Amazon's attitude towards its Kindle device customers is one of lofty disregard.
Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
But they appear to exult in dashing the hopes of their customers, or at the very least they don't care about them at all. They've doubled down on no-key devices with stupid pens, pointless and poorly-implemented color, and tiny or excessively large form factors with little in between. It's kind of crazy just how much they don't seem to care.
The subtext of the article indicates that the problem isn't discontinuing support alone, but discontinuing support without offering those customers a reasonable replacement for their old devices that had keys and buttons. (Even if it's just a couple of buttons.)
It's not. It's really not. It's 14 years of you can still access the store and buy stuff. That's not that good. You can buy a DVD and it'll still work on 25+ year old players. You can still buy digital content on an almost 20 year old PS3, you can use iTunes purchases on an original iPod from 25 years ago. Even in the eBook space you can get a new DRM'd purchase on a Sony PRS-500 from 2006 with Adobe Digital Editions.
These Kindles were not getting firmware updates (outside of maybe security certificates), they weren't getting new features or patches. You could just get new content.
I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve been on one side, looking at usage numbers of older iOS versions, and arguing that low single digit percentages were fine to stop supporting with the new version.
On the other hand, I view my kindle as an appliance, and I don’t need it to have updated functionality. I think this is true of many electronics: digital cameras, printers, misc USB peripherals, etc. I believe Amazon could easily support the APIs it uses, and keep delivering me books that I’ve paid for or borrowed.
Financially, I suspect the kindle devices have a much longer lifetime than iPhones do, and Amazon is still making $$ off of old kindles.
If there were TLS concerns, a partial disablement (ex: can’t buy books from the device) would be way more acceptable than a complete cutoff. I’ve seen suggestions that it’s a DRM issue, and if that’s the primary motivation, it’s pretty disappointing.
It seems they’ve gone out of their want to make them useless. They could have ended official support, while still allowing users to download ebooks from the store and side loading them through a computer. However, before killing support, they eliminated the ability to download ebooks to the computer.
I'm sad that Apple cut off support for my iPod. It still takes a charge and is a joy, except that most of the apps no longer work, because what they connect to is gone.
I used to be able to read books on it and watch Netflix.
My iphone is a boat anchor next to the sleek, slick iPod.
If only you knew the lengths amazon went to to keep supporting these devices. Stopping support is emblematic of the Jassy era, of amazon becoming just like any other bigco. This would've been unthinkable under Bezos.
It says a lot about our world that artificially discontinuing a fully functional device (thankfully mine are offline and jailbroken) is "pretty incredible".
Yeah, I do not really see the problem here. These devices are ancient and the panic is unwarranted. The older Kindles can be jailbroken if anyone cares that much.
I think there is a smaller argument that the newer Kindles don't feel as nice. The Oasis was the pinnacle of e-reader hardware design, and it'll be sad when they stop supporting it, but it certainly won't be worthy of a news article or this kind of reaction.
I also think they leave so much money on the table by not having the simplest of features - why can't I gift someone kindle books? I'd be buying so many for friends and family, but there is literally no way to do that on kindle. It's money they aren't getting.
> Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
WWII fighter plane with red spots on it dot gif.
The vast majority of people who buy Kindles simply read books on them and don’t repeatedly cry online about features that are never coming back.
I’ve bought about 10 of the things dating back to 2012 either because I wanted to have the latest model or because I wanted to give one as a gift. They are all amazing devices.
I’ve never thought, “boy I better go online and complain about this one.” I’ve just been too busy buying and reading books on them!
The reason people complain is because the old kindles used to have buttons, and honestly the touch screen is really fucking janky if you're used to the page turning buttons of the kindle 4, or the onscreen keyboard is janky if you're used to the kindle 3g.
And the sad part is that there's no best of both. You can't get a kindle paperwhite with buttons.
if they want buttons just look at the various e-readers online there's like such a breadth of these things now its insane. i personally was fetched an xteink reader cause theyre tiny (literally magsafes to the back of my phone wtf) and i love that (they have buttons) and chucked this dudes custom firmware on it to make formatting and usability a lil bit better https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader
is it kindle, no but can i read a book on it yeah. easily.
Bought my kindle in 2012 or 2013, still works fine.
I put it into airplane mode years ago, and just never turned wifi on again. I use Calibre to add books to it. (I use a little usb-c to micro usb adapter).
There are places and ways to get books without DRM and still pay the authors. It's a faff first figuring things out, but once you do it a couple of times, and discover the treasure troves of standardebooks.org and the gutenberg.org, it really just becomes routine you don't even have to think much about.
In my experience it's a better device without the internet, no device updates, no weird book updates (books updating is an oddly unsettling concept to me).
Also battery life got way better, I get a few weeks of battery life as long as it's in airplane mode. (Sometimes a couple of months if I'm using it lightly.) Granted I usually leave the backlight off, there's sunlight and lamp light, you don't need backlight.
I've forgotten about it for years at a time, charged it up, and it kept working just fine.
eReaders that are really just eReaders (and not an android device with apps and nonsense) are a rare case of buy it for life devices. The best kind of device. Kinda like a good watch, I now expect an eReader to work for a decade or two. I would also expect battery replacement as a part of long term ownership, though I haven't had to replace my battery yet.
Anyways, you don't need Amazon to enjoy a kindle. Hek, it honestly gets better without Amazon meddling with it at random, and the device phoning home or w/e nonsense background traffic it runs over wifi.
This move has nothing to do with usability or device capabilities or software support. The only reason for turning them off is to remove a hole in their DRM. These old devices allowed you to remove the copy protection from their books (hardly anyone else uses DRM these days anymore). Removing the old devices makes freeing your books from DRM just much harder.
With almost 600 books in my kindle collection over a period of about 15 years, I would like to think I was a relatively active customer. When they announced “your kindle books are just a license to read”, which happened about the time they announced the deprecation of the old format, I went and converted the entirety of my library to Calibre with multiple open formats.
That was in December, I have not bought a single book on Amazon since then, and the kindle app is not installed on my new phone. Just in case anyone from the relevant AMZN department is reading this.
I often laugh (cry) at the Kindle Product Manager team who ship nothing but DRM updates.
How about a dictionary modal where the font is the same size as the page text..? Hard to imagine what they do all day, given they do seem to force updates but nothing seems to improve
There is a difference between hard and soft DRM. Soft DRM can be only some watermark, not keeping you from creating copies for your own devices. Hard DRM aims to prevent any copying.
In my experience soft DRM is very common, hard DRM not so much.
It hasn't changed, and I don't know why people are saying that most books don't have DRM. It is only a small minority.
Tor books is the largest publisher without it (owned by Macmillan). Otherwise everything is truly hard DRM either ACSM with epub or Kindle's. They are both more or less easily defeated though.
I was about to complain that my Paperwhite only lasts a couple of days between charges (it shuts down when battery drops to ~50%) but then realized that I've had it 7-8 years. No Indian heat here though, I'm in the UK.
Unfortunately a lot of fiction (sci-fi/fantasy) ebooks are effectively kindle exclusive these days (amazon publisher deals exclusivity), due to the near monopoly amazon has… and since they have locked things down even harder lately, it is much more difficult to export purchases to other readers.
I did consider a Kobo, but the terrible website did turn me away. When trying to browse it was wait for button on tracking consent to be active so I could click reject. Then change language to what I'm fluent in instead of getting language based on IP, reject tracking, reject changing region back to IP based and the same two reject for every link clicked. Half the times pages was still shown in language based on my location instead of what I have set or what my user agent tell I want.
When a site ask about allowing tracking for every page shown I assume the company care more about selling PII than getting customers, so not a company I want to use
I just replaced my old kindle with a colorsoft. It was annoyingly white until I figured out how to get that old school kindle yellow/newspaper/paperback look going again.
