For some people, reading is a solitary pastime. For others, there's the new Kindle app. Today Amazon is updating its Kindle app for iPhones and iPads with a much tighter integration with Goodreads, the community-reviewing site Amazon owns.
"Goodreads is now built-in throughout the entire app experience," Amazon Vice President Jeff Kunins said during a demo.
The Kindle app's rejuvenation is part of a major product-line rollout for Amazon over these few weeks. The new high-end Kindle Oasis ($249.99 at Amazon) e-reader will arrive on Halloween, and the company is in the midst of launching three new Echos as well. The lower-cost Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite were updated this summer.
The Kindle app is for people who don't want to buy an extra gadget for their reading. I use it on the train, because I'm standing up and can read on my phone one-handed. It's also commonly used on tablets with children's books or other color content that doesn't look great on a black-and-white, e-ink screen.
The new Kindle app has a lighter theme with larger book covers, and an easier way to pop back into the book you were reading by tapping on a thumbnail at the bottom of the screen. Some of the fonts have been changed so they're more readable, and there's a search bar for the Kindle Store that's persistent at the top of the screen, except when you're actually reading a book.
The biggest new features, though, are all Goodreads. You can scroll through your friends' feeds, explore their profile, subscribe to new friends, or share out your notes and highlights for your friends to mull over.
"I see if anyone's engaged with quotes I've shared, which gives me yet another reason to come back to the Kindle app even multiple times a day," Kunins said.
If you don't have friends (maybe because you spend all of your time reading, which actually sounds like a pretty nice life), your Goodreads feed will fill with popular books and authors, so you can find some people to follow. That experience is unique to the Kindle app, according to Amazon.
Android phones and tablets will get a lesser update. They'll get the new brighter layout, but Android users will have to wait for a "future release" for Goodreads integration.
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