I Love My Kindle

[wayfriend]

Amazon recently updated my Paperwhite to a new version of the software. (I don't know how that happened automatically, I'm usually better at preventing that kind of abuse.)

I HATE the new user interface. All my nice collections look like a tax form. And that's AFTER you turn off all the "Recommendations" shoved in your face, and then turn off COVERS. I could go on and tell you all eighty reasons why it sucks.

Old Hotness ............................................................................. New P.O.S.

.....

[Sorus]

But the new version has more Terry Pratchett!

There is a way to change the fonts and whatnot, if that would help. I'm not sure exactly how - mine is a different model and the font change option popped up once when a cat sat on it.


Apparently for Paperwhite:


1. Turn on your Kindle
2. Swipe to unlock
3. Go to current text (you must be in a book and not in the home screen)
4. To enlarge the font, quickly slide your thumb and pointer finger away from each other on the screen and the text will automatically grow by one degree
5. To minimize the font, slide your thumb and pointer finger together in a pinching motion on the screen.


...which assumes you have a touchscreen. Mine is one of the older keyboard models that doesn't have a touchscreen, but the software update didn't change the appearance of my menus.

[wayfriend]

Sorus, this random post says it better than I could.

I strongly dislike what this update did with the list view.

Whats the point of writing "collection" in all caps under collections? As if we didn't know there are collections already from their title and from the number of items that's inside indicated under it. It's just distracting. Before, it was simply in bold and worked very well.

The little dots that indicated the length of a book as well as our progression in it are replaced by a percentage number, so it's more text that's distracting from the book titles, and now there's no way to know how long a book is just by looking at the list.

Books that are recognized as 'kindle documents', in other words most mobi books sent from calibre, have 'kindle document' in all caps written under their title and author. It's just awful, with all that additional text it's a struggle to focus on the book title and author.

As for the half-transparent lines that have been added to separate books... Same thing, it's distracting to me. Worked just fine without them, but then again now that there's all this new textual info instead of nothing or the little dots, I guess they had to add the lines to separate things.

And did we really need, on the right of each book, an option button? Was it so difficult to just tap and hold to go to book options?

I don't like the cover view and don't like the new home screen either; I was very happy with the list view from before so this update is huge disappointment for me; for the first time ever with Kindles I strongly wish it were possible to downgrade. All in all I feel the screen is suddenly messy and too loaded.

[Sorus]

I can see how that would be annoying, though I would probably get used to it pretty quickly. Then again, I'd probably get used to Windows 10 pretty quickly, and I'm avoiding that like the plague. I don't like change.

[Avatar]

I've avoided 10 too. Hell, I only switched to 7 a few years back, after hanging onto XP for as long as possible.

I especially don't like things changing unless I explicitly tell them to change.

Bastards.

--A

[Sorus]

Check your email - you might have Amazon credits waiting for you

I got over $30. Yay for free books.

[Avatar]

Always a good thing.

--A

[aliantha]

I got $1.57.

[Sorus]

Don't spend it all in one place.

Actually, I've been surprised by what you can get on Amazon for $.99. Mostly classics. It's hit-or-miss - I got the complete works of Dickens for $.99, but a lot of it is abridged, which was not stated and they should not be allowed to call it complete. Even so, there were a couple of complete novels that I hadn't read, so I don't feel ripped off. But abridged is not complete! It's also evil and vile and... I have strong feelings about such things.

[aliantha]

Don't spend it all in one place.

Right?

[Avatar]

But abridged is not complete! It's also evil and vile and... I have strong feelings about such things.

Oh, me too.

--A

[aliantha]

Me three.

The fun's not over yet! Barnes & Noble gave me another $6! I'll likely spend it at a store, as I haven't used my Nook in forever.

It's not that I haven't been reading at all, obviously, but I've been buying a lot of indie e-books and/or having friends send me theirs for free.

[deer of the dawn]

I had the original, basic Kindle but I inherited my brother-in-law's and it has the backlight, which helps when the power goes out. And it's been out about 23.75 hours a day for the past two weeks. I am not kidding.

In between reading "my" books, I read one of Ronnie's. They've all been legal thrillers, but today I started reading The Rosie Project, which (unexpectedly) turns out to be comedy. So far, it's hilarious.

My beef with the Paperwhite is that it won't sort my books according to what's recently read. It offers that option, but when I select it from the drop-down it just stays alphabetical order. Since I am always switching between 2 or 3 books, this is very annoying. Since wi-fi is nonexistent in Nigeria, I may need an update I can't get at. Grr.

For buying new books though, I love the Kindle. I love that I have lots and lots of books in my handbag. And I can read in the dark.