Amazon on Monday morning released Fire OS 3.1, a free software update for the new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX.
The free, over-the-air update will automatically be delivered to users in the coming weeks, or you can visit Amazon's website to download and install it starting today. It brings a number of new features, including deep integration with the online reading community Goodreads, second screen capabilities, Cloud Collections, enterprise support, wireless printing, and more.
"The response to our new family of Kindle Fire tablets has been fantastic, and we're excited to add new features we think our customers will love," Amazon Kindle Vice President Peter Larsen said in a statement.
For the first time, Goodreads - which Amazon acquired in March - is now integrated directly into the Kindle reading experience, meaning you won't need to leave your book to open the Goodreads app. Readers can easily capture and share quotes with Goodreads friends from inside a book, see what friends are reading, and add books to a "want to read" shelf.
You can also now rate and review a book you just finished and immediately share it on Goodreads, as well as import all the books you've purchased from Amazon into your account.
Meanwhile, the new Cloud Collections feature will let you organize your books, newspapers, magazines, and apps into customized collections for easy reference. Plus, Amazon's Whispersync technology synchronizes these collections across all your Kindle devices and reading apps so they're always available.
Besides that, the update brings second screen functionality, letting you "fling TV shows and movies from your tablet to your big-screen TV," Amazon said. At this point, Second Screen is only available for PlayStation 3 and Samsung TVs, though it will expand to the PS4 "later this year."
Other new features include: voice dictation; 1-Tap archive to quickly store items on your device in the cloud; and wireless printing of photos, PDFs, emails, contacts, calendars, and documents. There's also new accessibility enhancements for the blind and visually impaired, and "dozens" of performance and battery-life improvements.
On the business front, the update delivers the ability to connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks, as well as an organization's native VPN client and native SCEP (Simple Certificate Exchange Protocol) client. The new Kindle Fire tablets also include device management APIs that integrate with existing mobile device management systems to help IT departments to manage the Kindle Fire.
For more, see PCMag's reviews of the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9", Kindle Fire HDX 7" (Wi-Fi) (slideshow above), and Kindle Paperwhite.