Pocket has just redesigned their flagship app for the iPad and iPhone for the first time since 2012. They have a more minimalist interface with more white space and a tremendous reduction in information density. If you prefer a dark mode or sepia mode, you can also choose that as your app-wide color scheme. Even the … [Read more...]
These are the challenges for developing apps for an Android e-Reader
One of the big trends in the past four years has been companies developing E Ink e-readers that use Google Android. This OS provides users with the flexibility to sideload in their own apps or download them via an accompanied app market such as Google Play. There are two major challenges for app developers that want to … [Read more...]
This is how Android Lite and Go apps perform on an e-reader
Android developers have released a series of Lite and Go apps in the past few months. These were primarily designed for the developing world, where people tend to have lower end smartphones with 2G internet connections. Lite apps tend to be 2MB to 10MB fully installed and lack many of the animations and features of … [Read more...]
Walmart ebooks now available for Android and iOS and it’s abysmal
Walmart has just launched an ebooks app for Android and iOS. Walmart is hyping that this new app has a built in ebookstore to purchase content and a fully functional audiobook player. When you install it for the first time Walmart says they will provide you with a free $10 credit to be used towards anything you … [Read more...]
E-Reader companies should be adopting Android GO 9 Pie Edition
E-Reader companies have been using Android 4.04 and 4.4 for a number of years and the vast majority of devices on the market run it. Android Go launched last year with Oreo support and it is optimized for devices that have between 512MB and 1GB of RAM and a 1 GHZ single core processor. This makes the open source OS … [Read more...]
Android Lite apps are breathing a second life into e-readers
Major companies are releasing a series of Lite and Go apps that are optimized for lower end smartphones and countries with poor internet connection. Amazon released Kindle Lite for this very purpose, and there are Lite versions of Facebook, Spotify, Instagram. There is also a myriad of communication apps such as Skype … [Read more...]
Goodreads launches new Android App
Goodreads has been quietly working on a beta version of ebook discovery and social community Android app. The company published the beta in May and socilited a number of users in their community to test it out and give their feedback. Today, GoodReads has discontinued their old app and are now using the new one and it … [Read more...]
Google launches dedicated Podcast App
Google Podcasts launched a couple of months ago, but it was incorporated into the Google Music. It has a confusing layout and it suffered from being lost in the shuffle. Google is now supporting podcasts directly and in a more meaningful way with a standalone Google Podcasts app for Android. Google Podcasts, will … [Read more...]
Microsoft Edge for Android can Read ebooks
Microsoft has just added e-reader functionality to their Android app and like their iOS counterpart you can read ebooks, you just can't buy them. This app is considered to be in preview mode, so it lacks most of the functionality as the main desktop version, such as TTS and Cortana. The only thing the new Edge … [Read more...]
Goodreads Beta for Android is now available
GoodReads is the largest social book community in the world. You can talk about books with your friends or track your yearly reading goals. Amazon owns them and you can access Goodreads on any Kindle e-Reader. Goodreads has just launched a new beta Android app that that will eventually replace the current Android app … [Read more...]
Audiobook Reader has just received 10,000 installs
One month ago Good e-Reader released a new Android app called Audiobook Reader and it utilizes Amazon Polly TTS to turn any ebook into an audiobook. It is the first app to take advantage of the Amazon voice assistant in this manner and we have just hit 10,000 installs in the past three weeks. This app took over six … [Read more...]
Amazon Launches Lite Internet Browser for Android
Amazon has just launched a lite internet browser for emerging markets. The app is less than 2MB and is primarily designed for phones that have a 2G data connection or don't have much internal storage. Amazon is hoping that people download this app instead of other browsers which range from 21MB to 50MB in size and they … [Read more...]