The Kindle Scribe might not be selling well, and Amazon is trying to remedy that by letting me know that the AI features found on the 2024 Kindle Scribe at launch were only available in the United States. The latest firmware with AI features is now rolling out to users in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. These features are also now available on the 2022 Kindle Scribe too.
AI-powered notebook summarisation is now available, which allows you to quickly create a synopsis of your notes that can easily be shared, so you can bring your ideas off the page and turn them into actions. If you’re scribbling in a hurry, or don’t have the tidiest handwriting, the new AI-powered refinement feature will convert your handwritten notes into a script font for a more elegant (and legible) look. While in a notebook, click the GenAI Icon and select “Refine writing.” Your notes will be quickly converted into a script font and inserted back into your laptop, making them easier to read, review, and share. If inspiration strikes and you want to make changes, you can still edit and update—your refined notes.
Last year, Amazon introduced a one-of-a-kind in-book writing experience for Kindle Scribe that allows you to start writing on the page of a book or reflowable document. Active Canvas will automatically make space for your notes. They have added a new way to use Active Canvas in the firmware – with expandable margins. You can now take notes in margins, expand them for more extended notes, or collapse them to see the original page.
This firmware update also includes a new feature called Side Panel Margin. This adds a side panel to write notes while reading an ebook. The side panel feature is in addition to Active Canvas, which only adds a box for your handwritten note while reformatting the page to wrap around it. The side panel is quite literally that: a full-length panel for your thoughts, with the ability to alter the width as much as you like. There is a persistent UI element that lets people know it’s there and cannot be dismissed.
These latest software updates will begin rolling out to Kindle Scribe customers for all 2022 and 2024 models over the next few weeks. They will automatically download and install on the Kindle Scribe when connected to Wi-Fi and in sleep mode. While you wait for it to install, check out our comprehensive review on the Scribe 2024.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.