What I would like to see on the Kindle

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

That’s weird. Which Kindle do you have? Is it running latest firmware?

Paperwhite, firmware 5.13.6. Back when the series info capability was being added to the firmware (5.13.5??), there seemed to be randomness about which devices would show series info. Mine never seems to have gotten the go ahead. I tried the restarting and other suggestions but no joy.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Paperwhite, firmware 5.13.6. Back when the series info capability was being added to the firmware (5.13.5??), there seemed to be randomness about which devices would show series info. Mine never seems to have gotten the go ahead. I tried the restarting and other suggestions but no joy.

I assume it is a Paperwhite 3, or you’d have a setting for showing Audiobooks in there as well. I assume there must be other people with that model but without the issue you have. I would not have thought it possible.

The Paperwhite User’s Guide, 8th Edition (the newest one I see for Paperwhite 4) mentions that Comics have a Group Comics by Series feature. Moreover, it says “If you see a book that is grouped incorrectly, simply long press the cover of the book and select ‘Submit series feedback’ to let us know what to fix”. Who knew? I assume that has been superseded by the more general Series Grouping.

[JSWolf]

I would like to see adult settings instead of the child settings in the Aa menu.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I assume it is a Paperwhite 3, or you’d have a setting for showing Audiobooks in there as well. I assume there must be other people with that model but without the issue you have. I would not have thought it possible.

From the serial number, (G000 T6), it's a Paperwhite 4 2018 WiFi 32GB. I don't have any audio books on it so that might be why I don't see Audiobooks in the settings. I'm assuming it has some audio support since I do see settings under Accessibility for VoiceView screen reader though I suspect that requires the Audio Adapter. I do have several books in series on the device so it's not a lack of data to display.

I did try contacting Amazon Canada and the tech support was less than helpful. If not for several posters who are also in Canada mentioning they had the series option, I might have decided that it is not a Canadian registered device option.

Not a big deal to me since I picked it up mostly for the serial number for the download and send to device via USB option.

[tomsem]

If you don’t have audiobook option, it may be because you cannot purchase any in your region (Canada?). It doesn’t depend on having downloaded audiobooks, and I don’t think you need to have an Audible account linked to have them show up.

This could also explain the lack of Series Grouping toggle, though not why they group anyway: the feature should be tied the the storefront you use, and I don’t know which regions it is available in other than the US.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by tomsem

If you don’t have audiobook option, it may be because you cannot purchase any in your region (Canada?). It doesn’t depend on having downloaded audiobooks, and I don’t think you need to have an Audible account linked to have them show up.

This could also explain the lack of Series Grouping toggle, though not why they group anyway: the feature should be tied the the storefront you use, and I don’t know which regions it is available in other than the US.

Yeah, I believe Audible on Kindle doesn't work in Canada for some reason. They have launched Audible.ca and before that they were okay and still are with Canadians buying off Audible.com. Although having .ca/.com has created sort of a mess.

[BiliBug]

Firmware features I'd like to see:

1) Return of the KKB3 type progress bar option

2) Better Home Screen with less advertising. Add a greater number of recently opened books or books with activity, but not completed.

3) An automatic "in progress/reading" collection

4) Ability to turn off touch screen controls for devices with page buttons

5) More intuitive collection creation on device

6) Customized screen saver setting with "If found please contact" information banner under book cover

7) Ability to set even smaller margins

8) More usable (smaller) increments in font sizing

9) Consolidation and de-"Fisher-Price"-ing of menus and controls

10) A finished, non-experimental browser

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by BiliBug

Firmware features I'd like to see:

1) Return of the KKB3 type progress bar option

2) Better Home Screen with less advertising. Add a greater number of recently opened books or books with activity, but not completed.

3) An automatic "in progress/reading" collection

4) Ability to turn off touch screen controls for devices with page buttons

5) More intuitive collection creation on device

6) Customized screen saver setting with "If found please contact" information banner under book cover

7) Ability to set even smaller margins

8) More usable (smaller) increments in font sizing

9) Consolidation and de-"Fisher-Price"-ing of menus and controls

10) A finished, non-experimental browser

From your list it seems that a Kobo would be your perfect reader. It has almost all these features out of the box or they can be easily added via patching.

[0x6c616d70]

Originally Posted by BiliBug

4) Ability to turn off touch screen controls for devices with page buttons

I believe you can partially do this already. (Unless they explicitly removed it for KOA)

when a book is opened: menu > triple vertical dots > Disable Touchscreen.