The newer battery is nice and usb-c is a big upgrade instead of finding my last mini usb (or whatever it was). I think I'm down to just one last thing on that stupid cable (a camping lantern).
moved to kobo (the nice one with colour screen) with calibre web running behind a cloudflare tunnel, getting books direct through smallest publishers/authors. Adds the tiniest bit of friction in book acquisition but reading experience, battery life, everything else shits on my kindle experience (and I’ve owned every one).
What software do you use on the device itself? I recently got a Kobo Clara HD, but software support seems to be a big issue.
On one hand, there's folks using the vendor's OS, which looks like an abandoned custom-made Linux distro, where compiling anything is a nightmare. It's not really made to be hackable, but just to read books purchased via their partners.
OTOH, there's a near-mainline kernel, which works nicely, and hacking on the device becomes much nicer, but e-reader-oriented software seems to commonly rely on kernel APIs only present in the vendor's abandoned fork, and won't work on a more mainline Linux. But this is a great target for actually developing stuff.
I'm tempted to write my own minimal e-reader-focused DE, but honestly, I don't want another project on my hands and would like to use something that's already there.
Please mention that color e-ink has significantly lower contrast than black and white. I thought I did enough research, but was bitten by this caveat- I would trade basically any feature for more contrast.
On the plus side, with your setup, you can have the lowest friction ebook experience possible on planet Earth by installing koreader, and then the z-library plugin.
There are some tablets with RLCD screens that have decent colors and contrast (not quite as good as 300dpi eink, but close, with color and fast updates), but most w/color screens lack proper frontlights for some reason, and they all run android so it's a bit of a mixed bag compared to a proper Kobo/Pocketbook/Linux eink tablet, but having a decent browser on a reflective display without having to cross-compile for 32-bit ARM linux is great.
Color (Kaleido) eInk screens can't show pure white, because the color filter is in the way. That makes the display significantly darker, and negates the entire purpose of eInk.
I sold my color eInk device after trying it for two days, and went back to B&W.
Having used an early kindle and a recent kindle, they are incredibly similar. One of the main innovations of the new models appears to be adverts you have to pay to get rid of.
Also gradually phasing out support of formats like mobi, in such subtle ways that if you open a mobi file you cannot go back to the library, but have to cold-reboot your device...
My current kindle is my third one, and is the last. I will never ever pay for a kindle to Amazon, due to its user hostility.
Oh, and also you cannot move ebooks between accounts, even not with a lot of friction, eg. support tickets, which would be a fair way to game piracy and unwanted lending, which was some inconvinience for me in a situation. Not a huge monetary loss for me, rather a reminder that when you pay to Amazon (or Valve, or any other contemporary DRM-burdened vendor) you are only leasing...
My kindle from 2012 used to have ads you needed to pay for to get rid of. It was sold as separate product with or without ads at a time. I had one with ads.
I keep it offline in airplane mode permanently from 2016 and haven't seen a single ad in a long long time.
You'll get a new ad if you take it online again, but they only persist for about a month or so before falling back to the generic 'read books' amazon ad.
I have my 2016 one setup without a password so when I open my cover the device unlocks, so I never really even see the ad unless I try.
The "library" UI has also gotten radically worse over time (in my family there is a 3G, an early Paperwhite, and a relatively recent base model, and each has a worse and sparser UI than the last). The pages turn faster though, due to improved display/display driver tech.
That's what your nose is for. (I'm quite skilled at advancing or going back by gently tapping the kindle against my face. It helps that I'm very nearsighted so it's kind of already there)
A big amount of user loyalty comes from products that feel finished more than always evolving. Early Kindles felt closer to bookshelves than software platforms
My Kindle Touch, judging by the plastic, is old, on its second battery. I love that the reading experience has not changed at all in the time I’ve had the device. I never thought of it as a bookshelf, but that’s a great way to put it.
In contrast, my iPhone changes with each update, but often I find not for the better – I hated the new control center at first, and while I made it mostly match the old one, the tap targets are smaller than they used to be, on my 4.7” display.
Best path for Amazon would be to unlock and maybe even "open source" ways to flash with third party firmware publicly (I am aware there are methods to do this already). It would gain good will with the techno crowd (important for hire, dev, sec, etc.), and with general fans & consumers (increased likelihood of switching to newer version).
Maybe I'm getting old, but I don't see the appeal of reading on an eink device that's smaller than my phone, which I'm always carrying. Maybe if I'm reading outside in sunlight rather than in bed? Or if I'm worried about getting distracted by a FB/X notification?
Different person, but I bought a set for me and my wife on a whim because they’re so cheap, and found I adore the little thing. I have a public transit commute to and from work. Since getting it, I’ve spent my commutes reading books I’ve meant to get around to.
I have a Kobo I keep at home. I love it, but don’t want to risk breaking it while carrying it around in my backpack, and it’s too big to comfortably hold on a crowded BART (let alone to dig around in my bag to get it out and put it away). The X4 is always in my pants pocket during the commute and small enough to break out wherever I am. Also, it’s small enough to not feel fragile, and cheap enough that it wouldn’t be devastating if I broke it anyway.
The appeal is that it is a better reading screen than a phone, while being the same size as a phone. It means that I can take a book anywhere without having to bring a bag
I had a pocket book 2 for 15+ years but destroyed the display recently :/
Looking for a replacement now that is black&white, has a very good paper like screen, long battery life and allows me to read any .epub/.mobi without DRM or other bs restrictions.
I don’t need colour screen, don’t need audio support and no integrations with any shops or anything like that.
Kindle is ruled out, I looked at Kobo but the screen appeared low quality compared to my old pocket book.
Remarkable 2 is pretty good, though last time I used it the search feature for large pdfs was pretty janky. The BOOX eink devices are also perfectly fine; they're really just android tablets with a special build of android for eink devices. Those are the ones I've used personally.
Pocket Book still makes eink ereaders, though. Is there something wrong with their offerings if you stuck with one of their products for 15 years?
I’ll also take a look at the newer pocket books - I only stuck so long with my old one because it worked perfectly fine and there was no reason to get a new device.
I've now moved to an Android eReader (Boox Note 7, for example [1]).
I can just get the Ebook or PDF files and transfer them via Calibre, simple as that, and I can also download any Android app i want. There are tons of apps out there that support eInk screens.
PineNote isn't really a consumer device. PINE64 has made it abundantly clear that the PineNote is a developer playground device; they're waiting on the community to refine the software support and flesh out the ecosystem for it.
They aren’t bricking the devices, they are making them not work with the Amazon store and library features anymore. My Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation device) still works perfectly well with sideloaded books. It’s jailbroken and runs KOReader, which lets you read ePub directly.
It’s easier to read things on my Kindle Keyboard than on my original iPad.
So their inhouse AI which they are forcing all their devs on is not capable of figuring out how to render what is basically the equivalent of an .md onto the older Kindles?
I bought a second hand Meebook M6 on ebay. At least, it was listed as second hand but seemed to be fresh out of the box when it arrived. I completely love it.
For actually reading ebooks, I'm using Koreader instead of the built-in reader because I find the UI a bit easier to get my head around. I mostly use it for PDFs related to classroom learning, but have the odd epub knocking around from project gutenburg etc.
It has Google Play support, so I can use the Libby app to access my local library's ebook collection (including offline access to travel guides - so useful). I also use the Sefaria app to read Hebrew scripture (also supports offline). These apps tend to use the battery faster than Koreader and having scrolling controls instead of page-turning controls is a bit of a pain, but quite manageable.
I haven't tried the Kindle app, but I'm sure it would work fine.
I really don’t understand the hype of that product.
It’s like an entrepreneur with social media marketing skills came across a container full of really cheap small eink displays, then designed a product and marketing around it.
I use a Boox and really like it, but it's definitely not the same price point as a kindle. It has a stylus but I basically use it exclusively for reading.
It's 10 inches, which I find to be a bit too large for an E-Reader. But for surfing the web and note taking this is a terrific device. Boox has smaller Android devices.
I just bought a boox go color 2. Kindle form factor, color e-ink screen, runs android, supports stylus.
