Amazon Kindle (ebook thingy)

I'm still on 5.7.3. What am I missing?

there is a snazzy new homescreen, if you are willing to have buy recommendations put on it (if not, same old thing w/ adjusted appearance)

everything is thinner (lines, fonts, etc.) and the buttons and such are smaller (beyond the point of casual accurate buttonpushing)

for some reason collection views now default to showing you 'all' rather than 'downloaded', despite there being more things in 'downloaded' than in 'all' - and if you don't make the switch the only other way to find something now being shown in 'all' is to search for it

Yuck. Is there a screenshot online anywhere?

Have they changed the actual fonts for reading? Am kind of loving reading with the weirdo dyslexic font.

If this is the update from months ago, I don't mind it.

it may be that, i was notified of one that never seemed to come. i now have a dyslexic font i didn't have before.

I just want a baseline of mere competence for the books that get advertised on the sleep screen (of my paperwhite). Without exception they are the shittiest imaginable self published ebooks, many of which have grammatical or spelling errors in their promo blurb and some of which even have misspellings in their cover graphics! Seeing them makes me super depressed about, like, the debasement of writing etc. books are supposed to be my safe zone of craftsmanship.

I don't like the most recent update. I have the hardest time just finding books that I know are on my device.

The most recent update looks nice I think but it seems to have broken my battery use - which now drains even when I'm not using the thing

This is why mine has been in aeroplane mode since I bought it. I don't want any meddlesome interaction with Amazon at all, especially when I like it the way it is.

i think what they changed was, in going from options 'all' and 'cloud' to 'all' and 'downloaded', they stopped counting files loaded on manually as part of 'all'. also by default 'all' now covers undownloaded (or since locally deleted) cloud files, so what's called 'downloaded' is more accurately 'all the contents of the kindle'.

boo

question about a thing not new to this update, i think:

when you read a formatted (usual kindle file) book that has page sizing issues (e.g. set as poetry), a scroll/zoom option will pop up in the middle of the screen on page turn taps, so that you have to turn-tap repeatedly to get it to turn and ignore the scroll/zoom buttons. is there a setting to turn that off, or at least a way to use it to avoid that behavior? so that it's just clear and easy page turns from here til eternity?

argh i mean it's really annoying to move the orientation setting multiple levels in, so that it's harder to get to than the font

I just want a baseline of mere competence for the books that get advertised on the sleep screen (of my paperwhite). Without exception they are the shittiest imaginable self published ebooks, many of which have grammatical or spelling errors in their promo blurb and some of which even have misspellings in their cover graphics! Seeing them makes me super depressed about, like, the debasement of writing etc. books are supposed to be my safe zone of craftsmanship.

I'm glad it's not just me, I thought the ads were targeted/personalized somehow and I was deeply and profoundly insulted by what they thought I was interested in

Can't you put these ad infested kindles into permanent airplane mode and use the kindle app on your pc to purchase and move ebooks onto it? There is a nice free program called calibre that helps you do this.

I think then I would just be stuck with whatever the current shitty ad is?

I side load almost everything using calibre btw

one of the sync menu items i was used to seeing seems to have vanished at least some of the time, after the update i mentioned above, so i was surprised today to find that in the brightness item (sun) on the main menu bar, you can switch to airplane mode as well as do a sync

grumble

btw verso is having one of their $1 ebook sales today

they stamp your name and email in the file before they release it to you!

their kindle files are quite large tho, must be fulla crud

they come with a publisher's font by default, i wonder if that's it

Yeah, that makes sense.

Have we remarked yet on when the interesting, aesthetically pleasing cover art available at time of purchase gets replaced by clip-art or movie tie-in?

my paperwhite kindle suddenly started turning pages with a small lag - any experience with that?

Are you in a different temperature environment? Page turn times are temp-dependent.

why, does that effect the impedance of the screen for touch-sensitivity purposes or something

Never knew about that temperature sensitivity thing but I can believe. Usually I attribute any slowness to
1) Bad wifi and syncing thereover
2) Too much stuff on Kindle, so not enough free space for swapping leading to thrashing
3) Random system stuff happening in the background

Wonder if there is a recommended ratio for 2?

