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Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

nytimes.com

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Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#21

Post by ravenstine »

cogman10 wrote: post #19
ndiddy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual reason is likely that all of these Kindles only support azw3 format ebooks, which are easy to strip the DRM from. This lets Amazon switch to only serving ebooks in kfx format, which are encrypted and harder to strip the DRM from. Amazon stopped allowing saving ebooks to your PC last year, likely for the same reason. It definitely is frustrating though. I have an iPod from 2009 where the battery and hard dr…

It seems weird that they couldn't simply ship a software update to support kfx. Is kfx decoded in hardware?

Amazon can and already did this for my circa 2015 Kindle. I think it's just a lack of will to do so for devices even older than that.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#22

Post by aidenn0 »

gdulli wrote: post #15
disillusioned wrote: post #6

It seems absurd to me that Amazon is making the product decision to EOL functional hardware that is _actively used to purchase books from them, legally_... all to... what? potentially sell another $100 or so reader? At the expense of... what? Some minimal amount of engineering effort to keep updates flowing for the extremely limited surface area that is the old Kindle OS? Why upset your customers over this when they…

You're an ant to them. All that data they have tells them this action won't hurt them. An incredibly important turning point of this era is that businesses have learned that they no longer need to fear acting hostile to consumers. Consumers don't practice agency.

There's a lot of moving parts here:

1. Competition is much lower in a lot of places.

2. Customers prioritize convenience and (perceived at least) low-prices over being treated well.

Look at airlines: Unless you happen to be traveling between two major airports, there will typically be at most 2 airlines with a reasonable schedule for the two endpoints, and most people will not pay $100 more for being treated like human beings over cattle.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#23

Post by shell0x »

I’m thinking to get a device for reading technical books. Do you think an iPad mini would be the better option? I had a kindle before but it was slow to change pages and I heard even new versions are still not great for PDFs, but would like to get some opinions.

I have a friend at Apple so wouldn’t pay the full price for an iPad.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#24

Post by ndiddy »

cogman10 wrote: post #19
ndiddy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual reason is likely that all of these Kindles only support azw3 format ebooks, which are easy to strip the DRM from. This lets Amazon switch to only serving ebooks in kfx format, which are encrypted and harder to strip the DRM from. Amazon stopped allowing saving ebooks to your PC last year, likely for the same reason. It definitely is frustrating though. I have an iPod from 2009 where the battery and hard dr…

It seems weird that they couldn't simply ship a software update to support kfx. Is kfx decoded in hardware?

They probably could do it in an update, but the devices where support has been dropped haven't had firmware updates in 7 years (and that was a certificate update, the last nontrivial update was over 10 years ago), so I guess they don't consider restarting firmware development to be worth it.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#26

Post by elorant »

shell0x wrote: post #23

I’m thinking to get a device for reading technical books. Do you think an iPad mini would be the better option? I had a kindle before but it was slow to change pages and I heard even new versions are still not great for PDFs, but would like to get some opinions. I have a friend at Apple so wouldn’t pay the full price for an iPad.

I'd go with an iPad instead of the mini just to be on the safe side. I have a 12" tablet and it's night and day compared to my 6" Kindle (2020 model). Kindles suck if you try to read pdfs, they don't scale naturally so you can't see shit. Anything with a screen at 10" or more would work fine for pdfs.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#27

Post by shell0x »

elorant wrote: post #26
shell0x wrote: post #23

I’m thinking to get a device for reading technical books. Do you think an iPad mini would be the better option? I had a kindle before but it was slow to change pages and I heard even new versions are still not great for PDFs, but would like to get some opinions. I have a friend at Apple so wouldn’t pay the full price for an iPad.

I'd go with an iPad instead of the mini just to be on the safe side. I have a 12" tablet and it's night and day compared to my 6" Kindle (2020 model). Kindles suck if you try to read pdfs, they don't scale naturally so you can't see shit. Anything with a screen at 10" or more would work fine for pdfs.

i guess that would be an iPaid air as it just got refreshed?

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#29

Post by secabeen »

shell0x wrote: post #27
elorant wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go with an iPad instead of the mini just to be on the safe side. I have a 12" tablet and it's night and day compared to my 6" Kindle (2020 model). Kindles suck if you try to read pdfs, they don't scale naturally so you can't see shit. Anything with a screen at 10" or more would work fine for pdfs.

i guess that would be an iPaid air as it just got refreshed?

Probably just the iPad, unless you are not at all price sensitive. $350 ($299 refurbished) vs $600 is a big uplift; you can almost buy two iPads for the price of an iPad Air. For just PDF viewing, any Apple CPU is performant enough.

Re: Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

#30

Post by ekropotin »

0x38B wrote: post #12

I transfer books by running `python -m http.server` on my phone or computer, then opening my Kindle’s browser to my IP and downloading my .mobi book. It doesn’t take long, and I can do it all over Wi-Fi. I can mount it via SSHFS for anything more than copying a single book. I stopped buying anything from Amazon on principal a couple years ago, books included; and anyway, most books I read these days are in the public…

Why just don’t send books on the email associated with your kindle?
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