Kindle Paperwhite upgrade

[kimmer]

What in the world has Amazon done to my paperwhite?!?!?!?!?!?!? I absolutely HATE this update.

They installed the latest update (while my kindle was offline - how did they manage that?), and now I have one HUGE mess. I absolutely HATE this update. My kindle used to be easy to use. I kept it simple. My homepage showed 3 collections, my current book, my KJ Bible (a daily read), "My Clippings", "2 Dictionaries" and that was it.

My collections were simple:

• To Be Read
• Read
• Rejected

I had about a dozen books in TBR, 30-something in the read collection, and 3 in the rejected.

Today I found pages of books, pages of very, very, very old collections (that I stopped using at least a year or more ago), no instructions (had to download that gem), plus all the new toys that for me are USELESS. I absolutely HATE this update. I don't have kids and don't want the kids item. I dumped my goodreads acct when Amazon purchased goodreads and I don't want it on my kindle and I don't want to use it. I positively HATE this update. At my age I don't want to build my vocabulary. Perhaps I should, but at 65, I honestly don't care to spend time on a vocabulary when there are so many other things to learn and do. I absolutely HATE this update.

I honestly HATE this update. Instead of being able to read today, I spent 6 hours trying to clean up this mess Amazon created for me. I tried to put the loose books into a collection and found they were already there, plus they are sitting on my home page (that is 7 pages instead of 1 page). I wrote to Amazon and asked how to clean up this mess, get rid of all the greyed out items, dump all the old collections, and return my kindle to it's nice, clean, simple state. Hopefully they will reply with an EASY way to do this. I truly HATE this update beyond anything I've ever dealt with in my life.

I'm so disgusted that I'm now looking for an android reader. I'd happily dump my kindle at this point. And in case you don't understand …

I. HATE. HATE. HATE. THIS. UPDATE.

 

[Jack W]

I got the impression you didn't like that automated update.

 

Don't you love it when companies take over and try to change the way you've been doing things?
Without your permission.
That's why I don't like automatic updates.

I fear that Apple is inclined in that direction.

And, boy, did Adobe ever go off the deep end!!!!

Good luck Kimmer, and go get 'em!!!

Jack

[Xairbusdriver]

First, please remember this is a 'family-friendly' site. Please, no shouting.Second, why don't you just tell us what you think of the update.

I'm assuming there is not a Restore function?

[kimmer]

I wish there was a restore function, but there isn't.

I wrote to Amazon, pretty much what I posted above—wanted to sure they understood how unhappy I am. I got a canned response:

QUOTE

Hello,

I’m sorry to hear the disappointment you had with your Kindle Paperwhite due to the latest update. Also, I can understand that how frustrating this would be for you as you’re not able to use the Kindle properly. We're regularly working on improvements to your Kindle experience.

Please be assured that we're continuously working hard to improve your Kindle experience. In addition to our large selection, one of the benefits we try very hard to offer our customers is convenience.

Therefore to make sure that your comments are heard by the appropriate people in our company, I have forwarded your comments, expressing your displeasure and the disappointment over the poor Kindle experience to our management department and please be informed that they can take notice of your comments and take appropriate action in this issue and make sure that this won’t happen in future.

We truly value this kind of feedback, as it helps us continue to improve our store and provide better service to our customers. It is always important for us to hear how customers react to all aspects. Customer feedback like yours helps us continue to improve the service we provide, and we're glad you took time to write to us. The Kindle Team will carefully review your message.

I hope that you will honor us with another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you in the future. In addition to a wide selection of items, one of our aims at Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we have not met that standard.

We appreciate your understanding and patience in this regard. Please give us chance to serve you better in future.

Best regards,

From what I've read in the Kindle forum today, this mess happened to some people but not everyone; so it appears to be a nice bug. Supposedly Amazon is working on a "fix", with no release date set. Right. It'll happen just about when I get this cleared up on my paperwhite.  

I've now recharged my old Kindle and am using it. Not the same, but beats the mess my paperwhite has become.

[Xairbusdriver]

Maybe it would help to change to slightly off-white paper.

But it should be comforting to know that your comments are being sent to "management" and that they "take notice of" them. I'd advise you to have "understanding and patience" while they prepare a fix. Please remember to breathe regularly, however.

