Pre-Christmas update coming for Kindle Fire

[obsessed2]

Originally Posted by DaveSp

He is a world-renowned expert in the field and the HMI professionals at Amazon would not lightly dismiss his criticism.

Maybe not, but I will. Let's see how many millions of consumers agree with me instead of the usability expert. Man, I chuckle every time I say this.

The thing that gets me about the usability expert is that the co-founder of his company used to be the VP of Research at Apple. I'm sure Apple's ludicrous lawsuit against Amazon (http://www.pcworld.com/article/24429...tore_name.html) had no bearing whatsoever on the Nielsen Norman Group's review of the Fire. Even someone with half a brain like myself knows that Apple despises competition when it comes to their precious iPad2 (http://www.pcworld.com/article/24549...artphones.html). Why not call up some old friends to join the fight? Why anyone would choose to continue to do business with this quickly becoming joke of a company is mind boggling. I just wish Cisco would sue Apple because their use of the term IOS is really confusing me as a future CCNA.

So I took at look at the usability experts website. I swear the VERY FIRST link I clicked on just for the fun of it under Parodies (Jakob Nielsen Declares the Letter "C" Unusable) was a broken link in IE9 (maybe to protect me as I would later learn). So I tried Firefox and it reported the link as an Attack Site. So I said why not try Google Chrome and I was greeted with the message "Warning: Visiting this site may harm your computer". I decided not to proceed for fear of losing usability of my computer. Pretty sad considering he's "the world's leading expert on Web usability" (U.S. News & World Report).

But, I digress ...

[carld]

I agree with HuffPo, that NYT article is a reeking pile of ... reek.

[wizwor]

I don't think either blogger has used a Fire. I think this is true, too, of the guy at Forbes. All the articles are along the lines of, "I hears somewhere the Fire is..."

I can't believe these guys get paid to regurgitate other people's opinion without adding anything to the discussion. I lend no credence to any of these articles -- positive or negative.

[salsaguy]

I would like the carousel to be smaller in size and hold at most 10 items. Never went back more than that. It would be nice to move it below the Carousel area instead or give us the option to turn it on/off as needed.

[Jessica Lares]

The BIG problem, and this is among music/tech/tv in general, is that these journalists get like one week to test units, and it's usually the week before release. Either that, or they line up to get it like the rest of us. They aren't trusted to keep information secret these days, and you have some who will try and sell the stuff beforehand. That and things get more and more stolen today than ever.

Which is pretty stupid because that's one of the main reasons why there's a lot of iPad/iPhone talk whenever new phones and tablets come out. They have so little time to play with them, really explore the features, and they have to skim through every device just to write up a two page report that makes any sense to the reader.

[janicew]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

The BIG problem, and this is among music/tech/tv in general, is that these journalists get like one week to test units, and it's usually the week before release. Either that, or they line up to get it like the rest of us. They aren't trusted to keep information secret these days, and you have some who will try and sell the stuff beforehand. That and things get more and more stolen today than ever.

Which is pretty stupid because that's one of the main reasons why there's a lot of iPad/iPhone talk whenever new phones and tablets come out. They have so little time to play with them, really explore the features, and they have to skim through every device just to write up a two page report that makes any sense to the reader.

I completely agree. As an IT professional in higher ed, I work with folks all the time who are interested in iPads (primarily) or Android tablets (Fire and otherwise). My universal statement is always that they need to be prepared to spend time with the device and figure out how to make it work for them. It will not be as easy or as intuitive as they think it will. You need to decide what you want to be able to do and then research apps and spend time doing it to achieve maximum benefit from your tablet device.

If someone in the media is given a device and expected to write about it in such a short period of time, then they are going to generally find far more short comings than positives. Especially if its their first device of that kind to evaluate.

How many overwhelmingly negative reviews are out there when they are doing a "30 days with the Kindle Fire" type of thing?

[txvoodoo]

FWIW, Neilsen has been, for decades, a usability expert. I was at a panel of his in the early 1990s.

That said, Neilsen has ALWAYS tended to base his reviews and impressions on how he uses things. He doesn't like certain colors, so using them on the web must be wrong! Seriously, that's how he's always been - dictatorial and convinced of his own infallibility.

I have an ipad and a Kindle Fire. I'm using my Fire more and more over the ipad. I'm not going to defend it and say it has no problems whatsoever - it's a first generation device, and you get one of those knowing that there will be things to work out. But I honestly think all of them except 1 (volume control - I'd love a physical one!) are fixable via software updates, and I look forward to that.

[Morpheus Phreak]

Originally Posted by txvoodoo

FWIW, Neilsen has been, for decades, a usability expert. I was at a panel of his in the early 1990s.

That said, Neilsen has ALWAYS tended to base his reviews and impressions on how he uses things. He doesn't like certain colors, so using them on the web must be wrong! Seriously, that's how he's always been - dictatorial and convinced of his own infallibility.

I have an ipad and a Kindle Fire. I'm using my Fire more and more over the ipad. I'm not going to defend it and say it has no problems whatsoever - it's a first generation device, and you get one of those knowing that there will be things to work out. But I honestly think all of them except 1 (volume control - I'd love a physical one!) are fixable via software updates, and I look forward to that.

Indeed, and while I know it's a 'preference' thing his site to me appears to be very non-professional.

They layout is very sparse, and to be honest for a usability expert he hasn't put much effort into it. A lot of true usability scenarios (well the main ones) rely upon visual cues. His site doesn't provide very many visual cues.


I've worked for some fairly large companies in the software world, and he would get a thumbs down from almost every usability team I know.

[TechnoCat]

Originally Posted by txvoodoo

I'm using my Fire more and more over the ipad. I'm not going to defend it and say it has no problems whatsoever - it's a first generation device, and you get one of those knowing that there will be things to work out.

I'm surprised by how much (and for what) I use the Fire. The size of it is pretty much perfect, compared to any of my other devices. As with you, I have a few quibbles, but my frequent use of it suggests that those are, compared to the competitive devices' issues, minor indeed.

[greencat]

Darn - I keep jumping into this thread, hoping that the update is available to download.

[markkenzy]

Originally Posted by greencat

Darn - I keep jumping into this thread, hoping that the update is available to download.

yep, me too... maybe they wanna release it at Xmas

[sparklemotion]

Me three! lol.

[SCION]

Woo Hoo! The update is here. My Fire rebooted by itself and is installing the update.

[foreverjuly]

lol I should've known I wouldn't make it over here in time to say I got it first!

[SCION]

In Settings they added Restrictions and Security. Under Device the breakdown for Application and Internal Storage is shown. You can remove stuff from the carousel, but I don't see a way to configure what should be there.