Firmware Update 5.4.2 has arrived with Goodreads integration

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Agama

So would this firmware update affect collections on my PW2, (if I purchased one), or would it be 'safe' since the other Kindles are not PW2? I don't want my PW2 to be cluttered with all the collections from these other Kindles!

Yes it would affect yours. All of their collections that they have now, or have ever had in the past, will be yours! All the books they have on the account, that you have no interest in, will show up! Yay!

[Agama]

Oh dear! That's a deal breaker for me. Looks like I need to borrow someone's Kobo to see if the light can go lower enough not to wake up my wife in the middle of the night!

[Josieb1]

I'm actually glad now both my PW2s were faulty (yes Simaru they were FAULTY) and I ended up buying a Kobo Aura, which I really like incidentally, even though the screens not as good as the PW1, as I am staying far far away from PW2s until Amazon sort out a fix.

I have two more years Warrenty on my PW1 and wifi is staying off!

[mnha]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Good point about browsing the entire Cloud on a fast device like a Fire or iPad or Computer. Unfortunately eInk devices are way to slow and cumbersome due to the nature of eInk screen refreshing to be useful for browsing a large library.

The funny thing is that the current top tier tablets are superior to eInk in just about every way -- unless you're very serious about reading. Which naturally tend to be the people with huge collections. Who just got shafted on eInk.

Working as intended, right?

[Blossom]

Can't you downgrade? I remember on the PW1 you had to downgrade to jailbreak so I know it's was possible with PW1 is it possible with PW2?

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Can't you downgrade? I remember on the PW1 you had to downgrade to jailbreak so I know it's was possible with PW1 is it possible with PW2?

I think earlier in this thread someone said no, as the 5.4 software version was never online.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jswinden

+1!

I'm pretty sure Amazon doesn't market their devices primarily to those who only read a half dozen books per year! They would go broke.

I've purchased FOUR eReaders from Amazon in the last 12 months and spent thousands and thousands of bucks for other Amazon products. True, I only purchased about 6 eBooks but they make money off me from all my other Prime purchases.

Amazon is a multiproduct seller, not just a seller of 10 products.

As I said before, Amazon does NOT cater to the eBook COLLECTOR who primarily uses Calibre and Apprentice Alf. Frankly, I doubt if more than 2% of Amazon sales are to people who use those products.

Plus, I rarely ever look at eBooks I've read in the past. I have never collected books or eBooks. I just discard them when done. Amazon keeps them for me so I leave them there but it is really not a necessity for me.

Again, I have a hunch most Amazon purchasers are like me. They are NOT eBook Collectors. They just buy a book to read and then discard.

If you want improvements in eBook collection software, contact Calibre for improvements and use Microsoft Windows 8.1 tablets with Office 2013.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Agama

Oh dear! That's a deal breaker for me. Looks like I need to borrow someone's Kobo to see if the light can go lower enough not to wake up my wife in the middle of the night!

You could buy another Paperwhite 1, I had a replacement in August and the quality issues were not as bad, just keep wifi off and never let it update with any future upgrades.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

You could buy another Paperwhite 1, I had a replacement in August and the quality issues were not as bad, just keep wifi off and never let it update with any future upgrades.

Of course if it does you can downgrade though unlike the PW2 unless someone knows of a way.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Yes it would affect yours. All of their collections that they have now, or have ever had in the past, will be yours! All the books they have on the account, that you have no interest in, will show up! Yay!

Yes - it was quite a shock to see collections from Kindles I no longer owned! I can't imagine the situation for family members sharing an Amazon account on multiple devices.

[fearindex]

The really, really big problem seems to be that PW2 5.4.2 shows Cloud-only books also in "Device" view, if they are inside a category - and show all categories assigned to an account in "Device" view, irrespective of whether they have any on-device books or were created for that device. Absolutely contrary to the "Device" view idea! Fix this, and they'd fix the issue for most people.

Second problem is of course those having multiple Kindles on an account, perhaps with multiple users or multiple uses. If those Kindles have had their own categories, suddenly all those are pushed onto every PW2 5.4.2 on that account - again irrespective of whether or not there are any on-device books or use for that category on that particular Kindle.

As for the notion that people don't have time to read until retirement, I think that's frankly preposterous. I can see why not some wouldn't have the time, there are many living situations in the world, but for most it is just a question of priority. People have different priorities. Some read, others don't. Some read A LOT.

And if you read a lot on your Kindle and use categories, your life just got a little bit harder after this PW2 update - I can see that plain as day, even though it doesn't affect me because I don't really use categories but simply have those books on my Kindle that I'm reading now without any categories.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Of course if it does you can downgrade though unlike the PW2 unless someone knows of a way.

If one saves the upgrade modules every time they are installed, theoretically its possible to install a prior upgrade.

I always save three upgrade modules for every software and firmware I install. I've never tried to downgrade, but it is possible.

[VictoriaP]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Sirmaru, I am a READER, I have 400 books in the Amazon Cloud and hubby has bought around 700/800, so that's 1200 books in 28 collections. Every book is in a collection, either his or mine. I don't want all 1200 on my Kindle, either downloaded or grey'd out.

Can you please stop insulting everyone else. Just because you can't see the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Amen! Plant me firmly in the reads/rereads hundreds of books a year category, like most Kindle owners, and 99% of my books were Amazon purchased and are in Amazon's cloud.

I don't understand why a casual reader owns Kindles in the first place. Why not just use an actual paper book at that point--cheaper, and easily passed on when you're done with it? But no, the majority of Kindle owners are not casual readers. The casual readers I know never bought into the e-ink idea. If they buy ebooks at all, they read them on tablets or phones. The serious readers I know (who read 100 books or more per year) all have e-ink Kindles or other e-ink readers--and have collections that range from 500-5000 books. And yes, many of those books have been read at least once--they aren't hoarding just to collect.

And oh yeah, most of them have full time jobs because how the hell else do you afford to buy all those books? Some of them (gasp) even work in software, as I did for many years, and as my husband still does, and those in the industry will be the first to note that crappy code happens more frequently than one might hope.

Meh. Way off subject.

I've seen a couple of people elsewhere report that with this upgrade they had books show up in collections that they had long since deleted from those collections. (Example a "Reading now" collection that normally holds a few books & now shows the two hundred or so that have been in there at one point or another.) My current PW 2 collections do not show in Cloud Collections as viewed from the iOS app on two separate devices, which makes me even more hesitant to upgrade--I actually store hundreds of books on my PW2, and it took hours with the original kludgy interface to get the way I have them now. If old, outdated data is showing up in this process, that's poor coding, no matter how some people would like to pretend it's all user error.

Is that problem being seen here as well, or something striking only an unfortunate few?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

As I said before, Amazon does NOT cater to the eBook COLLECTOR who primarily uses Calibre and Apprentice Alf. Frankly, I doubt if more than 2% of Amazon sales are to people who use those products.

What the heck does Calibre and Alf have to do with it. My Amazon cloud has 7,748 books in it (which is small compared to some I know) without involving Alf or Calibre. Amazon is in the business of selling content (books, apps, music, movies/tv), among other things, and this is how they make money off of these devices they sell at or near cost. Their devices need to integrate well with handling that content.

[tashk]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Can't you downgrade? I remember on the PW1 you had to downgrade to jailbreak so I know it's was possible with PW1 is it possible with PW2?

Amazon told me you can't but I'm following this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=2692225 hoping for a miracle.

Anyway, I was thinking... maybe the Kindle devices in Amazon's warehouses still have the old version? If there were a technical fault with my current (updated) device, Amazon might replace it with a device running the old version.
Hmm.