Missing Feature On All Kindles

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The change to the start position occurs in the publishing workflow after the publisher has sent the book to Amazon. It doesn't affect books you convert yourself and side load.

Ah, thank you for the clarification. I wasn't aware of that. I'll still a little puzzled, though, because nearly every book I buy from Amazon (and there are a lot) opens where I'd expect it to - ie after all the front matter. Presumably, therefore, something is setting that appropriately. I don't recall ever having bought a book that opens at the "wrong" place (by which I mean somewhere obviously not where anyone would reasonably start reading a book).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Ah, thank you for the clarification. I wasn't aware of that. I'll still a little puzzled, though, because nearly every book I buy from Amazon (and there are a lot) opens where I'd expect it to - ie after all the front matter. Presumably, therefore, something is setting that appropriately. I don't recall ever having bought a book that opens at the "wrong" place (by which I mean somewhere obviously not where anyone would reasonably start reading a book).

Opening after the front matter is the wrong place. There can be something in the front matter that you do want to read and if you just read where Amazon has decided you start, you could be missing something. I've read plenty of front matter that I did want to read and Amazon's deciding if I should read it or not is wrong. That's my choice and readers should not have to go back to find out what they may have missed.

[HarryT]

Well, Jon, it's a good thing that you don't have a Kindle, then, isn't it? Imagine the stress it would cause you if you did!

[radamo]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Have you expressed this desire to Amazon? They're the only ones who can do anything about it!

I have written to them several times and when speaking to customer service about other Kindle related questions I always mention it.

I really like having the cover of the book I am reading as my screensaver. I understand why they would not want to allow a lot of tweaking as it could become a support challenge.

[JSWolf]

I think it's easier for Amazon to not allow this given that they have two different firmware versions and it's easier to just use the same code for both. I don't see amazon supporting this one one firmware and not the other.

One being with ads and the other without.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I think it's easier for Amazon to not allow this given that they have two different firmware versions and it's easier to just use the same code for both. I don't see amazon supporting this one one firmware and not the other.

One being with ads and the other without.

Actually, it's not two different versions of the firmware--even if you buy a Kindle without ads you can go into your preferences and turn them on, and they will appear without having to install a new firmware. It's simply a flag in the firmware...kind of like the flag in the Kobo firmware to determine what shows on the sleep screen.

Shari