Kindle Version 3.1

The latest software upgrade for the Kindle 3 ereader is now available in an "Early Preview Release" for anyone wanting to install it manually before its general rollout on March 11, which will occur automatically via WiFi for owners of the latest generation device. The upgrade incorporates four improvements, at least two of which are fairly significant.



The first - and most requested - of these is the inclusion of actual page numbers corresponding to the physical print edition of a title. The main reason for this is to accommodate academic references and sharing of notes between readers using different formats (as, for example, members of a reading group). Kindle locations are fine for gauging your progress through a work, but help little when discussing a work with someone reading the print edition (or another reader format) of that book. However, at present this upgrade is a work in progress, since Amazon now has to re-scan and/or reformat all of its digital files to incorporate this feature. Consequently, only a handful of the top selling ebooks have actual page numbers at the moment. Eventually, however, this will become a standard feature.



To see if an ebook you own or plan to purchase features actual page numbers, look in the Product Details section of that title's Amazon page, where you will find (or not) a new reference to the print edition from which the page numbers are taken. This is important because (contrary to popular belief apparently) page numbering in print book editions often varies depending on format (page size, hardback versus paperback, edition number, country of origin, etc). A U.K. hardcover is not the same as a U.S. paperback, for example.



Secondly, and to my mind more important (at least potentially), is the addition of Public Notes, which allows readers to share comments at any point in a book with other readers - and, thereby, with the book's author. Highlights have been public for some time, which is particularly useful for academic texts, but of little real use in works of fiction. Public Notes, however, offer a reader the opportunity to make detailed and very specific comments on various elements of a story - as, for example, word choice and phrasing, plot points, questions and ambiguities, textual or story errors, pacing problems or recommendations, and personal responses either negative or positive - all of which are inherently useful and potentially insightful both for other readers as well as for the author in evaluating reactions to the work.



How much this will be used is yet to be seen, but I am hopeful it will provide an added opportunity for increasing communication between author and reader (a gap that digital innovation is quickly narrowing). Within the book you can only view comments of people you "follow" (which appear as an @ link at the note's insertion point), but all Public Notes are available for reading on the book's page at kindle.amazon.com, where you can also search and discover other readers (and authors) to follow. Every Kindle user has their own page where their books, notes, highlights and settings can be accessed.



A third, somewhat related update is the additional of a new "Before You Go" rating feature, which presents readers with the option to rate and comment on a work they have just completed. You now have the option to "Save" or "Save & Share," the latter of which posts your rating to your Kindle page as well as any social network sites you've authorized. In addition, you will now apparently get customized recommendations for other titles to read (though none are shown in the preview image), much as you do on many other Amazon pages, which you can, of course, click to view and purchase right from your Kindle. Personally, I'm not impressed with the rating/recommendation feature thus far, as three tries to rate and comment on a book I finished this morning resulted in a frozen screen each time, and when finally successful, I got no recommendations, leaving much to be desired.



The final upgrade is to the magazine layout feature, which is supposed to make it easier to navigate periodicals by article. But since I don't waste my time downloading magazines I won't ever use this. Periodicals to me are pointless, as by the time of publication its contents are generally old news I've already read online days or even weeks before. This may change with digital publication, but I still don't really care to get my news and analysis that way. That's what blogs are for.