Amazon today announced a software update for the new Kindle Paperwhite that brings several new features, including deep integration with the online reading community Goodreads and Kindle FreeTime.
The free, over-the-air software update will be delivered automatically in the coming weeks, or you can head over to Amazon's website to download and install it now.
"First, we're combining the world's largest e-reading community and the world's largest community of book lovers with new Goodreads integration," Amazon Kindle Vice President Peter Larsen said in a statement. "Second, given the great customer response to our tablet version of Kindle FreeTime, we're excited to extend this feature to Kindle Paperwhite, helping parents encourage their kids to read more."
The move comes after Amazon yesterday began rolling out a software update for the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX that also brought Goodreads integration as well as second screen capabilities, Cloud Collections, enterprise support, and wireless printing.
With Goodreads on the Kindle Paperwhite, you'll be able to capture and share favorite passages with your Goodreads friends without leaving the book, see what they're reading, and check out their reviews. When you finish a book, you can now immediately rate it and share it on Goodreads without putting down your device.
Besides that, you can update your "currently reading" status and add books to your "want to read" shelf directly from your Kindle, as well as import all the books you've purchased from Amazon into your account. The integration comes after Amazon acquired Goodreads back in March.
Meanwhile, the Paperwhite update also extends the built-in Kindle FreeTime parental controls to let parents set daily reading goals for their kids, select books for their children to read, and track progress against goals. Children can earn achievement badges for hitting milestones like reaching and exceeding their daily goal, or passing goals like "Read 1000 pages." Parents can also now get a progress report on total time their child spent reading, number of words looked up, badges earned, and books finished.
Finally, the Paperwhite update includes a new Cloud Collections feature, which will let you organize your books, newspapers, magazines, and apps into customized collections for easy reference. Amazon's Whispersync technology synchronizes these collections across all your Kindle devices and reading apps so they're always available.
For more, check out PCMag's review of the Kindle Paperwhite and our Hands On With Amazon Kindle FreeTime.