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Kindle for iOS update adds new accessibility features for blind and visually impaired

Amazon this morning announced a major update for Kindle for iPhone and iPad, making it easier for blind and visually impaired readers to use the Kindle iOS apps.

If you have the Kindle app on your iPhone or iPad, you will see an update for it this morning, to version 3.7. I made the update on my iPhone and iPad mini. The changes are not readily apparent to a reader who is not using the VoiceOver feature in the device settings. You turn VoiceOver on by going to Settings->General->Accessibility and tapping on VoiceOver. It’s easy to get lost in the voice commands if you are not used to them, so I will be looking for reviews of the new capability from those who depend on VoiceOver and understand its details.

The press release states that the new accessibility features “will be added to other Kindle apps in the future.”

Here is the complete text of the release, which hit my inbox today at 7:14 am Mountain Time:

Amazon Bringing New Accessibility Features to Free Kindle Reading Apps

Kindle for iPhone and iPad is the first Kindle app to receive the new accessibility features

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May. 1, 2013– (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today announced new accessibility features for the Kindle reading app, making it easier than ever for blind and visually impaired customers to navigate their Kindle libraries, read and interact with their books, and more. These new features are available starting today on Kindle for iOS, and accessibility enhancements will be available on additional platforms in the future.

“We’re excited to introduce these new features to our Kindle for iOS app, making it easier than ever for our blind and visually impaired customers to access the vast selection of over 1.8 million books in the Kindle Store on their iPhone or iPad,” said Dorothy Nicholls, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “With this update, we’re also making customer-favorite features—such as X-Ray, End Actions, sharing, highlighting and bookmarking—more accessible. We look forward to continuing to develop and extend our accessibility features on Kindle Fire and our other Kindle apps.”

New accessibility features of the Kindle app enable blind and visually impaired customers to:

  • Read aloud over 1.8 million titles available in the Kindle Store using Apple’s VoiceOver technology. Over 300,000 of these books are exclusive to the Kindle Store. Over 900,000 books are less than $4.99; over 1.5 million are less than $9.99.
  • Seamlessly navigate within their library or within a book, with consistent title, menu and button names; navigate to a specific page within a book and sort books in the library by author or title.
  • Read character-by-character, word-by-word, line-by-line, or continuously, as well as move forward or backward in the text.
  • Search for a book within their library or search within their book and navigate to specific text.
  • Add and delete notes, bookmarks, and highlights.
  • Use customer-favorite features like X-Ray, End Actions and sharing on Facebook and Twitter.
  • Look up words in the dictionary and Wikipedia.
  • Customize the reading experience including changing the font, text size, background color, margin, and brightness.
  • Use iOS accessibility features like Zoom, Assistive Touch, and Stereo to Mono, as well as peripheral braille displays.

Here’s some early feedback on the updated Kindle app:

  • “I very much appreciate the effort put forth to make Kindle more accessible for the blind. The new iOS App is easy and fun to use. I found the functionalities to my liking and above my initial expectations, with the ease of use being my favorite. Frankly, due to continued vision loss and vision changes, I hadn’t read very much at all. Now, I’ve read more books in the past few weeks than in the last five years – ‘Thank you.’” – Kevin D. Daniel, The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc.
  • “The ability to highlight, jump to pages and look up words or research phrases from a book is fabulous. Enhancements like these serve as great equalizers for a community of individuals whose access to the printed word has been severely limited. As an avid reader in her sixties, I am honored and excited to see and test these changes.” – Marlaina Lieberg, Retired Assistive Technology Teacher
  • “I’m thrilled to see the effort and attention to detail that Amazon is putting into the accessibility of the Kindle app for the iPhone. This greatly increases its usability by people who are blind and benefits students, professionals and anyone else wishing to read electronically and stay current with the mainstream.” – Peggy Martinez, The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc.

