You don’t need to own a Kindle device in order to read Kindle books. The free app for Android or iOS is perfectly capable. Using the app on your phone means you have your entire library of books in your pocket wherever you go. If you want a bigger screen, you can use the app on your iPad or Android tablet.

And, there’s more …

 

When you’re reading in the Kindle app and you see a word you don’t understand, just long-press on it and a dictionary definition pops up! The first time you try this, you will be prompted to download the dictionary.

 

When you’re reading and see a character’s name that you don’t remember, you can long press on the name and a “X-Ray” box pops up that quotes a passage where that character was referenced earlier in the book. If that one reference doesn’t spark your memory, you tap the “Go to X-Ray” button to see all the references to that character. Not all books have the X-Ray feature. To see if your book does, open it in the Kindle app, then tap the 3-dot menu in the upper right – you should see X-Ray in the menu. If it’s not there, the book does not support it.

 

To bookmark any page, just tap in the upper right corner. You should see a blue ribbon appear. Tap again and it will disappear. To see, and go to, a previous bookmark, tap the middle of the screen, then the notebook icon at top. You should now see all the bookmarks you’ve already created and you can tap on the one you want to visit. You will also see highlights you’ve made by dragging across text. You can see just the bookmarks by tapping on the filter button at
the top right and select Bookmarks.

 

Let’s say you learn something about using Google Photos by reading our book in Kindle version and you’d like to share this thing you learned with a friend who uses Google Photos. All you need to do is drag your finger across the passage in the book to highlight it. Then you tap the share button, choose your method of sharing – e.g. email or text message, and send to your friend.

 

We covered all these features and more in Episode 214 of our YouTube show, What Does this button Do? If you are a premium member of Geeks on Tour, you will also see the detailed show notes there.