Calling all bibliophiles: version 6.6 of Amazon's Kindle app is rolling out today, providing a few new features that will hopefully make your reading experience easier and more fulfilling than ever.
Perhaps most useful of all the update's offerings is the ability to return Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited books without ever needing to leave the app. For those unfamiliar, Kindle Unlimited is essentially a book-centric version of Netflix in which you pay $9.99 monthly for a subscription that gives you unlimited access to a sizable catalog of books, magazines, and audiobooks. On the other hand, Prime Reading is a service that comes along with an Amazon Prime subscription, and offers free access to a slightly smaller library of titles than Kindle Unlimited. Prior to now, Kindle for iOS users had to return books by opening a web browser and doing it on Amazon. With this update, however, all you need to do to return your book once you're finished is long press on a book cover and select "Return book." Easy peasy!
In addition to the returns feature, Amazon has also added a new mobile-friendly magazine format, complete with popular magazine titles like Food Network, Life and Style, and US Weekly. It's possible that Amazon created this feature in an attempt to compete with Apple, which recently acquired magazine subscription service Texture. Amazon will only offer a total of about 19 titles to start with, but will likely offer more at some point in the future.
Finally, the Kindle app now boasts a new setting that lets you enable the highlight menu so it shows up when you select text.
If you'd like to try the Kindle app for yourself, you can get it free by clicking the link below. Even if you don't have any cash to purchase a new book at the moment, Amazon also offers tons of free books you can grab, ranging from W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk" to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" to Homer's "The Odyssey."
- Amazon Kindle - Free - Download now
Thoughts?
Are you a Kindle Unlimited or Prime user? If so, are you excited about the new return feature? What do you think about Amazon offering magazines? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