I don't know if I love it yet but I read seven ebooks in a month on it, so I guess it's been a good purchase. The android kindle app has a neat smooth scrolling feature that works really well.
My local library has some dead tree format books with a 500 year support window. Or dead animal or dead reed format books with more like a 2000-year support window.
Unless they are very popular books, they will be weeded (thrown out or or sold) in a matter of a few years though. People imagine that libraries are infinite storehouses of material, but except for places like the Library of Congress they really aren't. There is limited storage space, and in order to get new books they need to discard the old ones that were rarely checked out. Even the example of old books on parchment aren't immune to this trend -- the books we have from Ancient Greece or Rome are just the really popular ones that were copied over and over again, and the vast majority of works from those times are lost.
Err, no. Something “existing” is not the same as something being supported. Is the original printer still providing free translations to modern languages? Fixing typos and other mistakes? Adding chapters on a regular basis?
It’s kinda ludicrous to call the fact that a thing didn’t spontaneously disappear “support”.
Your local library keeps papyrus scrolls on open stacks? I mean, sure, yes, there are libraries that haves such things (the university I work for does), but generally they will be kept in special boxes and you need to ask nicely to get to see them. And don't get me started about the crapitude of your average new book these days. Personally, I prefer print books too, but lasting forever is not really why.
I think the bigger issue is that there's market segments that old product reached and that newer ones don't... and you are locked into their devices by the content you've "bought."
14 year support window is pretty good. Not being able to get a modern device with buttons, and having no way to read your books with buttons, isn't.
What I don’t get is why the publishing industry never got its act together, listened to customers and got its act together.
Yes, like many industries I have worked in I can imagine that they are unable to cooperate because of petty greed and short-sightedness: they would rather have the whole market taken away from them than endure the possibility that some of their direct competitors get a small, temporary advantage.
It should not be hard to create truly interoperable systems that can cut Amazon out of the equation. It isn’t a technology issue. We have technology that easily solves every conceivable aspect of distributing, paying for and consuming ebooks.
This should be the ultimate opportunity for the publishing industry. Especially given that Amazon isn’t investing much in development of devices.
I'm not very familiar with anti-cartel laws (in any country), but I wonder if there would be legal issues preventing publishing companies from working together in such a way even if they otherwise had wanted to?
(Though even if that is the case, I'd still think they could have at least agreed on open standards to use, to prevent anyone like Amazon from creating vendor lock-in.)
But Amazon had advantages from its size. In terms of economies of scale for device manufacturing, publishers could have somewhat caught up if they pooled money to invest in a co-owned company that made devices (though still wouldn't have had such an advantage as Amazon, who could share R&D and production costs with any overlaps to other devices such as smart home speakers, Android tablets, etc.) But Amazon was also able to take a bigger picture approach, using cheap Kindles/ebooks to attract people into their ecosystem and then converting a not-insignificant amount of them to buying other stuff on Amazon.
Collaboration need not be subversive. In fact, it can be the opposite. As you point to, by using open standards.
Devices are not a real problem. You don’t need scale to get hold of affordable readers in bulk. There’s lots of them available and if the market were to grow, there would be even more devices. Today these devices are not very useful as putting content on them is awkward and fragmented. If that pain went away, there would be a huge market.
I think the problem is that Amazon would retaliate. And the publishing industry are too afraid of challenging them. Because they have never been able to get their act together before.
I guess I've never been strongly compelled to ditch mine. It sits there next to my bed. I pick it up and read it every night. Every few weeks I remember that you have to actually charge it. My last Kindle started malfunctioning after about 8 years of constant use. I opened a chat with Amazon support and they gave me a 50% coupon off the current version. That was two years ago and I'm still using it.
I do get the argument about lockdown. And there's some mediums I feel more strongly in that area. I suppose Amazon just has me exactly where they want me :)
The problem Amazon has is that they already designed the perfect e-reader and released it in 2016. It's called the Kindle Oasis. All they had to do was keep making marginal improvements to this design (USB-C, faster processor) every few years. But that doesn't move units, need creation does, and convincing people that they need a new Amazon store front-end requires new form factors.
All these stories of people who have been using the same Kindle for 15 years is not an Amazon success story because those people have not been buying Kindles. It's true even though Amazon makes far more on the margin of sending special locked up text files that were written by someone else.
I was looking for a good rationalization to leave the ecosystem, one-click e-books is great and having old device that I can take anywhere not caring about it getting beaten up even more was another major advantage.
Removing some old book I had was the first major red flag.
Kinda baffled by people preferring buttons on their devices. When trying to de-Amazon I bought two Kobos - a Clara BW (without buttons) and a Libra Colour (with). I _much_ prefer the Clara because I can slip it in a pocket, whereas the extra bevel required for the buttons means the Libra must be in a bag (though I still end up using it despite this inconvenience because it can load books wirelessly, unlike the Clara).
Totally agree that a manufacturer should provide both options - I'm just surprised to have non-standard preferences.
>Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely. "Technology has come a long way in that time," said a spokesperson.
Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?
We have several different ecosystem e-readers in our household and all are used via USB and Calibre. The "extra time used" is won by multitude with approach where the reading stays in the center and uploading is once in a while event.
This creates a barrier for addictive bookshopping, though a reader with plenty of books allows the change of minds, not just the endless booscrrolling that a connected device enables.
If there's a problem with the reader the firmware can be updated but I don't remember such issues since my first reader (Kindle version without backlight and physical buttons only, no idea of the year).
Now a fourth one (Kobo) in use and all the previous ones still fully functional and in use by close ones.
Any recommendations? I've gone back to paper partly because the form factors of kindles don't feel particularly comfortable. The basic kindle feels kinda cramped but I don't like pro-tablet like devices.
my device just missed the window, and pre-covid it had a battery issue. back then, when i requested amazon to replace the battery, they simply offered a discount on a new one similar to the affected users instead.
it magically started keeping charge recently and is working as i last remembered. i haven't been keeping tabs but the underlying computing of these kindles has been largely the same, TI-84 like, outdated scrap that happens to be enough for the slow refreshing screens.
while it's unlikely for anyone here complaining to own an affected device (that is still their daily driver), i hope they do have a major overhaul incoming which necessitates this. the main pain point with access to your purchases is indeed frustrating, but very few things in computing has lasted me this long.
I have a Kindle which I think is surviving this purge. But after looking at alternatives like the Kobo, I wondered where people got their books?
Ofc there's the high seas, but I'd quite like to support the authors and I can afford ~£10 for a book now and then. But are there any stores as good/convenient as the Amazon one?
I buy the books of my favorite authors on kindle store, while sailing the high seas to read the books on my Kobo. I don't buy all the books I read though.
Kobo store is convenient but feels pricey sometimes (I don't have experience with the Kindle store). I don't mind paying them though, because it's still easy enough to strip the DRM and make backup copies of my books. If that changes, I'll take my business elsewhere.
I make a lot of use of my local library through the native Overdrive integration.
There's nothing wrong with the Kobo store itself, but some titles are only published via Amazon. Especially from self-published authors or participants in Kindle Unlimited. Whereas the major releases from the bigger publishers are usually widely available.
This is somewhat annoying. Please don't offer only one storefront as a place to buy your work.
I gave up on Kindles long ago. They wake up and drain their batteries, so they're always dead when I pick them up to read something. Not a problem with Kobo. But I really want to pick up one of these little Xteink readers next. They just seem perfect for pulling out of a pocket and reading. Also, I'm a smaller person, and they look like they would fit my hand. Modern phones feel like tablets to me.
The first time I got an ad on mine I did that and switched to the Calibre + z-library workflow. It's been most of a decade since.
It's like people have to be taught the same lesson about SAAS over and over and over again. Like what did they expect, to not get rug pulled eventually? Crazy. You own your shit or you don't. Simple as.
Did you mean to reply to someone else? You can set the date manually on the Daylight and even if you have trouble, you can just use a different app. It's just Android.
