Amazon updates Kindle for Android app, adds X-Ray and flash cards

One of the things I love about reading books with Kindle is the synchronization across devices. I have often been reading something on my Kindle device and then had to go out. While waiting in a queue (or whatever) I can get out my Android phone and continue reading using Kindle for Android. As you can imagine, I am always happy when Amazon adds more functionality to the Kindle Android app. The great news is that Amazon has just released a new version which adds a lot of new functionality.

Version 4.8.0 adds the following features:

• Use X-Ray for Books and Textbooks to look up places, characters and terms
• Receive push notifications from Kindle – customize your experience in Settings
• Improved library search
• Make flashcard sets to review textbook material
• Control audiobook playback while reading the Kindle book

Probably the most useful of these (for the common reader) is the addition of support for X-Ray. With X-Ray you can see the bare bones of a book. I am reading a book about Alan Turing at the moment and it is X-Ray enabled. By tapping on the new X-Ray icon at the top of the page I get access to a list of popular terms (people, places) from the book. Alan Turing is listed, as is Bletchley Park. Tapping on Bletchley Park shows me a list of all the occurrences of the famous code-breaking HQ, plus an X-Ray view of the distribution of where it is mentioned in the book. Further tapping on the title brings up a short article about the Park, in this case from Wikipedia.

You now also have better control over the notifications that Kindle sends out. As well as being able to enable or disable notifications completely, you can also enable or disable specific notifications, like the download progress notifications or the Kindle Deals messages.

Overall this is another solid update from Amazon.