Firmware Update 5.4.2 has arrived with Goodreads integration

[sirmaru]

On the PW 2013 in the Cloud my collections appear with eBooks in them and the same eBooks are shown again below the collections. On the Device only my collections show with the eBooks in them.

On the HDX 2013 I can display collections with eBooks in them. I can also display under Books my Cloud books and then my Device books.

Collections appear to sync between the PW 2013 and the HDX 2013. They do not affect my PW 2012, HD 2012 or K4PC.

I had extra collections appear in my HDX and deleted all of them. They did not appear in the PW 2013.

On the HDX 2013 within the Home page it appears one can move an app on top of another app and start an unnamed App collection. Once one does that there is no way to get apps out of that collection. One must delete it WITH the apps. Then one must go to the App page and add it back to the Home page. One can move eBook Collections to the Home page. For me that would be clutter since I only read 2 eBooks at a time.

Amazingly for me, when I access Goodreads from the PC, PW 2013 and HDX 2013 all my eBooks I had read as MS eBooks and Sony eBooks appear as Read books. I've forgotten most of them and must have entered them on Goodreads years ago. I really don't see any use for me to use Goodreads other than as a history of all the books I have ever read.

Overall, this upgrade on the PW 2013 really does not help me. On the HDX 2013 I get voice dictation for notes and that will help me a lot. My Collections were manually made the same on all devices and apps a month ago including on K4PC.

My Collections are as follows on all my devices and apps:

01-Husband
02-Wife
03-History
04-Biography
05-Bible Study
06-Fiction
07-Active Content
08-Documents
09-Guides

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Stingo

Ok. Short of turning on airplane mode is there anyway to prevent the upgrade?

I don't think so. If only I had known how horrible this upgrade would be. One more reason to never use it. I guess I should change it to my son's name. He has one book on it.

I am steamed! Completely furious. This upgrade is very bad news for people who side load.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I don't think so. If only I had known how horrible this upgrade would be. One more reason to never use it. I guess I should change it to my son's name. He has one book on it.

I am steamed! Completely furious. This upgrade is very bad news for people who side load.

I have a hunch that the vast majority of Amazon purchasers of eBooks NEVER side load anything. It would simply be too difficult for them.

I only buy Amazon eBooks now and would never dream of using Calibre, Alf, or any other side loading techniques. My purpose is to only READ the eBooks and not fool around with their structures.

Most folks probably would not even know how to do it and have their time consumed so much by other activities that there would be no time to learn how to do it.

Thus, we are totally dependent on Amazon to develop new features for us. I can see how in time Amazon could become an eBook monopoly and that outcome may not be beneficial for the consumers.

Originally Posted by booklover6

I don't think so. If only I had known how horrible this upgrade would be. One more reason to never use it. I guess I should change it to my son's name. He has one book on it.

I am steamed! Completely furious. This upgrade is very bad news for people who side load.

The collections part is for sure. Amazon really needs to give us the option to import/display Cloud collections or not. Those who just have side loaded books could then choose not to import or display them.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I only buy Amazon eBooks now and would never dream of using Calibre, Alf, or any other side loading techniques. My purpose is to only READ the eBooks and not fool around with their structures.

I know...but I can't stand the way they look. I just deleted my Prime book of the month loan because it looked like crap, and I couldn't even change the font. I didn't get past the first page. If I couldn't fix my books the way I want them, I wouldn't read ebooks at all.

Originally Posted by sirmaru

Thus, we are totally dependent on Amazon to develop new features for us.

True, we are at their mercy. This is why I've switched to Kobo. They do the same thing, I just don't turn on the wifi or do the updates, usually. I want my devices to be useful to me, not change on the whim of the company who sold it to me.

[dordale]

I haven't upgraded yet--don't think it will affect me one way or the other really. I haven't used collections on my KPW2--I would love to be able to, but almost all of my documents are sideloaded via Calibre and there just isn't any easy way to add my books to collections. I really wish that the transfer of books from Calibre to my KPW would upload the series as collections--like it does with my Sony Readers. Not sure what prevents this, but know it has something to do with the way Amazon has programmed the KPW to handle collections.

I also am not excited about GoodReads integration with my device and don't have any use for the "FreeTime".

I suppose my Kindle will update the next time I turn off Airplane mode, but don't know when that will happen. Now, if I here the the "use_alt_fonts" hack has started working again for some strange reason, I'll be updating the firmware in a heartbeat!

