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Comment by dimmke | Hacker News Reader

I skimmed the article and I guess it’s about a vulnerability that was patched in April so the title is a bit clickbait.

I love Kindle and it’s ecosystem.

I wish it wasn’t proprietary, but the convenience is unbeatable if you read a lot. Especially the progress syncing so if I’m out and about and open the Kindle app on my phone.

My biggest wish honestly would be improvements in the screen technology and USB-C charging. If they could improve the resolution and refresh rate, it’d be so nice.

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The e-readers are great but the apps are frankly garbage. They take forever to launch, gatekeep TTS, and have laughably few display options. It's great if you want blazing white text on a black background or brown text on an infinitesimally lighter brown background but God forbid you want grey on black or to listen to a book there's no audiobook for. Other ebook apps like Moon+Reader make the Kindle app look like a pathetic joke.

> forever to launch

I cold started the app just now. It takes less than half a second to get me into the book after showing me the cover art of the book. It’s about the same as any other app on my phone. Certainly doesn’t take “forever”, although I concede my phone is about a year old. It could be different if you’re using the app on a much older device.

Seems harsh to call it a “pathetic joke” or “frankly garbage”. I was just reading a book on my phone so I checked the “laughably few display options”. I see the ability to customise font (8 fonts, serif, sans-serif, dyslexic friendly), font size, page colour, the option to update page colour according to system theme, line spacing, alignment, orientation lock, continuous or page scrolling and 8 other options.

It’s better to say that your specific need to change the font colour isn’t catered to. But there’s no need to talk in such harsh terms. Get a hold of yourself.

That was a decent feature set when I had it on my Palm twenty years ago. If you haven't tried other much more powerful e-readers you might be pleasantly surprised. The Kindle app won't even let you keep the nav buttons and status bar displayed while you read.

I have 200 hours on Moon Reader reading The Wheel of Time alone. At least 200 more reading other books. I still prefer Kindle because it has features that are important to me, such as a simple and effective notes+highlights system and syncing my place across devices.

Why don't you just buy, like the rest of us, an Android tablet with an Electro-Phoretic Display, normally from E-Ink?

I spend many hours per week on a 13'' Android tablet with EPD and BlueTooth keyboard, and work on it proficiently.

Surely you can use Moon+Reader there, and much much more.

That one feature might be killer for you, but for someone else it might be something else, perhaps advanced additions for highlighting or bookmarks. There's a long tail of possible improvements.

But instead Amazon have gone for simplicity. That isn't laziness, it's a deliberate feature, and I like it.

It's tempting to jam more features in a product, but surprisingly it ends up being equivalent to removing them, because it becomes hopeless for the average user to find anything. I think it's a good thing the Kindle app hasn't fallen into that trap.

Cloud synced highlights and notes is exactly why I love the Kindle app. It’s as simple as it needs to be.

What do you mean gate keep tts? It comes out of the box and plays through the headphone jack or speaker. I use it all the time

I'm talking about the app, not the Kindle device.

same here. book sometime only show up on a particular device but not on other device, even though I send them to kindle email or upload on aws ui. I ended up just ditch it and use Apple Book. Though I still have book that only available on Kindle cuz I bough them on AWS. I wish it has an easy way to export those to Apple Book.

"If they could improve the resolution"

What resolution improvement would you like to see?

I have a Kobo e-ink reader (the Clara HD) which has 300 PPI. For long texts, the e-ink screen is more comfortable to read than even the highest resolution tablets.

Some Kindle models also have a high resolution (e.g. Kindle Paperwhite with 300 PPI).

There's Android eReaders like the Boox and Likebook lines. They even have USB C already and more size options. Don't have to be shackled to any one store since you can just run random apps including Kindle.

I never understood kindles. I really disliked mine. I only liked the data storage aspect once during a camping trip so I could bring some reference books, but paperbacks would have been fine too. I started reading paperbacks again and it’s been wonderful

Pdfs/epubs on a laptop can be handy if you are making anki cards as you go

I hate the physical act of having to turn pages/make sure the book is angled toward a light source.

Kindle makes it possible to read in the dark and without changing positions. Also if you read a lot you aren’t piling up a bunch of physical books you aren’t likely to ever read again.

I really hate the page turning function on the Kindle.

It seems that the sales people have added a multitude of unwanted functions: Dictionary, highlights, notes, and so many others.

When I attempt to turn the page it will frequently jump into some unwanted function.

And often it will leap to a random page, leaving no way to get back to where I was. And the functions are entirely different between books and magazines.

Just yesterday I lost my place in a book and spent half an hour trying to get back. Eventually I deleted the book entirely and abandoned the Kindle.

From now on I'll be using a tablet to read on. Additionally the tablet can display PDF's which are my main interest.

>a multitude of unwanted functions: Dictionary, highlights, notes, and so many others.

There's more than one country and more than one language in the world. I use these features multiple times a day.

I miss the simple next button from the early kindles... Do we really need everything be touch screen?

PocketBook readers have « next/prev » buttons. It’s so convenient that I just don’t understand why they aren’t everywhere. Also, PocketBooks are cool for hacking since they are totally open (adding your app is as easy as throwing a binary into some applications folder).

IIRC, Kobo latest readers have the buttons too.

+1, some elongated thin buttons on the bezels with great tactical feedback would be killer. Nook's had this iirc. And yes touch everywhere is getting old

> elongated thin buttons on the bezels

Pre-touch Kindles[1] had exactly this. IMO they had struck a perfect balance between form and function, and it’s the best kindle I owned, before touch ruined it.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle#/media/File%3A...

They also had pretty crappy screens, low-resolution and grey in color (which resulted in pretty low contrast ratio). Taking everything into consideration, I much prefer modern kindles.

The Oasis has physical buttons.

Jumping to a random page is really, the biggest issue with my Kindle. I could never figure out what causes it, so I could avoid triggering it.

Does anyone know?

If it happens by itself (no interaction from you) it's likely a fault. I've had that happen on a Kindle before and had to send it back.

But the most common cause for me is when trying to tap the right part of the screen to move to the next page, I end up tapping a small link instead that jumps deeper into the book. Very annoying when it happens.

I have same issue but i'm going to the holidays and I need it. And I have a lot of books so i dont want to upload them again.

Have you tried tapping the back button when it happens?

Always works on my non-updated 2012 Paperwhite, which incidentally doesn't have this bug (or any bug).

Downvote hell. Why not just report me? Jesus, it was such a toxic and unproductive comment too. I should just be banned, right?

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