I wonder if there's a KOReader oriented OS for the Kindle, to go beyond jailbreaking it (it's nice, but a bit clunky to me)... There seems to be an Android port for some models so it should be possible.
Crap like this is why I 1.) export my Kindle books to plain PDF 2.) use a Nook Simple Touch. They work perfectly well 100% offline and are CHEAP now.
Primarily use two of these for a prepper book cache. (Two is one and one is none.) The battery lasts about a month on low cost chargers, and a pair of 32GB SD cards holds my entire collection. (A redundant pair since two is one.) Whole thing sits in an EMP bag in the bugout bag of my car, so I always have my library everywhere I go.
Exporting to PDF used to be pretty straightforward; the newest encryption is a lot harder to bypass but is still possible:
If you want the exact same typesetting as the physical book, pdf is ideal. On a big enough iPad, this would be readable like a physical book. But, yeah, painful as hell on a smaller screen.
I was in the market to buy a new E-Reader since my old Kindle started to act funny (Random shutdowns while reading and it won't come back for several minutes).
After the announcement I decided to switch to physical books
Excuse me, but I am not sure what to make of people who:
- use Chrome, by Google, a company earning money with selling ads and wonder why the adblocker is not working
- use Kindle, by Amazon, a company that earns money by renting out DRM-protected content, that sees the Kindle just as a vehicle to (1) sell more of that content and (2) as a vehicle to lock you to their platform
Please for the love of the universe, just start to factor in the incentives a company has when selling you a thing. Before buying my Kobo reader 12 years ago (still going strong!), the first thing I researched is how to get out of Amazon DRM hell. The answer is: get a reader by a company that sells readers as a main business and has an incentive to make sure they work and use it together with something like Calibre, so you have all your books if you lose the thing somewhere. If you're going to the powerful quasi-monopolist, that may be cheaper in the short term, but what about the time you lose when they eventually hold your whole library hostage or decide to drop support on something you relied on? You're not the person picking when that happens.
If I sum up how much I spent on books in 12 years that Kobo has paid for itself 50 times over and I still don't think there is any reason to replace it with something newer.
I’ve been looking into getting an e-reader, but I’m scared to get one from Amazon due to things like this. Are there any decent hackable and/or trustworthy ones out there?
PocketBook is by far the most hackable, especially their b/w readers, which still run Linux 3.10 because of hardware limitations - for these, getting root permissions is trivial with an old jailbreak script based on Dirty COW. (That said, the hardware is rather slow for the price tag.) Most applications use modern Qt 6 / QML. You won't find much information online, but it's a lot of fun exploring all this stuff with Ghidra MCP and creating binary patches. Shameless plug: I created an emulator so that you can download firmware from the official support web page and try it out on a Linux desktop (https://codeberg.org/datyoma/pbemu)
Kobo's devices let you bypass the account signup via a single option in a config file. Whether you do so or not it's easy to install koreader and start writing plugins for it. You can also hack on the linux OS they use
There are Android e-Readers, like Boox, but that does not imply it is easy to do fun stuff. Seems pretty locked down.
I have a PocketBook myself, no complaints there and you can install software (at least I can on the one I have but it is a few years old now) and thus never had the need to hack the thing.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but there is!
I've jailbroken my Kindle Scribe and installed coreader and feed it my Calibre library and its awesome.
Oh and i kept it in airplane mode from the first day, which is important so it doesnt self update and break the jailbreak.
Amazon's attitude towards its Kindle device customers is one of lofty disregard.
Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
But they appear to exult in dashing the hopes of their customers, or at the very least they don't care about them at all. They've doubled down on no-key devices with stupid pens, pointless and poorly-implemented color, and tiny or excessively large form factors with little in between. It's kind of crazy just how much they don't seem to care.
The subtext of the article indicates that the problem isn't discontinuing support alone, but discontinuing support without offering those customers a reasonable replacement for their old devices that had keys and buttons. (Even if it's just a couple of buttons.)
14 years of support for a device is pretty incredible.
It's not. It's really not. It's 14 years of you can still access the store and buy stuff. That's not that good. You can buy a DVD and it'll still work on 25+ year old players. You can still buy digital content on an almost 20 year old PS3, you can use iTunes purchases on an original iPod from 25 years ago. Even in the eBook space you can get a new DRM'd purchase on a Sony PRS-500 from 2006 with Adobe Digital Editions.
These Kindles were not getting firmware updates (outside of maybe security certificates), they weren't getting new features or patches. You could just get new content.
I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve been on one side, looking at usage numbers of older iOS versions, and arguing that low single digit percentages were fine to stop supporting with the new version.
On the other hand, I view my kindle as an appliance, and I don’t need it to have updated functionality. I think this is true of many electronics: digital cameras, printers, misc USB peripherals, etc. I believe Amazon could easily support the APIs it uses, and keep delivering me books that I’ve paid for or borrowed.
Financially, I suspect the kindle devices have a much longer lifetime than iPhones do, and Amazon is still making $$ off of old kindles.
If there were TLS concerns, a partial disablement (ex: can’t buy books from the device) would be way more acceptable than a complete cutoff. I’ve seen suggestions that it’s a DRM issue, and if that’s the primary motivation, it’s pretty disappointing.
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It seems they’ve gone out of their want to make them useless. They could have ended official support, while still allowing users to download ebooks from the store and side loading them through a computer. However, before killing support, they eliminated the ability to download ebooks to the computer.
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I still remember support for life.
TV, refrigerator, recorder, whatever electronics, broke down and I or my parents would take it to one of several repair locations around town.
Software coming in eproms or disks meant QA was actually a thing to get right, not as online updates that eventually stop.
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No. It’s not. It’s just that we’ve been conditioned to accept that disposable devices are the way of things.
you think? i can bring up my 40 yrs old NES and it works every time.
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14 years is impressive? Wait until you find out how long a real book can last.
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I'm sad that Apple cut off support for my iPod. It still takes a charge and is a joy, except that most of the apps no longer work, because what they connect to is gone.
I used to be able to read books on it and watch Netflix.
My iphone is a boat anchor next to the sleek, slick iPod.
I have my 2010 Kobo and it still works fine, you can copy books by usb to it.
If only you knew the lengths amazon went to to keep supporting these devices. Stopping support is emblematic of the Jassy era, of amazon becoming just like any other bigco. This would've been unthinkable under Bezos.
My 20-year-old laptop still runs latest Debian with all security and (optionally!) feature updates.
It says a lot about our world that artificially discontinuing a fully functional device (thankfully mine are offline and jailbroken) is "pretty incredible".
Sad even
not when all it takes is not to actively boycott the device
Yeah, I do not really see the problem here. These devices are ancient and the panic is unwarranted. The older Kindles can be jailbroken if anyone cares that much.
I think there is a smaller argument that the newer Kindles don't feel as nice. The Oasis was the pinnacle of e-reader hardware design, and it'll be sad when they stop supporting it, but it certainly won't be worthy of a news article or this kind of reaction.
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I also think they leave so much money on the table by not having the simplest of features - why can't I gift someone kindle books? I'd be buying so many for friends and family, but there is literally no way to do that on kindle. It's money they aren't getting.
You can do that, in the US at least.
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> Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
WWII fighter plane with red spots on it dot gif.
The vast majority of people who buy Kindles simply read books on them and don’t repeatedly cry online about features that are never coming back.
I’ve bought about 10 of the things dating back to 2012 either because I wanted to have the latest model or because I wanted to give one as a gift. They are all amazing devices.
I’ve never thought, “boy I better go online and complain about this one.” I’ve just been too busy buying and reading books on them!
The reason people complain is because the old kindles used to have buttons, and honestly the touch screen is really fucking janky if you're used to the page turning buttons of the kindle 4, or the onscreen keyboard is janky if you're used to the kindle 3g.
And the sad part is that there's no best of both. You can't get a kindle paperwhite with buttons.