E-ink is literally particles suspended in syrup, so it takes longer to move the particles when it's cold...

that's disgusting

Cancel my subscription immediately

I dont have any temperature changes in my house and thought that the strnegth of teh wifi signal wouldnt matter once the book is stored on the kindle.
Now it kinda feels like an old iphone struggling with a new iOS.

I had the slowness problem a few weeks ago and it seemed to be tied to a specific book rather than the device - once I'd deleted it, then restarted, it went back to normal. Obvs that doesn't solve the problem of finishing the book, but I'm pretty sure your device is still okay.

ok thanks - just 5% left on a LeCarré book

if it's a post-74 le carre that could be the source of the problem, hey yo

nope - 'Small Town in Germany'

Anyone listen to music on kindle? I previously thought my headphones plug didn't fit but it does and it sounds pretty good, it's a Kindle Fire HD. I'm not an audiophile so I'm not sure it sounds good enough for me to settle on this but I'm quite excited by the idea of not having to buy an mp3 player.

What do you think?

There's no particular reason for audio output from tablet to be any worse than that of a phone or common/inexpensive dedicated MP3 players. They're all kinda equally shitty, compared to flac files, and higher-end DA converters, headphone amps and headphones.

I discovered I just didn't care that much for my usual portable audio listening (audio books and podcasts), so I purchased a cheap mp3 player that could be submersed in 20 feet of water and use it without fear while swimming on the weekend, washing cars and dogs, and walking in the rain.

I asked this in another mp3 player thread too, but does mp3 players ever have bass boost/dsgx options?

I used to have a Sony mp3 Walkman with bass boost. Don't remember the model # (NWZ something - or maybe they all are) and anyway it's about a decade old and I don't know if I'd recommend it as such since I never got on with the interface, but I think some of the newer models do too.

The current (micro sd based memory) nwz players are excellent and yes they do have some kind of spatial enhancement option as well as a bass boost option (I just use mine with flat EQ and gain turned up though). There's an insanely expensive one and a more reasonable one that's about the price of an pre-deletion iPod classic (250 to 300) (I have the less expensive one)

I'm wondering how much of a difference it makes. I've just always put bass boost on CD players and I think it sounds better but is it worth caring about on an mp3 player?

This kindle has Dolby Digital Plus, is that at all similar?

no idea specifically.

generally, it's better to reduce the treble a little and turn up the volume than to boost the bass. Or just turn up the volume plain and simple.

Screw it, I'm settling for this Kindle. I'm very happy just to have an mp3 player under my nose all this time and I can finally get those Art Zoyd albums.

fwiw my decade-old NWZ was at the cheap end of the range, the B series, well under 100USD, and it sounded good, I just didn't like the UI. so if I wanted a standalone player now I'd def consider one of the newer models. don't know if they still do a cheap model but the more expensive ones have bigger screens which hopefully translates into being easier to use

tbh I mostly just listen on my phone now with the stock Android audio player and that also sounds just fine to me but having a separate unit did have some benefits, not least conserving battery and SD card space on my phone

so no, I don't think there's anything wrong with just listening on a Kindle Fire

I had a shitty summer and splurged on the Oasis, the pointlessly expensive E-ink thing that comes with a book cover battery. Totally worth it. Ploughed through the Count of Monte Cristo (the longest book I've read, I think) so gonna keep it as my device for back-breaking Victorian fiction.

if i wanted to splurge and upgrade my paperwhite, is the difference between the voyage and oasis worth the extra $$$?

I don't think so.

there's an amazon store near me so i might pop by to see them in person. i'll be damned if i spend $90 on a CASE though...

i'm confused about the point of the case. these things already have insane battery life.

yeah I was thinking the same, short of getting marooned somewhere without power for more than a few days, it is pretty hard to get caught short with these devices. It does look very nice though.

This is the innovation I want.

When my e-ink reader is asleep, instead of displaying a default logo (like my wife's nook) or a randomly displayed ad for a shitty book (like my kindle) I'd like it if it could display the cover image of whatever book I happen to be in the middle of at the time. Do any of them do this? A pleasurable thing about a real book is the way it sits there reminding you what you're reading, beckoning you to pick it back up.