire Updates Add Audio/Video Support

A new update rolled out to the Kindle Fire line this morning, with enough additions to give them all a new version number - 3.0 - with the HD8.9 jumping all the way from 8.1.4 to 8.3.0, bypassing an 8.2 update altogether. The HD7 model upgrades from Version 7.2.4, while the 2nd generation Fire moves up from 10.2.6, so that all of the current Fire line are at 3.0. The last update to the HD models came back in December.






Both the Paperwhite and 1st generation Fire got an update earlier this month, but those were mostly cosmetic. The changes here, however, are far more significant, as indicated by the version leap.





Among these are "enhancements" to Print Replica Textbooks that allow you to scroll through thumbnails along the bottom of the screen (much like on the iPad), as well as adding notes and highlights. In addition, X-Ray for Textbooks was added to the HD7 and Fire, though no mention was made of it for the HD8.9 - it may already have it, I'm not sure since I haven't used it for textbooks. All three devices already had the standard X-Ray for books feature. Neither was there any mention of the new X-Ray for TV feature that was announced by Amazon yesterday.




What was added, however, was the Time To Read feature that tracks your reading speed. This has actually become a favorite feature of mine, since reading time is all-too scarce in our busy lives. This feature helps to keep me focused and gives me an increasingly accurate estimation of how long it will take to get through a book, or just a chapter, or even a single page, letting me know at a glance if I've got time to finish off the next section before the next scheduled event arrives.



Also added to the Fire line is support for Simplified Chinese, with the 8.9 device finally getting the inexplicably missing Language option in its menu. Until now there has been no way to change the device language once it's been set upon registration. The HD8.9 will now allow both US & UK English, as well as German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese (Simplified).




But finally, and most importantly to my mind, is the addition of support for Audio & Video content. This adds a whole new chapter to the Kindle Editions saga. The Kindle Publishing Guidelines has had an entire section devoted to adding audio/video content since the very first edition, but until now only the Kindle of iOS app supported this content. It will be interesting to see how well it works, and what new content appears now that it's possible to embed these media formats for use on more devices.




So in order to try out these new features I purchased the Enchanced Edition of Cloud Atlas this morning (a book I've been intending to read for some time), which contains bonus video content featuring unreleased footage and interviews with the author and film creators. These are simply appended to the ebook as additional features, very much in the manner of appendices. But it was really nice to see and hear the author speaking in his own words. It gives a face to the creator of the book and adds another level to the reader's interaction with the story. Also, it's always fun to hear from Tom Hanks! One video I was surprised to find was not included was the trailer for the film - a natural add-on if there ever was one.




This now opens up a whole new chapter in the Kindle ebook story, and it will be exciting to see what intrepid content creators come up with. It's a far cry from interactive audio and video integrated into the page layouts, such as those found in many children's ebooks, but it's a start, and a step in the right direction. The primary stumbling block that I can see is Amazon's reluctance to allow large file sizes for their ebooks, due to bandwidth use most certainly. It also takes up more room on the device. But with cloud storage becoming the standard, this won't be a problem for much longer.



It does, however, mean I'll have to write a whole new section to my Kindle tutorial...









UPDATE: I have added a new note to the Fixed-Layout Functionality Chart regarding an issue with today's update.