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if they want buttons just look at the various e-readers online there's like such a breadth of these things now its insane. i personally was fetched an xteink reader cause theyre tiny (literally magsafes to the back of my phone wtf) and i love that (they have buttons) and chucked this dudes custom firmware on it to make formatting and usability a lil bit better https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader
is it kindle, no but can i read a book on it yeah. easily.
Different way to think about it: Whatever failings device might have, people still buy it for Amazon service integration.
Also "but people buy it anyway" is terrible way to disregard legitimate criticizm without thinking
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+1. It seems like there is just a vocal minority who complain about the missing HW buttons etc.
I’m sure Amazon has enough actual customer data to make their product decisions based on what moves the most volume.
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Ultimate consoomer. Eats whatever shit it’s being fed and doesn’t complain. Powers that be know better what is good for you anyway, right?
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Bought my kindle in 2012 or 2013, still works fine.
I put it into airplane mode years ago, and just never turned wifi on again. I use Calibre to add books to it. (I use a little usb-c to micro usb adapter).
There are places and ways to get books without DRM and still pay the authors. It's a faff first figuring things out, but once you do it a couple of times, and discover the treasure troves of standardebooks.org and the gutenberg.org, it really just becomes routine you don't even have to think much about.
In my experience it's a better device without the internet, no device updates, no weird book updates (books updating is an oddly unsettling concept to me).
Also battery life got way better, I get a few weeks of battery life as long as it's in airplane mode. (Sometimes a couple of months if I'm using it lightly.) Granted I usually leave the backlight off, there's sunlight and lamp light, you don't need backlight.
I've forgotten about it for years at a time, charged it up, and it kept working just fine.
eReaders that are really just eReaders (and not an android device with apps and nonsense) are a rare case of buy it for life devices. The best kind of device. Kinda like a good watch, I now expect an eReader to work for a decade or two. I would also expect battery replacement as a part of long term ownership, though I haven't had to replace my battery yet.
Anyways, you don't need Amazon to enjoy a kindle. Hek, it honestly gets better without Amazon meddling with it at random, and the device phoning home or w/e nonsense background traffic it runs over wifi.
Much love for Calibre!
This move has nothing to do with usability or device capabilities or software support. The only reason for turning them off is to remove a hole in their DRM. These old devices allowed you to remove the copy protection from their books (hardly anyone else uses DRM these days anymore). Removing the old devices makes freeing your books from DRM just much harder.
With almost 600 books in my kindle collection over a period of about 15 years, I would like to think I was a relatively active customer. When they announced “your kindle books are just a license to read”, which happened about the time they announced the deprecation of the old format, I went and converted the entirety of my library to Calibre with multiple open formats.
That was in December, I have not bought a single book on Amazon since then, and the kindle app is not installed on my new phone. Just in case anyone from the relevant AMZN department is reading this.
Yes.
I often laugh (cry) at the Kindle Product Manager team who ship nothing but DRM updates.
How about a dictionary modal where the font is the same size as the page text..? Hard to imagine what they do all day, given they do seem to force updates but nothing seems to improve
> hardly anyone else uses DRM these days anymore
I thought that all the major ebook stores had DRM on most purchases, and it was just a few indie publishers choosing to be DRM-free. Has that changed?
There is a difference between hard and soft DRM. Soft DRM can be only some watermark, not keeping you from creating copies for your own devices. Hard DRM aims to prevent any copying.
In my experience soft DRM is very common, hard DRM not so much.
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It hasn't changed, and I don't know why people are saying that most books don't have DRM. It is only a small minority.
Tor books is the largest publisher without it (owned by Macmillan). Otherwise everything is truly hard DRM either ACSM with epub or Kindle's. They are both more or less easily defeated though.
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I will just stick with Kindles. Indian heat and humidity make a Kindle unusable in 7-8 years, unless you have a 100% AC life.
Kindles last a month on a charge or two. It's very light. It's affordable.
It doesn’t show colors, but I have an android tab to read papers and technical content, anyway.
I tried looking at alternatives, but low price + extreme power efficiency + being able to sideload books is just great.
I was about to complain that my Paperwhite only lasts a couple of days between charges (it shuts down when battery drops to ~50%) but then realized that I've had it 7-8 years. No Indian heat here though, I'm in the UK.
Try keeping it on airplane mode if you don't already. It definitely improves the length of a charge.
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I replaced the battery after using the kindle Paperwhite for 7+ years. And now its battery life is as good as the new one's.
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Kobo is all that but without Amazon.
Unfortunately a lot of fiction (sci-fi/fantasy) ebooks are effectively kindle exclusive these days (amazon publisher deals exclusivity), due to the near monopoly amazon has… and since they have locked things down even harder lately, it is much more difficult to export purchases to other readers.
Switched to kobo years ago, will never buy a kindle again.
Also, koreader!
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Seconded. I bought a Libra 2 a few years ago and loved it so much that I’ve gifted a couple more. There’s nothing about it I’d want to change.
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I did consider a Kobo, but the terrible website did turn me away. When trying to browse it was wait for button on tracking consent to be active so I could click reject. Then change language to what I'm fluent in instead of getting language based on IP, reject tracking, reject changing region back to IP based and the same two reject for every link clicked. Half the times pages was still shown in language based on my location instead of what I have set or what my user agent tell I want. When a site ask about allowing tracking for every page shown I assume the company care more about selling PII than getting customers, so not a company I want to use
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There is a Kindle Color<something>. Haven’t used that yet either.
I just replaced my old kindle with a colorsoft. It was annoyingly white until I figured out how to get that old school kindle yellow/newspaper/paperback look going again.
The newer battery is nice and usb-c is a big upgrade instead of finding my last mini usb (or whatever it was). I think I'm down to just one last thing on that stupid cable (a camping lantern).
There are other similarly priced and equally capable e-readers.
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moved to kobo (the nice one with colour screen) with calibre web running behind a cloudflare tunnel, getting books direct through smallest publishers/authors. Adds the tiniest bit of friction in book acquisition but reading experience, battery life, everything else shits on my kindle experience (and I’ve owned every one).
What software do you use on the device itself? I recently got a Kobo Clara HD, but software support seems to be a big issue.
On one hand, there's folks using the vendor's OS, which looks like an abandoned custom-made Linux distro, where compiling anything is a nightmare. It's not really made to be hackable, but just to read books purchased via their partners.
OTOH, there's a near-mainline kernel, which works nicely, and hacking on the device becomes much nicer, but e-reader-oriented software seems to commonly rely on kernel APIs only present in the vendor's abandoned fork, and won't work on a more mainline Linux. But this is a great target for actually developing stuff.
I'm tempted to write my own minimal e-reader-focused DE, but honestly, I don't want another project on my hands and would like to use something that's already there.
Please mention that color e-ink has significantly lower contrast than black and white. I thought I did enough research, but was bitten by this caveat- I would trade basically any feature for more contrast.
On the plus side, with your setup, you can have the lowest friction ebook experience possible on planet Earth by installing koreader, and then the z-library plugin.
There are some tablets with RLCD screens that have decent colors and contrast (not quite as good as 300dpi eink, but close, with color and fast updates), but most w/color screens lack proper frontlights for some reason, and they all run android so it's a bit of a mixed bag compared to a proper Kobo/Pocketbook/Linux eink tablet, but having a decent browser on a reflective display without having to cross-compile for 32-bit ARM linux is great.
Color (Kaleido) eInk screens can't show pure white, because the color filter is in the way. That makes the display significantly darker, and negates the entire purpose of eInk.
I sold my color eInk device after trying it for two days, and went back to B&W.
Having used an early kindle and a recent kindle, they are incredibly similar. One of the main innovations of the new models appears to be adverts you have to pay to get rid of.
Also gradually phasing out support of formats like mobi, in such subtle ways that if you open a mobi file you cannot go back to the library, but have to cold-reboot your device...