"Quality takes time! Sloppiness, not so much..." J. P. Bezos

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 1 2014, 12:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Quality takes time! Sloppiness, not so much..." J. P. Bezos

HA! I'm gonna insert that in my next complaint, which I'm now working on due to NEW issues.    I'm horribly frustrated, and yet in the scheme of things this isn't important, other than I rely on my Kindle while at the clinic.

[kimmer]

A quick update: the software update totally fried my Kindle paperwhite. Totally. Amazon has now sent replacement, and it's here charging it's little battery. This is my 2nd replacement in 10 months. Original arrived Aug 2013 and I started having problems. By April 2014 the first replacement was sent to me (and I had to fight from Sept to April to get the replacement). Now the 2nd replacement after 1.5 months. I'm really wondering about this version of the paperwhite. We'll see how this one works. At least it only took me 3 phone calls and 3 days to get a replacement.

[Xairbusdriver]

I think it's the salty air around your vicinity...

But it make only take three hours next time! You must be learning the secret words!

How do you back up that device, anyway? Automagic on Amazon's servers?

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 6 2014, 02:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How do you back up that device, anyway? Automagic on Amazon's servers?

Books purchased from Amazon are stored on their cloud and "always" available.

Any other way of backing up my ebooks is not allowed, and so I would never do any of those things.  

[Xairbusdriver]

So, it doesn't have apps. Like Contacs, rememberers, to do lists, interweb surfers or the all important things like Twit and FacePoster?!

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jun 6 2014, 08:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So, it doesn't have apps. Like Contacs, rememberers, to do lists, interweb surfers or the all important things like Twit and FacePoster?!

No. The paperwhite is an eink book reader, not one of the tablets.

Update: new paperwhite is defective!   Screen has scratches and is filthy! I can load books onto it, but not remove them. Books open with errors that this book was for a different Kindle and to download it again; but I can't do that because I can't remove it—and I loaded the books direct from Amazon's site.   I need a blowing my top smilie.

[Paddy]

Yikes. My sympathies, Kimmer - that's hardly "customer service" - more like "customer disservice." It's interesting - if you go to look at the reviews of the Paperwhite, most people are very happy with it, but there is a subset (about 430 out 12,000+) who seem, like you, to have had nothing but issues.

I just use my iPad, which I like very much. However, it's bigger and heavier (though the mini retina would be lighter - mine's full-size) and definitely more expensive initially.

Is this smiley what you had in mind?



Or how about this one?

[Xairbusdriver]

OT: Those are good 'smilies' but we need larger sizes... say 800 x 800 pixels? At least for some 'left coast' members... :whitsling:

[kimmer]

Paddy, those smilies are perfect!

My old Kindle Keyboard (don't remember if 2nd or 3rd generation) worked just grand, so this is a major disappointment to me. I'm trying to clean the grime off this device, plus I reset it to factory settings and re-downloaded a couple of books. Everything worked fine. Then I plugged it in to my USB port and added some odd books via Calibre*. Immediately I was back to lost places in books, lost highlights, etc. I'm wondering if there is something in one of my Calibre plugins that is causing some problem, so I removed all my plug-ins (there go my collections and such!), and will reset my Kindle PW to factory settings, again, and try using Calibre again to see what happens.

If it works, then I know it's a Calibre plug-in. If it doesn't work, then I'll wait a few days before I call customer service as right now I don't have the patience to sit through a scripted customer service phone call. Maybe by Tuesday afternoon. Or maybe Wednesday. Depends on how Monday goes.




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*I have ebooks going back to pre-2000! I was on a board with some budding authors and they sold their first books as PDF files (no drm - it was the honor system). Plus I have books that I got from Internet Archive, Gutenburg, and direct from publishers that all came as drm-free PDF's. I used Calibre to convert all these to mobi files to use on my Kindle. So it's not like I’m trying to rip anyone off. Since you can't really have a conversation most places about Calibre and the Kindle, it's hard to find out if others have any issues or not.

[Xairbusdriver]

I use Calibre also, I have both Kindle and Nook apps on my iPad (plus iBook and Goodreader...) and find that it's a constant process to keep Calibre updated! So I'd suggest you make sure that's done before re-doing the conversions. I might even go so far as saving everything in a particular format for future use in what ever reader comes along but I won't...