Kindle Update
Your Kindle will soon receive a free, over-the-air software update. Readers are always looking for their next favourite book, and this update provides new ways to help you easily find new books and new authors that you’re sure to love.
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Our readers’ most-used settings—such as Aeroplane Mode and Device Sync—can now be found together with just one tap on your toolbar.
All this looks like Amazon is desperately seeking to shore up ebook sales. Instead of letting you see just your books on the home screen, you have to pass through a vestibule displaying items to buy. Instead of only going to Amazon to search for books when you want, you’ll be exposed to more books each time you visit the home screen. You can naturally then see just your books, but it’s another tap, after your eye has been caught by the books at the bottom of the display.
John:
If you go to advanced options in the updated Kindle software, you can disable the new opening screen entirely. That way when you turn on the Kindle, you see the old list format as before (but in the new, lighter typeface).
Update (2016-02-03): Jason Snell:
Fortunately, you can turn off recommendations, which I did. The fancy graphics disappear when you do this, but the entire interface has still been overhauled. There’s a new typeface that’s absolutely gorgeous on the high-resolution screen of my Kindle Voyage.
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Singstar has recently started randomly showing suggested songs in the normal list of bought songs. Weirdly, I actually kind of like this, and have bought a bunch of songs this way. There are so many songs in the store that it seems impossible to browse through them, but not enough that you can just search and expect to find what you're looking for; also, Singstar seems to be pretty good at guessing what kinds of songs we like.
Similarly, I often pick up suggested books on Audible. Audible is pretty good at showing me new releases from authors I like, so I find the feature useful.
I haven't updated my Kindle to this yet (and I'm not sure if I can, I'm keeping my old Kindle with real buttons and a real keyboard), but I think I might actually find this useful, if the recommendations are good.
Confirmed with an Amazon rep via chat that version 5.7.2 software update is only available for Kindle Paperwhite (6th Generation), Kindle (7th Generation), Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation) (Muscat), and Kindle Voyage (7th Generation). It is currently not available for the 5th Generation Kindle Paperwhite, which is what I own. Just FYI.