My current kindle is my third one, and is the last. I will never ever pay for a kindle to Amazon, due to its user hostility.
Oh, and also you cannot move ebooks between accounts, even not with a lot of friction, eg. support tickets, which would be a fair way to game piracy and unwanted lending, which was some inconvinience for me in a situation. Not a huge monetary loss for me, rather a reminder that when you pay to Amazon (or Valve, or any other contemporary DRM-burdened vendor) you are only leasing...
It's what I hate the most: I can't lend a book to my wife to talk about it.
Just US and UK have family accounts.
Minor nit: Steam doesn’t require DRM. That is left up to the game publisher.
My kindle from 2012 used to have ads you needed to pay for to get rid of. It was sold as separate product with or without ads at a time. I had one with ads.
I keep it offline in airplane mode permanently from 2016 and haven't seen a single ad in a long long time.
You'll get a new ad if you take it online again, but they only persist for about a month or so before falling back to the generic 'read books' amazon ad.
I have my 2016 one setup without a password so when I open my cover the device unlocks, so I never really even see the ad unless I try.
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There are cracks for older firmware and others for newer. You can have it online and adfree with a little forum reading.
I have a similar one and I never bothered to pay to get rid of the ads or keep it in aeroplane mode.
The ads are only shown while it's off, they're static black and white images, and 99% of the time they're for books. Totally unobjectionable.
If they were in the actual UI and for stuff like cars and perfume I might mind, but they aren't so I never cared.
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The fact that having ads on a product designed for reading is so dystopian. A great new term has recently entered the lexicon to describe this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
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The "library" UI has also gotten radically worse over time (in my family there is a 3G, an early Paperwhite, and a relatively recent base model, and each has a worse and sparser UI than the last). The pages turn faster though, due to improved display/display driver tech.
And meanwhile the webapp's library UI doesn't even let you filter by read status.
Actually, the old Kindle had physical buttons, which I find more ergonomic when reading in bed
That's what your nose is for. (I'm quite skilled at advancing or going back by gently tapping the kindle against my face. It helps that I'm very nearsighted so it's kind of already there)
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Really wish my 1st gen Paperweight had split forward and back buttons on the right side.
But then I also understand that'd increase the price by 10% and only help right handed people with weak hands so... c'est la vie.
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There are newer ones with physical buttons.
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> adverts you have to pay to get rid of
Those have been around since day 1 afaik - my second gen kindle had them over ~12 years ago
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A big amount of user loyalty comes from products that feel finished more than always evolving. Early Kindles felt closer to bookshelves than software platforms
My Kindle Touch, judging by the plastic, is old, on its second battery. I love that the reading experience has not changed at all in the time I’ve had the device. I never thought of it as a bookshelf, but that’s a great way to put it.
In contrast, my iPhone changes with each update, but often I find not for the better – I hated the new control center at first, and while I made it mostly match the old one, the tap targets are smaller than they used to be, on my 4.7” display.
Best path for Amazon would be to unlock and maybe even "open source" ways to flash with third party firmware publicly (I am aware there are methods to do this already). It would gain good will with the techno crowd (important for hire, dev, sec, etc.), and with general fans & consumers (increased likelihood of switching to newer version).
Just got an xteink x4 and flashed crosspoint on it, I've been tuning fonts by modifying the font generator and now it renders great.
https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4
Maybe I'm getting old, but I don't see the appeal of reading on an eink device that's smaller than my phone, which I'm always carrying. Maybe if I'm reading outside in sunlight rather than in bed? Or if I'm worried about getting distracted by a FB/X notification?
Different person, but I bought a set for me and my wife on a whim because they’re so cheap, and found I adore the little thing. I have a public transit commute to and from work. Since getting it, I’ve spent my commutes reading books I’ve meant to get around to.
I have a Kobo I keep at home. I love it, but don’t want to risk breaking it while carrying it around in my backpack, and it’s too big to comfortably hold on a crowded BART (let alone to dig around in my bag to get it out and put it away). The X4 is always in my pants pocket during the commute and small enough to break out wherever I am. Also, it’s small enough to not feel fragile, and cheap enough that it wouldn’t be devastating if I broke it anyway.
The appeal is that it is a better reading screen than a phone, while being the same size as a phone. It means that I can take a book anywhere without having to bring a bag
Same. It’s the best ebook experience I’ve had so far despite its size and I’ve tried a myriad of ereaders.
The only missing feature is a backlight for reading at night.
Back light is a necessity for couples or places with bad light. It is one the greatest Kindle features of all time.
Love my x4! I saw 1.3 allows you to bring in your own fonts - any suggestions?
It also added a list of fonts that can be directly downloaded, not had chance to try them out yet
What is a good e-reader nowadays?
I had a pocket book 2 for 15+ years but destroyed the display recently :/
Looking for a replacement now that is black&white, has a very good paper like screen, long battery life and allows me to read any .epub/.mobi without DRM or other bs restrictions.
I don’t need colour screen, don’t need audio support and no integrations with any shops or anything like that.
Kindle is ruled out, I looked at Kobo but the screen appeared low quality compared to my old pocket book.
Anything you can recommend here?
Remarkable 2 is pretty good, though last time I used it the search feature for large pdfs was pretty janky. The BOOX eink devices are also perfectly fine; they're really just android tablets with a special build of android for eink devices. Those are the ones I've used personally.
Pocket Book still makes eink ereaders, though. Is there something wrong with their offerings if you stuck with one of their products for 15 years?
I’ll check out Box, thanks for the tip!
I’ll also take a look at the newer pocket books - I only stuck so long with my old one because it worked perfectly fine and there was no reason to get a new device.
I've now moved to an Android eReader (Boox Note 7, for example [1]).
I can just get the Ebook or PDF files and transfer them via Calibre, simple as that, and I can also download any Android app i want. There are tons of apps out there that support eInk screens.
[1] https://shop.boox.com/products/go7
This looks very promising, thanks for the tip!
I am waiting for when the patents expire and we finally get some competition, quality and lower prices.
How about PineNote?
PineNote isn't really a consumer device. PINE64 has made it abundantly clear that the PineNote is a developer playground device; they're waiting on the community to refine the software support and flesh out the ecosystem for it.
My 14 year old Kindle functions so perfectly I've no desire to upgrade. This is exactly why KOReader and all the jailbreaks exist.
So it will be possible to jailbreak it and upload my own files still?
Jailbreak it now before you forget
https://kindlemodding.org/
Yes. And you can sideload without jailbreaking.
They aren’t bricking the devices, they are making them not work with the Amazon store and library features anymore. My Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation device) still works perfectly well with sideloaded books. It’s jailbroken and runs KOReader, which lets you read ePub directly.
It’s easier to read things on my Kindle Keyboard than on my original iPad.
Yes, I did it for my Kindle 2 and it works well.
So their inhouse AI which they are forcing all their devs on is not capable of figuring out how to render what is basically the equivalent of an .md onto the older Kindles?
they're updating the DRM.
Does anyone has experience with Android e-ink ebook readers? Are they worth it?
Brazilian Government just released a great public library of e-books: https://meclivros.mec.gov.br/
An Android e-ink reader would be perfect for it. And I'd use kindle app to read my kindle ebooks. But I don't really see people using them.
I bought a second hand Meebook M6 on ebay. At least, it was listed as second hand but seemed to be fresh out of the box when it arrived. I completely love it.
For actually reading ebooks, I'm using Koreader instead of the built-in reader because I find the UI a bit easier to get my head around. I mostly use it for PDFs related to classroom learning, but have the odd epub knocking around from project gutenburg etc.
It has Google Play support, so I can use the Libby app to access my local library's ebook collection (including offline access to travel guides - so useful). I also use the Sefaria app to read Hebrew scripture (also supports offline). These apps tend to use the battery faster than Koreader and having scrolling controls instead of page-turning controls is a bit of a pain, but quite manageable.
I haven't tried the Kindle app, but I'm sure it would work fine.