These new accessibility features are available first on the Kindle app for iOS and accessibility features will be added to other Kindle apps in the future. Customers can download the new Kindle for iOS app for free from the App Store on iPad, iPhone or iPod touch or athttp://www.itunes.com/appstore. Blind and visually impaired customers can also choose Kindle for PC with Accessibility Plugin, a free application for Windows PCs.

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Posted 01 May 2013 † Len Edgerly § Blog § Kindle News ‡ Comments (0) °

TKC 247 Jason Merkoski

Jason Merkoski

Member of Amazon’s original Kindle development team

author of Burning the Page: The eBook revolution and the future of reading

Interview Starts at 19:16

I love Amazon in the sense that it really understands building things in what I’ll call an agile way. You start small, and you build and build and build and build. The Kindle doesn’t have to be perfect in 2005 or 2006, but you keep making it more and more perfect over time. And when there’s enough goodness accreted around it, then you say, “Wow, it’s ready for prime time” and you launch.

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Show Notes and Links:

Intro

Opening of RTD W Line from Denver to Golden – Denver Post story April 26, 2013

Tremont Street Subway at Wikipedia

News

“Amazon trims Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi prices in Canada…” by Emil Protalinski in The Next Web – April 25, 2013

Kindle and Paperwhite at www.amazon.ca

“Kobo Aura HD review: a high-end e-reader with ‘niche’ written all over it” by Brian Heater at engadget – April 23, 2013

Kobo Aura HD web site

Items of Interest Not Mentioned in Podcast

“Senate delays action on Internet sales tax bill” by AP’s Stephen Ohlemacher in The Seattle Times – April 25, 2013

“Internet Sales Taxes Are Inevitable” by Matthew Yglesias in Slate – April 23, 2013

2012 Amazon press release supporting Internet Sales Tax legislation

Amazon’s first-quarter earnings release - April 26, 2013

Tech Tips

How to find authors like other authors at Goodreads – Paul Bowles, for example

Three books I’m currently reading

Kindle for Android gets an update.

Interview with Jason Merkoski

Burning the Page: The eBook Revolution and the Future of Reading by Jason Merkoski – $7.69 on Kindle

Content

The Spider’s House: A Novel by Paul Bowles – $9.78 on Kindle

Bedfellows: A Novel by Bob Garfield – $3.99 on Kindle with Whispersync for Voice ($1.99). Also available as free borrow at Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Bob Garfield interviewed by Leonard Lopate on WNYC Radio – December 12, 2012

Where’s the Water? - 99-cent game for Kindle Fire mentioned in Digital Disruption by James McQuivey

Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named “Well, You Needn’t.” This version is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Persepctive” CD by Public Transit Recording” CD.

Please Join the new Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

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Posted 26 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Kindle § Podcast ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , ,

TKC 246 Robert Darnton

darnton_000

Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, Harvard Librarian,

and key visionary for Digital Public Library of America

Interview Starts at 16:16

Now the strategy is not to have a five-year plan with an enormous budget of that sort but rather one that would involve beginning from a core of already digitized collections that we will make available on Thursday [April 18, 2013], and then growing and growing incrementally and then looking for funding as we need it.

Show Notes and Links:

News

“Amazon Wants You to Talk to Your Next Kindle Fire” by Evan Niu at Motley Fool – April 18, 2013

The Motley Fool Money podcast at iTunes

Engadget review of the new Kobo Aura HD dedicated eReader

“Penguin to Drop Apple E-Book Deal to Settle EU Antitrust Probe” by John Paczkowski at All Things D – April 19, 2013

Tech Tips

ReaderRocket site for comparing eReaders

Targus stylus for $9.89

Luzme tracker of eBook price drops

Atavist launches its content creator tool, Creativist, in beta

Interview with Robert Darnton

“Now, With No Further Ado, We Present…the Digital Public Library of America!” by Rebecca J. Rosen at TheAtlantic.com – April 16, 2013

“The National Digital Public Library Is Launched!” by Robert Darnton at The New York Review of Books