This way tapping the screen won't work, but page swipes still should.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

If you don’t have audiobook option, it may be because you cannot purchase any in your region (Canada?). It doesn’t depend on having downloaded audiobooks, and I don’t think you need to have an Audible account linked to have them show up.

This could also explain the lack of Series Grouping toggle, though not why they group anyway: the feature should be tied the the storefront you use, and I don’t know which regions it is available in other than the US.

It was not a downloaded audio book, it was the downloaded audio file for VoiceView to allow me to enable BlueTooth. Why this was necessary to enable BlueTooth is rather risible.

I can purchase Audible content from Audible.ca and I do have a couple that I picked up as freebies when testing. They will not sync to the Paperwhite though I can download and sideload them after which they show up in my library view as audible files. This results in a oddity where I get a popup that Audible cannot find the title in your Kindle Device library and suggesting that I sync my Kindle. Opening the Chapters view gives the same message but allows me to click on a chapter to start reading about 1 in 4 tries.

I had thought the lack of Series grouping was a Canadian thing but a couple of posters from Canada reported seeing Series in the earlier discussion. As mentioned before, Amazon.ca tech support was pretty useless. There are only so many times you can restart your Kindle before you are tempted to suggest the support tech has the approximate IQ of a watermelon.

[BiliBug]

Originally Posted by 0x6c616d70

I believe you can partially do this already. (Unless they explicitly removed it for KOA)

when a book is opened: menu > triple vertical dots > Disable Touchscreen.

This way tapping the screen won't work, but page swipes still should.

You are correct re KAO, but why not for KV also? I am currently using Intocable, which works, but it should be part of the system.

I also forgot about my most desired feature - reading statistics, similar to what is available in the mobile app. They collect the information - why not let us benefit from it too!

[BiliBug]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

From your list it seems that a Kobo would be your perfect reader. It has almost all these features out of the box or they can be easily added via patching.

That's kind of my point. These are features that can be implemented through software, as shown on other devices (or Kindle hacks). Instead of spending time thwarting jailbreaking, implement features for which users are jailbreaking their devices.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by BiliBug

That's kind of my point. These are features that can be implemented through software, as shown on other devices (or Kindle hacks). Instead of spending time thwarting jailbreaking, implement features for which users are jailbreaking their devices.

Well, they do, but only for direct purchases/downloads. They don't want you to use those features outside their ecosystem.

[tomsem]

Good list.

Originally Posted by BiliBug

Firmware features I'd like to see:


2) Better Home Screen with less advertising. Add a greater number of recently opened books or books with activity, but not completed.

You can turn off the Home Screen altogether, which is what I do.

3) An automatic "in progress/reading" collection

I would not opt for a Collection, it is too cumbersome.

We have Read and Unread filters currently, they could add Started and perhaps Not Started (Unread would include both), and you would select from one of those.

4) Ability to turn off touch screen controls for devices with page buttonsl

Others have answered this. I am neutral, don’t have any page button Kindles

5) More intuitive collection creation on device

You would need to elaborate on this. What are your use cases?

6) Customized screen saver setting with "If found please contact" information banner under book cover

How would the screen saver know you cannot find the Kindle in order to display such a message? And I at least would not want that to be the default screen saver. Kindle’s are not always connected devices so there’s generally not going to be a way to push a message to them when they’re lost where you can usually do that with a smartphone.

What might work is to have some option when you have set a passcode to have a message of your choice when the passcode entry form is up ‘if found contact xxxx’.

There is a Personal Info thing you can type in, but I don’t know where that would show up or why it is there. You could put contact information there, but nobody is going to find it.

9) Consolidation and de-"Fisher-Price"-ing of menus and controls

They have done some of this. But inconsistencies remain.

10) A finished, non-experimental browser

Without more capable hardware there is no point. Most websites these days (quite reasonably) expect robust JavaScript support and a reasonably fast CPU to render, and no longer provide low bandwidth version. Wikipedia is the exception, and the browser does as well as it ever has with it.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Most websites these days (quite reasonably) expect robust JavaScript support and a reasonably fast CPU to render, and no longer provide low bandwidth version.

They expect it, and get away with that, but it is not reasonable.

(But I have no desire to browse the web with an e-ink device.)