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Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

reuters.com

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Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#151

Post by steve-atx-7600 »

nosioptar wrote: post #58
cbdevidal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still possible to remove DRM and export to PDF or epub. Not point-and-click easy, though. https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful...

While Calibre makes it easy, it's even easier to just download a copy someone else has already stripped of DRM. If publishers/authors want my money, they can release a version without DRM.

Yep. Go to yandex, search for book, download ebook, done. I’ll order a hardcover of the book if I liked it. I don’t mind reading on an iPhone (iBooks will open it and even sync it across devices). If I did, I’d use Calibre to load books on a kindle. I did this recently as a test and it worked on the second version ever made of the kindle.

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#152

Post by phil21 »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #117
Aloha wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

14 years of support for a device 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…

> 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.

To me it would. If they don't have a similar device released by that time.

It would get me motivated enough to finally de-DRM all the books on my device (or pirate copies I can't otherwise decrypt) and copy them to a third party something like a Kobo Reader or whatnot.

I am firmly in the Kindle ecosystem sort of by accident and inertia, but if they were to end support of the only device that meets my needs (page turn buttons and waterproof - which for the latter to be useful you need the former) it'd be the end of Kindles for me forever, and I'd certainly bitch a lot about it on-line!

If they end support for it 12 year after release but offer a reasonable upgrade path? I'd grin and bear it. 12 years is a decent amount of time for a $200 device.

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#153

Post by andrekandre »

_doctor_love wrote: post #136
Aloha wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm supporting a 30 year old product, the oldest one in the field are 20+ years old, we still support them. I'm just in the process of developing a lifecycle policy, being able to cut off support for a 12 year systems would make my life much more full of joy.

(This may be a very ungenerous reading of your comment, so my apologies if this is not what you mean.) The phrase that jumps out at me is: > being able to cut off support for a 12 year systems would make my life much more full of joy I think this is a nearly-poetical capturing of the core problem. The focus is on the joy and well-being of the maintainer, not the impact to all the people who will be impacted by this c…

  > Possibly some people rely on these devices and it adversely impact their joy and livelihood when support is ended.
    This happens over and over again in tech.
its true and i agree with you as a user

on the other hand, some software gets harder and costlier to support the longer its out there (think spec changes, security issues, updates in law etc), and even paying a normal subscription for it can cause roi to go negative, especially when factoring in opportunity cost for a business (help the old users or spend that time/money making a new feature for the majority)

my thought on it is if its a subscription, maybe for some software, the longer someone uses the old version the subscription cost could go up slowly, or if its a one-time purchase, after x years they could just buy a support ticket or something...? for ad-supported software i have no ideas...

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#154

Post by steve-atx-7600 »

literalAardvark wrote: post #47
cbdevidal wrote: post #25

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 bu…

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.

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#155

Post by phil21 »

paulcole wrote: post #146
kuschku wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

No amount of "getting used to buttonless" can keep a touchscreen from registering water droplets as touch.

So until they can figure out how to make touch screen work in those conditions, any device released without page turn buttons is useless to me.

It's not a preference thing for me. It's simply a physical requirement for my environment.

Yes, I do understand I'm a rather niche use-case and don't really expect them to pander to me. But I will be vocal about it just so they know I exist! There are at least dozens of us!

The fact I can continue to buy refurbished Oasis units whenever I leave one in airplane seatback pocket is the only reason I'm still on the Kindle ecosystem. The second I cannot make that work it's off to third party for me and they will lose an infinitesimal portion of their captured audience for future book purchases.

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#156

Post by phil21 »

literalAardvark wrote: post #43
madarco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the old Kindle had physical buttons, which I find more ergonomic when reading in bed

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.

> 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.

You can... turn them upside down to become a left-handed device. That way you can be weak-handed with either hand!

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#157

Post by umbra07 »

kuschku wrote: post #147
paulcole wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why 15 years? Why should I ever have to accept things getting worse? Isn't the point of progress that things get better ? There's multiple touch zones (which aren't visible or marked), there's multiple gestures you can interact with, and it's so slow and janky enough that you never know what will happen when you touch it. Will it go forwards? Or backwards? By one page? Or a dozen? Will it open the settings? Or change…

I've never had this issue. And I use Koreader - which has much larger touch zones than the normal Kindle software.

Are you normally reading in a moving vehicle or something?

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#158

Post by Dylan16807 »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #23

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.

Most things keep working when support runs out.

If your product doesn't work without support, you have villain aspects from day 1.

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#159

Post by anonymars »

ryandrake wrote: post #106
Insanity wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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.

Just like the 3.5mm headphone jack, which a very vocal bunch of people are still complaining about, 10 years after iPhone got rid of it.

I traded occasionally making my life more difficult, and in return I got what? My old phone was equally waterproof

Re: Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers

#160

Post by zeafoamrun »

phil21 wrote: post #155
paulcole wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No amount of "getting used to buttonless" can keep a touchscreen from registering water droplets as touch. So until they can figure out how to make touch screen work in those conditions, any device released without page turn buttons is useless to me. It's not a preference thing for me. It's simply a physical requirement for my environment. Yes, I do understand I'm a rather niche use-case and don't really expect them…

There being capacitive touch panels that are designed not to register water as a touch has been a thing for 15+ years.
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