Digital Public Library of America

Content

Music of Silence: A Sacred Journey Through the Hours of the Day by Brother David Steindl-Rast and Sharon Lebell; Introduction by Kathleen Norris – $8.69 on Kindle

“Evan Williams’ Medium acquires long-form journalism site Matter” by Laura Hazard Owen at paidContent – April 17, 2013

Digital Public Library of America

Brian Mockenhaupt wins The Atlantic’s $25,000 Michael Kelly award for his Byliner Original, The Living and the Dead, which he talked about on TKC 224 in November, 2012

To get you Free Offer for TKC listeners good through Wednesday April 24th for One Year Lived by Adam Shepard, go to Adam’s website and log in as  slimshep12@gmail.com . Enter the password 123456 .

Not mentioned on podcast but still of note: “Ray Bradbury, Finally Coming to an E-Reader Near You” by Lauren Indvik at Mashable – April 12, 2013; Ray Bradbury’s books available on Kindle

Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named “Well, You Needn’t.” This version is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Persepctive” CD by Public Transit Recording” CD.

Upcoming Guests

Jason Merkoski, author of Burning the Page

 Sam Tanenhaus, writer-at-large and former Book Review editor at The New York Times

Please Join the new Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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Posted 19 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Podcast ‡ Comments (10) ° Tagged: ,

Digital Public Library of America is Up and It’s GORGEOUS!

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If you love reading digitally as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to explore this vast new trove of culture that became available online approximately 15 minutes ago at the Digital Public Library of America. Well done!

You will hear Robert Darnton, Harvard’s director of libraries, tell the story of how the DPLA came into being on tomorrow’s episode of The Kindle Chronicles podcast.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go looking for some books!

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Posted 18 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Blog § Joy of Reading ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

Update on Digital Public Library of America Launch

Screen Shot 2013-04-18 at 10.05.59 AM

 

This is how the Digital Public Library of America website looked at 10:10 a.m. MDT, ten minutes after the scheduled launch.

I keep refreshing, waiting for the moment it goes live.  Maybe they are simply building up the sense of anticipation! Maybe it’s like a rocket launch and they are on a hold, waiting for a flock of geese to fly by. Hope it goes well!

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Posted 18 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Blog § Joy of Reading ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Today is an Historic Day for the Free Flow of Ideas

Screen Shot 2013-04-18 at 8.16.08 AM

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) launches today at noon Eastern Time.

If you point your browser to dp.la at that moment, you will have a front-row seat at an historic event, one that might have led Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and other Enlightenment-inspired Founding Fathers to nod their heads and say, “Just so.”

The vision of the DPLA is “to make the holdings of America’s research libraries, archives and museums available to all Americans–and eventually to everyone in the world–online and free of charge.” That is how Robert Darnton, director of Harvard’s libraries, put it in a recent article in The New York Review of Books.

“Jefferson and Franklin–the champion of the Library of Congress and the printer turned philosopher-statesman,” Darnton wrote, “shared a profound belief that the health of the Republic depended on the free flow of ideas.”

He continued:

Thanks to the Internet and a pervasive if imperfect system of education, we now can realize the dream of Jefferson and Franklin. We have the technological and economic resources to make all of the collections of our libraries accessible to all our fellow citizens–and to everyone everywhere with access to the World Wide Web. That is the mission of the DPLA.

A huge obstacle to this mission is the stranglehold that U.S. copyright law has on culture and creativity. You have to go all the way back to 1923 to find books in the public domain, as a result of Congress’s successive expansions of copyright protection. Lawrence Lessig has written forcefully on how this lockdown of culture threatens creativity, in books that include Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. (Click here for a free synopsis of the book at Wikipedia.) To its credit, the team working with Darnton decided not to wait until the copyright mess is resolved before pressing ahead with creation of the DPLA.

Today when the DPLA’s virtual doors open, we will be able to wander through the some collections of the largest university library in the world (Harvard’s), as well as collections being made available by the New York Public Library and the Smithsonian. Although it won’t go live today, a trove of copies of original manuscripts by the poet Emily Dickinson will soon be released by Harvard’s Houghton Library for access through the Digital Public Library of America as well at as Harvard’s own website.

