Microsoft Edge is becoming an increasingly interesting alternative to Safari on iOS. Today, Microsoft has released a major update for the web browser that expands its feature set. Leading the new additions is support for reading e-books.
This is a feature users’ have been asking for on iOS for some time. Microsoft Edge arrived on iOS back in October 2017 and it has been improving since then. While e-book reading is now supported, it is limited to content that was purchased on the Microsoft Store.
That’s arguably a bit pointless considering many iOS users will be engrained in Apple’s content ecosystem. Either way, if you have e-books through the Microsoft Store, you can now read them through Edge on your iPhone or iPad.
While this feature is welcome, Microsoft has left some important abilities behind. For example, there is no annotation, highlights, or bookmarks available for e-book reading support. We guess the company will be adding these in due course.
The new Microsoft Edge update for iOS brings the app to version 42.1.0 with the following changelog:
- Sign in with a school or work account
- -Favorites and password syncing coming soon
- *On iPad, press the Command key of your attached keyboard to see available shortcuts
- *Improved Hub design
- *Read books on the go
- -Books from the Microsoft Store
- -Bookmarks, annotation and highlights not supported
- *Performance improvements
Availability
While the e-book support has arrive on iOS, it is still not available on Android just yet. If you are interested in picking up this latest update, it is available directly through the App Store on your device. If you are coming to Microsoft Edge for the first time, you can download it right here.
