Amazon has started slowly rolling out some new changes to the user interface on Kindles after the last 5.18.6 software update.
Last week I posted about how they changed the look of the table of contents menu and the dictionary panel (they also removed the ability to open the dictionary as a book when looking up definitions, which is annoying for some). They also changed how bookmarks work.
Like usual, Amazon didn’t bother mentioning the changes in the release notes, or explain how things are supposed to work now, leading to more needless confusion from Kindle users.
I did get a popup saying that bookmarks had changed when trying to add a new bookmark, but if you already had bookmarks added you wouldn’t know where to find them now that they’ve removed the bookmark icon from the menu.
The way bookmarks work now is you have to tap in the upper right corner of a page to add a bookmark. You no longer have to tap the icon and then the + button to add a bookmark; just tap the corner once and that’s it, so it requires less taps than before, which is nice.
However, you can no longer view your list of bookmarks by tapping the bookmark icon in the right corner. As noted above, they also removed the bookmark icon from the menu bar so you cannot access your list of bookmarks from there anymore either. It’s no wonder some people think that Amazon has removed the bookmark feature entirely with this latest software update.
To view your list of bookmarks you now have to tap the notebook icon from the menu bar. Instead of being able to just view your list of bookmarks, they are now mixed together with all your notes and highlights.
I like how the bookmark list shows thumbnails for each bookmarked page, but having to sift through your notes and highlights to find bookmarks is less than ideal. They should add a filtering option, but so far that doesn’t exist.
With the new Kindle Scribes getting released on the December 10th, Amazon will probably start rolling out another software update soon, and there might be some more UI changes to accomodate software changes on the new Scribes. I bet that’s why the bookmark menu has been consolidated into the notebook menu, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more changes coming down the line.
That’s the impression I get. I think they’re adapting all models to the software that the new Kindle Scribes will have (obviously, some features won’t be available). I’m convinced there will be more changes. I know a lot of people won’t like it, but I prefer to have more or less unified software.