alt Hacker NewsNot necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI.
I think the more plausible and likely explanations are:
1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing?
2. Added to the above, how is a 14 year old CPU doing when trying to support modern features and eBooks that now have metadata that did not exist at the time, such as fancier typesetting and color?
3. As for the Windows app, it's terrible. Horrible. Awful. Nobody liked it. Nobody uses it. It will not be missed.
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Both my Kindle Touch and my Kindle Paperwhite gen1 are still completely fine. And I havent noticed any typesetting etc that doesnt work.
All of these discontinued devices support the AWZ4-format (which can be de-drmed and what im guessing this whole thing is about), but the newer ones use KFX which locks you perfectly into the Amazon and Kindle-ecosystem
both my kindle and wife's work great and we have been using them regularly. they are actually very well made and durable devices.
> Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI.
I used that research to build something similar. It only works for manga and comics right now, but I have been tinkering with implementing glyph support as well to be able to handle full books.
https://github.com/Alexia/kandle-downloader
The original research is here, but the web site is down right now. https://blog.pixelmelt.dev/kindle-web-drm/
an ePub book is basically a zipped HTML folder with static pictures and text. A 18 year old kindle can still render it easily. I expect Amazon are adding a lot more DRM and hoops than required. I also noticed if you havent read a book you downloaded for a while it wont let you read it again without re-connecting. Just glad I pulled everything onto my PC and Kobo a few years back. Agree the PC interface is pretty crappy though.
I just replaced the battery on my Kindle 3rd gen (2010?) and it's basically as good as new now. Batteries are easy to find online.
I still own my voyage from 2014 era. Amazon forcing new formats is their choice. Deprecating old kindles is a choice. This is all about ending people's ability to remove DRM from books they bought.
I'll never own a kindle again. Does anyone know which platforms work with Calibre De-DRM? Or do we need to build a screen cap tool for transforming books to an open format?
> Nobody uses it. It will not be missed.
Well, I happen to use it everyday. I honestly don't know what exactly is "terrible/horrible/awful" about it. I'm neutral about its UX - neither memorable nor despicable. It may be missed if the new app's UX turns out to be worse on whatever metrics you're using.
I strongly disagree. If it's doing well enough for the owner then it's doing well enough. I don't understand how one can tell someone else that their computer is unacceptably slow for that other individual's personal use.
This is a really unfortunate move by Amazon. My next e-reader will be one that I own (instead of just rent).
Glad that I took the time to jailbreak and pause updates on my 2017 kindle paperwhite while I could.