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jswinden

The collections part is for sure. Amazon really needs to give us the option to import/display Cloud collections or not. Those who just have side loaded books could then choose not to import or display them.

One can always delete all Collections if it bothers them. One can even turn off WiFi permanently and never get firmware upgrades.

One can email eBooks as documents to their Amazon MYK page and then download them to their Kindles. My documents can be placed in my Collections.

Originally Posted by sirmaru

One can always delete all Collections if it bothers them. One can even turn off WiFi permanently and never get firmware upgrades.

I believe side loaders can even establish Collections in Calibre and never use any Amazon Collections.

You are not following what has been said. We know that Cloud Collections can be deleted or renamed. That is not the problem. The problem is that every book in your cloud that was assigned to a collection will be displayed in the collection on the PW2. There is no way to turn off the display of Cloud books/docs. This makes collections on the PW2 look cluttered.

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by booklover6

It is just beyond my comprehension that they have released this update. Does anyone know where I can get the previous firmeware?

I know it is tedious but you will only have to clean up your collections once, it is my understanding once you delete them, all those old deleted collections will be gone for good.

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I'm not liking the updated Add/Remove Items to collections feature because you now you have to scroll through the entire list of Cloud items to put a newly downloaded book that is on your PW2 into a collection. Once again, bad Amazon, bad...rolled up newspaper in hand.

ETA: You can select to sort by Recent, but it is still kludge to have no ability to turn off the display of all your Cloud items, especially if you have hundreds of Cloud items. I think Amazon really screwed the pooch here by cluttering up simple tasks by displaying dozens if not hundreds of Cloud items rather than just those that are on your PW2.

I agree and it seems they've removed the option to search for a certain terms while in the collection in order to only add those items.

[Josieb1]

Can anyone tell me what Cloud Collections will do for two kindles, where neither of them has the same books or same collections, yet both share an account. Hubby and I are in that situation.

I'm not too bothered about the ghost collections, I'll just have to delete them, but it's the 8 collections I have on my Kindle and the 20 collections he has on his. I don't want 28 collections on both kindles, especially as we never share books.

Edited to say: Actually, just ignore me, we both have PW1s. Sounds like I'm in no hurry for this update.

[Josieb1]

And as Goodreads Integration has been left of the UK update I'm not enticed to upgrade either. No idea why Amazon would ignore the UK for Goodreads, it's a bit unfair IMO.

The only thing I wanted this year was Pocket, and that's on the Kobo Aura, which I bought this week.

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Can anyone tell me what Cloud Collections will do for two kindles, where neither of them has the same books or same collections, yet both share an account. Hubby and I are in that situation.

I'm not too bothered about the ghost collections, I'll just have to delete them, but it's the 8 collections I have on my Kindle and the 20 collections he has on his. I don't want 28 collections on both kindles, especially as we never share books.

Actually, just ignore me, we both have PW1s. Sounds like I'm in not hurry for this update.

Unfortunately, if he syncs his Kindle's 20 collections and you sync your 8 collections into a joint account, all 28 collections will show up in the Cloud and on a PW2. (Other Kindles have yet to get an update for cloud collections.) So if you have a PW2 and update it to 5.4.2 you will get all 28 collections and each collection will show all the cloud books that have been assigned to it. If you then delete your husbands 20 collections from your PW2 they will also disappear from the cloud, and your husband might get mad.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jswinden

You are not following what has been said. We know that Cloud Collections can be deleted or renamed. That is not the problem. The problem is that every book in your cloud that was assigned to a collection will be displayed in the collection on the PW2. There is no way to turn off the display of Cloud books/docs. This makes collections on the PW2 look cluttered.

Just delete all the Collections you no longer need. The eBooks will NOT be deleted with them. You only have to do this once.

My only gripe is that the changes only apply to the PW 2013 and HDX 2013. They should apply to all devices and apps. Once that happens there should also be a Collection page on the MYK pane in one's Amazon account where we could do all this on a PC rather than on the PW 2013 and / or HDX 2013.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by nynaevelan

I know it is tedious but you will only have to clean up your collections once, it is my understanding once you delete them, all those old deleted collections will be gone for good.

Yes I had around 100 to delete, from all the way back in 2010 when I got my first Kindle Keyboard. De-registered and sold long ago. How ridiculous to have them all show up!

Is the Kindle Fire update doing the same thing with Ghost collections?