The Android Market posted an update yesterday to the Kindle for Android app that many tablet users rely on for their digital reading. Oddly enough, the update came with very little fanfare, despite the fact that the major highlight of it is the app’s ability to allow PDF reading on Android powered devices through the Kindle app.
The-Digital-Reader.com posted a piece yesterday on the new PDF capability of the Kindle for Android app, allowing mobile devices to be PDF readers. According to Nate Hoffelder’s article, there didn’t seem to be a lot of fanfare about the update to the app.
“So it looks like the Amazon-Foxit deal was announced yesterday for a specific reason; the Kindle for Android app can now read PDFs. The update showed up in the Android Market a couple days ago, but it’s not being pushed out as a recommended update. I didn’t know it was available until I got a tip on Twitter,” says Hoffelder.
While some features like page turn and loading speed were fast enough to impress, the standard features of the update are fairly simple, including a bug fix or two. The only real disappointment was not being able to highlight and make notes or bookmarks like you can do with files on the Kindle for PC app, although that capability for PDFs isn’t supported there yet either.
While the PDF capability could go a little further towards enabling more features that users should be able to expect, this does open up the possibility of reading PDF formatted ebooks. With the wealth of ebook distribution platforms available to self-published authors, this would conceivably allow greater access to at least the reading of more authors’ files, if not all of the bells and whistles that come from reading on a dedicated e-reader device.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.