by Dan Moren
Amazon’s new Kindle Page Flip wants to ape holding a page
Amazon’s adding a new feature called Page Flip to its Kindle e-readers, iOS and Android apps, and Fire tablets:
By tapping a button in the corner of the screen, you can now more easily scan the entirety of a book while a small thumbnail of the original page follows as you scroll around.
The feature, called Page Flip, is designed to be the “digital equivalent of sticking your fingers in the book,” says Amazon Kindle VP Jeff Kunis. He says it’s made with non-fiction readers in mind, who often jump around books to check glossaries, endnotes, and other referential material.
While reading a novel on my Kindle just the other night, I found myself wishing I was reading a paper book so I could flip back to an earlier page and check something. I’m a little skeptical that this will work quite as well as the old analogue method, but it certainly looks like it’s an improvement over what’s there now. Also, the little ad Amazon made for the feature is cute.