Kindle for iPad, iPhone Update – Kobo to Follow; New Photo App no comments
Amazon today updated the Kindle for iPhone and iPad apps. New in version 2.1:
- Bigger fonts and more font sizes on iPad
- Easier and faster navigation between home and archived items on iPad
- Search in book – iPhone only for now
- Download progress and percentage display
Amazon also lists some items to be added in the next release:
- Dictionary with 250,000 entries
- Look up words in Google and Wikipedia
- Search in book on iPad
This seems to be something of a stop-gap release until the next one which
promises much more. More font sizes are of course nice – and the new largest size font will be helpful for those with visual impairments.
The in-book search and the lookup trifecta when it arrives on the iPad will be welcome. I would also like to see an auto-scrolling feature like the Wattpad reading app has. This may sound frivolous, but it comes in handy when reading in bed or with your iPad on a stand. The iPad is heavy, and it is nice to be able to prop it against a pillow and have the page scroll down as you read. I can’t believe Wattpad is the only one of the ereading apps to include this feature so far (unless I’ve missed something).
Another feature I would like: both the Wattpad and the Barnes & Noble reading app for the iPad allow you to choose background and text color. As I have noted before, reading on an LCD does stress my eyes after a while. The night mode helps a lot, but in my case a blue font on a dark background really works well. Sounds strange? Well, if you can choose your own colors you can find what works best for your eyes.
Kobo also released some sort of minor update to their reading app a few days ago, although I have not spotted any changes – whatever improvements there are seem to be under the hood. The blurb for the update (Version 1.0.3) says “Prepares library for upcoming Kobo iPhone & iPad update that includes amazing new features and stability improvements.” So it looks like Kobo will be releasing a substantial update to their reading app soon as well.
* * *
This has nothing to do with ereading on the iPad, but there is an interesting
looking photo editing app for the iPad from Tiffen that was announced today. In addition to simulations of many of Tiffen’s glass photographic filters Photo fx Ultra has a lot of features:
- Choose from 68 filters organized into 7 different filter groups
- Select from a total of 836 presets
- Try one of the 65 different color or black and white film looks
- Add realistic diffusion to photos using a library of 50 interesting textures
- Create natural lighting effects using 117 different patterns
- Choose from 27 grain presets to simulate popular motion picture film stocks
- Add multiple filters without saving
- Selectively apply filters by painting a mask
- Modify filters with sliders, on-screen controls or presets
- High resolution support up to 2048 pixels
- Edit in portrait or landscape mode
- Crop, Rotate, Straighten
- Zoom into the image with the Close-Up Lens filter
- Compatibility with the still image editions of the Tiffen Dfx Digital Filter software
- Quickly search for filters and presets
- Integrated Help
I have not bought this one yet – I’m still waiting for the camera connection kit to be in stock so I can connect my camera directly to the iPad, but this is one app I will be looking at. Photo fx Ultra is $5.99 at the iTunes app store.
