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Kindle iOS app is now easier on the eyes

Amazon has spruced up its Kindle app for the iPhone and iPad with new layouts, improved brightness controls, and better support for print replica textbooks.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney
2 min read
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET

iOS users who own the Kindle book-reading app will notice a few helpful enhancements in the latest version.

Released yesterday, version 3.2 of the app adds three new layouts, each offering different margins so you can better replicate the experience of reading a physical book.

A new brightness control is more responsive to your touch and keeps the text readable even at the lowest setting.

Highlighting has also been enhanced. You can more quickly highlight entire paragraphs and other passages. You can also now highlight photos, drawings, charts, and other pictures.

Finally, Amazon has bumped up support for print replica textbooks, which mimic their physical counterparts page by page.

A new Notebook feature for such textbooks compiles all of your notes, bookmarks, and highlights in one single section. Users of these textbooks can also more quickly hop from one page to another via the page thumbnails or back and forward buttons.

The Kindle iOS app continues to offer the same features as always, including a variety of font sizes and a one-column or two-column layout.

Users can switch the background color from white to black to sepia. The handy Go to menu lets you jump to any page in the book as well as any note or highlight. A search option tracks down any word or phrase in the book, displaying all references in a single column.

And Amazon's Whispersync feature lets you read a book on one device and pick up where you left off on another.

The app is compatible with any iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch running iOS 4.3 or higher.