This seems to be a hot e-reader right now:
https://www.reddit.com/r/xteinkereader/
I really don’t understand the hype of that product.
It’s like an entrepreneur with social media marketing skills came across a container full of really cheap small eink displays, then designed a product and marketing around it.
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I use a Boox and really like it, but it's definitely not the same price point as a kindle. It has a stylus but I basically use it exclusively for reading.
I use a Boox Note Air Plus 2. Love the thing.
It's 10 inches, which I find to be a bit too large for an E-Reader. But for surfing the web and note taking this is a terrific device. Boox has smaller Android devices.
I just bought a boox go color 2. Kindle form factor, color e-ink screen, runs android, supports stylus.
I don't know if I love it yet but I read seven ebooks in a month on it, so I guess it's been a good purchase. The android kindle app has a neat smooth scrolling feature that works really well.
14 years support window is so insanely good. But as it goes...
You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
My local library has some dead tree format books with a 500 year support window. Or dead animal or dead reed format books with more like a 2000-year support window.
Planned obsolescence is always bad.
Unless they are very popular books, they will be weeded (thrown out or or sold) in a matter of a few years though. People imagine that libraries are infinite storehouses of material, but except for places like the Library of Congress they really aren't. There is limited storage space, and in order to get new books they need to discard the old ones that were rarely checked out. Even the example of old books on parchment aren't immune to this trend -- the books we have from Ancient Greece or Rome are just the really popular ones that were copied over and over again, and the vast majority of works from those times are lost.
> 500 year support window
Err, no. Something “existing” is not the same as something being supported. Is the original printer still providing free translations to modern languages? Fixing typos and other mistakes? Adding chapters on a regular basis?
It’s kinda ludicrous to call the fact that a thing didn’t spontaneously disappear “support”.
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Your local library keeps papyrus scrolls on open stacks? I mean, sure, yes, there are libraries that haves such things (the university I work for does), but generally they will be kept in special boxes and you need to ask nicely to get to see them. And don't get me started about the crapitude of your average new book these days. Personally, I prefer print books too, but lasting forever is not really why.
I think the bigger issue is that there's market segments that old product reached and that newer ones don't... and you are locked into their devices by the content you've "bought."
14 year support window is pretty good. Not being able to get a modern device with buttons, and having no way to read your books with buttons, isn't.
Most things keep working when support runs out.
If your product doesn't work without support, you have villain aspects from day 1.
Maybe for ebook readers, but not for books.
A bookshelf can have books that are 100s of years old.
What I don’t get is why the publishing industry never got its act together, listened to customers and got its act together.
Yes, like many industries I have worked in I can imagine that they are unable to cooperate because of petty greed and short-sightedness: they would rather have the whole market taken away from them than endure the possibility that some of their direct competitors get a small, temporary advantage.
It should not be hard to create truly interoperable systems that can cut Amazon out of the equation. It isn’t a technology issue. We have technology that easily solves every conceivable aspect of distributing, paying for and consuming ebooks.
This should be the ultimate opportunity for the publishing industry. Especially given that Amazon isn’t investing much in development of devices.
I'm not very familiar with anti-cartel laws (in any country), but I wonder if there would be legal issues preventing publishing companies from working together in such a way even if they otherwise had wanted to?
(Though even if that is the case, I'd still think they could have at least agreed on open standards to use, to prevent anyone like Amazon from creating vendor lock-in.)
But Amazon had advantages from its size. In terms of economies of scale for device manufacturing, publishers could have somewhat caught up if they pooled money to invest in a co-owned company that made devices (though still wouldn't have had such an advantage as Amazon, who could share R&D and production costs with any overlaps to other devices such as smart home speakers, Android tablets, etc.) But Amazon was also able to take a bigger picture approach, using cheap Kindles/ebooks to attract people into their ecosystem and then converting a not-insignificant amount of them to buying other stuff on Amazon.
Collaboration need not be subversive. In fact, it can be the opposite. As you point to, by using open standards.
Devices are not a real problem. You don’t need scale to get hold of affordable readers in bulk. There’s lots of them available and if the market were to grow, there would be even more devices. Today these devices are not very useful as putting content on them is awkward and fragmented. If that pain went away, there would be a huge market.
I think the problem is that Amazon would retaliate. And the publishing industry are too afraid of challenging them. Because they have never been able to get their act together before.
I guess I've never been strongly compelled to ditch mine. It sits there next to my bed. I pick it up and read it every night. Every few weeks I remember that you have to actually charge it. My last Kindle started malfunctioning after about 8 years of constant use. I opened a chat with Amazon support and they gave me a 50% coupon off the current version. That was two years ago and I'm still using it.
I do get the argument about lockdown. And there's some mediums I feel more strongly in that area. I suppose Amazon just has me exactly where they want me :)
The problem Amazon has is that they already designed the perfect e-reader and released it in 2016. It's called the Kindle Oasis. All they had to do was keep making marginal improvements to this design (USB-C, faster processor) every few years. But that doesn't move units, need creation does, and convincing people that they need a new Amazon store front-end requires new form factors.
All these stories of people who have been using the same Kindle for 15 years is not an Amazon success story because those people have not been buying Kindles. It's true even though Amazon makes far more on the margin of sending special locked up text files that were written by someone else.
I was looking for a good rationalization to leave the ecosystem, one-click e-books is great and having old device that I can take anywhere not caring about it getting beaten up even more was another major advantage.
Removing some old book I had was the first major red flag.
Some wild irony is they once forcefully removed purchased copies of 1984 from Kindles while people were reading it.
“The books will stop working”, discussed 7 years ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331
Tip: if you let kids and others in your home use a Kindle and they might unintentionally turn off the airplane mode ...
Go to your router settings and blacklist the Kindle's mac id.
Sleep peacefully that your kindle will never be bricked or wiped by a software update.
One benefit of jailbreaking - https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/post-jailbreak/disabl...
Yeah mines been on airplane mode for probably a decade now, really not seeing a reason to ever connect it to the internet
Kinda baffled by people preferring buttons on their devices. When trying to de-Amazon I bought two Kobos - a Clara BW (without buttons) and a Libra Colour (with). I _much_ prefer the Clara because I can slip it in a pocket, whereas the extra bevel required for the buttons means the Libra must be in a bag (though I still end up using it despite this inconvenience because it can load books wirelessly, unlike the Clara).
Totally agree that a manufacturer should provide both options - I'm just surprised to have non-standard preferences.
>Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely. "Technology has come a long way in that time," said a spokesperson.
Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?
> Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely.
Why -- Aren't they also claiming productivity enhancements with AI? ;-)
And did they calculate how much environmental damage may result the decision?
I can and will still use mine to read files.
What is discontinued is integration with Amazon account. Which seems fair to me to be fair.
Less fair when they sold an integrated device and store
It'd be fair if they unlocked them.
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Who needs software updates and Bezos's spying.
We have several different ecosystem e-readers in our household and all are used via USB and Calibre. The "extra time used" is won by multitude with approach where the reading stays in the center and uploading is once in a while event.
This creates a barrier for addictive bookshopping, though a reader with plenty of books allows the change of minds, not just the endless booscrrolling that a connected device enables.
If there's a problem with the reader the firmware can be updated but I don't remember such issues since my first reader (Kindle version without backlight and physical buttons only, no idea of the year).
Now a fourth one (Kobo) in use and all the previous ones still fully functional and in use by close ones.
Any recommendations? I've gone back to paper partly because the form factors of kindles don't feel particularly comfortable. The basic kindle feels kinda cramped but I don't like pro-tablet like devices.
my device just missed the window, and pre-covid it had a battery issue. back then, when i requested amazon to replace the battery, they simply offered a discount on a new one similar to the affected users instead.
it magically started keeping charge recently and is working as i last remembered. i haven't been keeping tabs but the underlying computing of these kindles has been largely the same, TI-84 like, outdated scrap that happens to be enough for the slow refreshing screens.
while it's unlikely for anyone here complaining to own an affected device (that is still their daily driver), i hope they do have a major overhaul incoming which necessitates this. the main pain point with access to your purchases is indeed frustrating, but very few things in computing has lasted me this long.