On tomorrow’s episode of The Kindle Chronicles podcast, you will have a chance to hear Robert Darnton describe the work that has gone into making today’s historic launch possible. I interviewed him on Monday, April 15, via Skype to his office in Harvard Yard.

Meanwhile, raise your Kindle to the vision of Jefferson and Franklin and take a moment today to drop to check out the brand new Digital Public Library of America.

 

 

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Posted 18 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Blog § Joy of Reading § News ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

My Friend Ben the Boston Marathoner is Okay

Ben Marathon

Doug Kapustin Photo – The Washington Post

My college friend Ben Beach ran the Boston Marathon today, so I was naturally concerned about him when news broke of the bombing at the finish line. He has finished 45 consecutive Boston Marathons, so today was his 46th. I received this text message from him here in Denver late this afternoon: “Police stopped me at 21 miles.” That’s all I know, but it’s enough to know he’s okay.

What horror. I have seen this race through Ben’s eyes over the decades, savoring its history and Bostonian exuberance. It takes place on Patriots’ Day, a Massachusetts state holiday commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. We don’t know who carried out the attack yet. But we will.

Tonight we’re getting a spring snowstorm in downtown Denver. I’m glad Ben and his family are safe. My prayers go out to the victims and those caring for them.

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Posted 15 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Blog § News ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

Otis Chandler Inteview – Video Excerpt

I wasn’t able to record video of my entire conversation with Otis Chandler on April 11, 2013, because the Skype connection was dropping out, and I wanted to preserve as much audio quality as possible for use on the podcast. This video captures the first few minutes of the interview. For the complete interview with the founder and CEO of Goodreads, please check out TKC 245 beginning at the 9:43 mark.

Note: If you are reading this on an E Ink Kindle as part of your Kindle Chronicles subscription, you won’t be able to see the video on your Kindle. You can use your browser on a computer, tablet, or smartphone to see it at thekindlechronicles.com . (And thanks for subscribing!)

 

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Posted 14 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Blog § Goodreads § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

TKC 245 Otis Chandler

Otis Chandler

Founder and CEO of Goodreads.com

Interview Starts at 9:43

Goodreads is a place today for readers of all platforms, no matter how they read the book–whether it be a Kindle or Nook or a physical book, etc., to share what they thought of the book and find new books. And that’s not going to change. I think a lot of people have been having the misconception that that would change. That’s something that’s just fundamental to Goodreads, and if we changed it, it would just be so negative that we’re not even considering that.

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Show Notes and Links:

News

Goodreads

Tech Tip

ReDigi update

AmazonBasics stylus for $9.89

Interview with Otis Chandler

Tools of Change interview with Chandler (video) – February 13, 2013

BiblioStar.TV interview with Chandler (video) – November 13, 2012

Wikipedia entry for Otis Chandler’s grandfather

Content

Book Review podcast with Sam Tanenhaus and Leslie Kaufman – April 7, 2013

“Thin Reads Wants to Be Like ‘Publishers Weekly’ for E-Book Singles” by Seth Fiegerman at Mashable – April 8, 2013

Thin Reads

Kindle Singles

Byliner

The Atavist

Matter

Comments

Amazon forum thread: Price Dropped Kindle eBooks II

Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories by Charles Bukowski – $2.99 on Kindle

Jon Stewart: Beyond the Moments of Zen by Bruce Watson – $2.99 on Kindle

Price discount on Kindle Fire at amazon.co.uk

Weston Super Mare Pier Fire video

Music for my podcast is from an original Thelonius Monk composition named “Well, You Needn’t.” This version is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Persepctive” CD by Public Transit Recording” CD.

Next Week’s Guest

Robert Darnton, key visionary for the National Digital Public Library, which is scheduled to go live on April 18th.

