Kindle App Vs. iBooks. (Spoiler: They’re Virtually Identical Now!)

I noticed with interest that Kindle now lets you highlight text in different colors. It’s also very easy now to tweet a brief quote.

Is it time to revise the blog-based pedagogy I’ve developed over the past 10 or so years, and ask students to tweet a few passages while they read them for the first time, then use their blogs to follow up on their initial responses? Something to think about.

From the beginning, the two apps have had different goals. Kindle was made to let you read your Kindle books on your iPad, with almost no considerations for aesthetics. It has, over the years, gotten a lot prettier and easier to use, and is now almost identical to iBooks when you’re in full-screen, chrome- free reading mode. Almost.

iBooks has always looked good, and has changed a lot less than Kindle. It launched with a bookshelf view that Kindle waited years to get, and it has the advantage of a built-in bookstore. If iBooks had a purpose, it was to prove that the iPad could be a great e-reader, and to demo well. —Cult of Mac.