Amazon has launched a Kindle for Kids Bundle. The Bundle packages a third-party back cover (in your choice of five colors) and two-year SquareTrade warranty with an existing entry-level, touch-screen, ad-free Kindle … for the same price that Kindle alone would have cost (without ads): $99. Beyond its standard e-reading capabilities, Amazon is also pitching Kindle FreeTime features such as reading achievement badges. But I wonder if there’s much of a market amongst parents and their budding readers for a single function device like this? I’d handed down a former Kindle to a friend’s daughter, but Dad tells me it was pretty quickly superseded by other multifunctional tablet gadgetry. Hm.
And, while we’re on the topic of Kindle, for us adults Amazon has introduced a new font and improved layout.
Amazon is making a big step towards better typography on the Kindle. Not only are they unveiling Bookerly, the first typeface designed for the Kindle for scratch, but they’re finally solving the Kindle’s typesetting problems with an all-new layout engine that introduces better text justification, kerning, drop caps, image positioning, and more.
Updated apps for iPhone and iPad are available now, with e-Ink and Android devices expected to receive these improvements later this summer.
(via The Digital Reader)