Please Join the new Kindle Chronicles group at Goodreads!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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Posted 13 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Goodreads § Kindle § Podcast ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , ,

Hearing is Believing: How I Dove Even Deeper Into The Impact Equation by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

chris&julien

Chris Brogan, left, and Julien Smith

I have been reading  The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise? by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith for more than five months. This is not because I am a slow reader, although I am a slow reader.

I got the idea for an experiment in immersive reading from my interview with Brogan on October 30, 2012 for TKC 222. I decided to read his book continuously for a year, starting over again each time I finished it. So far, I have completed three readings. My entry for the book at kindle.amazon.com shows 242 highlighted passages and 101 notes. My practice for this experiment is to read a few pages in The Impact Equation every day, and I’ve only missed a few days. I turn to the book on one of my Kindle devices or apps and enjoy seeing if I remember a particular passage well enough to recite by heart yet, or if it seems new.

It’s a good book for immersion, because the authors draw on a wide variety of sources to help us shape our ideas for maximum impact and use social media to achieve that impact. I made a list of all the books they mention, and it totals 28 titles–everything from The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins to The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. Since I am a stickler for typos, I am grateful that this 285-page book only has seven that I’ve spotted so far. Brogan and Smith are careful, lively writers offering a useful approach to making your ideas matter.

That said, I have to confess that as I picked up my Kindle Fire this morning for the day’s reading, I wondered if six months might be enough for this experiment. The words seemed to be getting a little dry and familiar. For some reason, I ended up checking back to the book’s listing at amazon.com and realized for the first time that Whispersync for Voice was available for it, via an Audible version. Since I have so much time already invested in this book, the additional cost of $4.49 seemed reasonable, so I purchased and downloaded the file to my Fire HD 7″.

I expected that I would be hearing one of Audible’s excellent professional narrators, but instead I was pleasantly surprised to hear a voice that I recognized immediately as Brogan’s. He has a bedroom voice, full of empathy and earnestness, so this is a good vehicle for him. When I moved the audio player locator back to the start of the book, I was surprised again, to hear a different voice reading Chapter 1. I’ve never heard Julien Smith speak, so it was fun to hear him for the first time. Smith’s voice is more authoritative and professorial than Brogan’s. So they complement each other well, and each achieves a level of professional narration equal to any I’ve heard on other Audible books.

I’m not sure if Brogan and Smith wrote alternating chapters, but if so, this is a nice way to present the two authors’ voices and writing styles. Here is what one wrote, and now the other takes his turn. In reality, I think they review and edit each other’s writing, but probably the first draft came from whoever they chose to read that chapter for Audible.

What stuns me is how hearing the author’s voice so dramatically deepens the experience of reading the book. I am in a particularly good place to testify to this effect, having read the visible words on screens three times already. But now, as I watch the highlight move across the line as Brogan or Smith recite the words, I feel as if I am reading the book for the very first time. This is amazing, and a real tribute to Amazon’s brilliant pairing of Kindle books with Audible readings for a rapidly increasing number of titles.

In fact, Audible is now listing more than 23,000 titles that have Whispersync for Voice capability. If you have a book that you love and plan to read again, I urge you to consider taking advantage of this new way of deepening your experience of that book. Buy the Audible file and listen along as you read. You could do this without a Kindle Fire, on an E Ink Kindle or other device, even a paper book. But with the Fire you can see the words highlighted, like the bouncing ball that used to help follow the lyrics of a song. My mind takes heightened satisfaction and pleasure at the arrival of the same words instantaneously via two separate senses, eyes and ears.

When I decided to begin an immersive reading experiment for The Impact Equation, I had no idea that it would lead to this newfound satisfaction in pairing of the written and spoken word.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the depth of the delight has something to do with the first time I experienced it.  I remember as a boy how proud and happy I was when I realized that I could follow the words on the page, the very words that my father was reciting to me as he sat on the side of the bed, turning the pages of The Little Engine That Could.

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Posted 07 April 2013 † Len Edgerly § Blog § Joy of Reading § Kindle ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

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