Glad I went the Kobo route. Koreader beats Kindle any day of the week.
Koreader is available on Kindle.
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I have a Kindle which I think is surviving this purge. But after looking at alternatives like the Kobo, I wondered where people got their books?
Ofc there's the high seas, but I'd quite like to support the authors and I can afford ~£10 for a book now and then. But are there any stores as good/convenient as the Amazon one?
I buy the books of my favorite authors on kindle store, while sailing the high seas to read the books on my Kobo. I don't buy all the books I read though.
is the kobo store not good/convenient compared to kindle? I thought the kobo store was pretty good, but it is my first and only e-reader.
Kobo store is convenient but feels pricey sometimes (I don't have experience with the Kindle store). I don't mind paying them though, because it's still easy enough to strip the DRM and make backup copies of my books. If that changes, I'll take my business elsewhere.
I make a lot of use of my local library through the native Overdrive integration.
There's nothing wrong with the Kobo store itself, but some titles are only published via Amazon. Especially from self-published authors or participants in Kindle Unlimited. Whereas the major releases from the bigger publishers are usually widely available.
This is somewhat annoying. Please don't offer only one storefront as a place to buy your work.
Inversely, try to use a kindle as a Korean.
My kindle will not be aware of it. It has been in airplane mode ever since I bought it.
Its clock no longer tells correct time; but it’s fine, a book doesn’t have to do that - and I have a watch.
I got a third (I think?) generation Paperwhite brand new when it was released.
From day 1 it was super laggy. Once I opened a book to read it was fine, but everything up to getting to that point was lag upon lag.
This was a new device of a new generation.
I find the Kindle UX better on my iPhone or iPad.
I gave up on Kindles long ago. They wake up and drain their batteries, so they're always dead when I pick them up to read something. Not a problem with Kobo. But I really want to pick up one of these little Xteink readers next. They just seem perfect for pulling out of a pocket and reading. Also, I'm a smaller person, and they look like they would fit my hand. Modern phones feel like tablets to me.
Deadwood loyalists raise an eyebrow and keep reading.
There I go
Turn the page
On the road again
This is my shocked face. Same as my regular face.
Joke's on them, I keep the Kindle permanently on airplane mode anyway.
The first time I got an ad on mine I did that and switched to the Calibre + z-library workflow. It's been most of a decade since.
It's like people have to be taught the same lesson about SAAS over and over and over again. Like what did they expect, to not get rug pulled eventually? Crazy. You own your shit or you don't. Simple as.
You paid for the ads-supported version if you got ads...
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Not sure if you’re joking but is it possible to even do that? I understand some books are kept on their cloud servers and only some get downloaded.
Yes, it’s possible. Note: no downloads work in airplane mode. Cable works just as well though.
I had an old kindle that I never connected to the net or with an amazon account. I loaded books by USB.
Damn near impossible to find DRM free books to purchase though.
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No, you choose what is downloaded locally. You can also get .mobi files and copy them to the kindle directly.
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I'm writing this reply on a Daylight Computer. I can't reco it enough. It's been my primary mobile device over a year now
Mine doesn't remember the last opened books when the date isn't correct. Unfortunately you cannot set the date manually.
Did you mean to reply to someone else? You can set the date manually on the Daylight and even if you have trouble, you can just use a different app. It's just Android.
Two of my paperwhites died so i took the opportunity to switch to kobo and couldn't be happier.
I wonder if there's a KOReader oriented OS for the Kindle, to go beyond jailbreaking it (it's nice, but a bit clunky to me)... There seems to be an Android port for some models so it should be possible.
Crap like this is why I 1.) export my Kindle books to plain PDF 2.) use a Nook Simple Touch. They work perfectly well 100% offline and are CHEAP now.
Primarily use two of these for a prepper book cache. (Two is one and one is none.) The battery lasts about a month on low cost chargers, and a pair of 32GB SD cards holds my entire collection. (A redundant pair since two is one.) Whole thing sits in an EMP bag in the bugout bag of my car, so I always have my library everywhere I go.
Exporting to PDF used to be pretty straightforward; the newest encryption is a lot harder to bypass but is still possible:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful...
PDF is an atrocious format for this though. Why not export to ePub?
If you want the exact same typesetting as the physical book, pdf is ideal. On a big enough iPad, this would be readable like a physical book. But, yeah, painful as hell on a smaller screen.
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I do both, actually. But I don’t notice the difference personally.
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Maybe it's ok to upgrade an o($100) device once after, checks notes, 14 years? Incredible longevity compared to any other device
I was in the market to buy a new E-Reader since my old Kindle started to act funny (Random shutdowns while reading and it won't come back for several minutes).
After the announcement I decided to switch to physical books
Brought a Kobo after Amazon locked my account. There is no going back to a Kindle.
Each of my kindles so far stopped working in about 2 years. I had 5 or 6.
Excuse me, but I am not sure what to make of people who:
- use Chrome, by Google, a company earning money with selling ads and wonder why the adblocker is not working
- use Kindle, by Amazon, a company that earns money by renting out DRM-protected content, that sees the Kindle just as a vehicle to (1) sell more of that content and (2) as a vehicle to lock you to their platform
Please for the love of the universe, just start to factor in the incentives a company has when selling you a thing. Before buying my Kobo reader 12 years ago (still going strong!), the first thing I researched is how to get out of Amazon DRM hell. The answer is: get a reader by a company that sells readers as a main business and has an incentive to make sure they work and use it together with something like Calibre, so you have all your books if you lose the thing somewhere. If you're going to the powerful quasi-monopolist, that may be cheaper in the short term, but what about the time you lose when they eventually hold your whole library hostage or decide to drop support on something you relied on? You're not the person picking when that happens.
If I sum up how much I spent on books in 12 years that Kobo has paid for itself 50 times over and I still don't think there is any reason to replace it with something newer.
I’ve been looking into getting an e-reader, but I’m scared to get one from Amazon due to things like this. Are there any decent hackable and/or trustworthy ones out there?
PocketBook is by far the most hackable, especially their b/w readers, which still run Linux 3.10 because of hardware limitations - for these, getting root permissions is trivial with an old jailbreak script based on Dirty COW. (That said, the hardware is rather slow for the price tag.) Most applications use modern Qt 6 / QML. You won't find much information online, but it's a lot of fun exploring all this stuff with Ghidra MCP and creating binary patches. Shameless plug: I created an emulator so that you can download firmware from the official support web page and try it out on a Linux desktop (https://codeberg.org/datyoma/pbemu)
Kobo's devices let you bypass the account signup via a single option in a config file. Whether you do so or not it's easy to install koreader and start writing plugins for it. You can also hack on the linux OS they use
Yep, there's a plethora of tweaks and stuff out there to mess with Kobos to make them your own, and it's not hard to do.
Been super happy with my Kobo Clara.
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You can also sync to your own library - eg calibreweb.
It’s not too disgusting, and over-the-air is nice to have.
There are Android e-Readers, like Boox, but that does not imply it is easy to do fun stuff. Seems pretty locked down. I have a PocketBook myself, no complaints there and you can install software (at least I can on the one I have but it is a few years old now) and thus never had the need to hack the thing.
The price of convenience.
Is it possible that Amazon views the Kindle as less than profitable, and so they’re taking the hard line tactic to try and boost revenue?
If only there was a way to download e-books and upload them to a Kindle with Calibre.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but there is! I've jailbroken my Kindle Scribe and installed coreader and feed it my Calibre library and its awesome. Oh and i kept it in airplane mode from the first day, which is important so it doesnt self update and break the jailbreak.
Kindles don't need to be jailbroken to transfer books via calibre (or a file manager or a terminal).
s/coreader/KOReader/g
Voice input or autocorrect?
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