Amazon are about to fuck up your Kindle Fire

[totallypissedoffwithAmazon]

If you have a Kindle Fire and you watch videos somewhere where you don't have wi-fi, then Amazon are about to put a stop to it.

I connected mine to the internet for the first time in months this week to download a book, and was bemused to find that, at the same time, Amazon took it upon themselves to install Prime Photos.

That bemusement turned to fury when I discovered that trying to play my "Personal videos" now gets a message saying "This video cannot be played at this time. Please try again later". I never buy any video downloads from Amazon, so I don't know whether it applies to them as well, but it means that none of my MP4s which I've copied into the Movies folder play any more.

If I connect to the internet, then they will play, even if I put the tablet to airplane mode immediately. However, switching the tablet off means that it needs to be online again before they will play.

So it's no big deal as long as you near wi-fi, but if, like me, all you want to do with your Kindle Fire is to watch videos on long train and plane journeys, then you're screwed.

A complaint in the form of feedback for Prime Photos resulted in a polite and apologetic but unhelpful message explaining that Prime Photos cannot be uninstalled, and a promise to pass my feedback "to the relevant department". It then rubbed salt in by giving guff about how important customer satisfaction is to Amazon.

Fuck off, Amazon. I'm so pissed off that this piece of shit was installed without my agreement, and that Amazon have just made my tablet useless to me.

So if you watch videos offline, and haven't connected to the internet recently, for the love of God don't.

Oh year, the AIBU. AIBU to be thoroughly pissed off with Amazon?

Please bear in mind that YABU's will not be listened to.

cdtaylor - yes, most long distance trains have wifi, but it's usually extortionately expensive. Generally you could have bought a dvd of the film you want to watch for the price of the wifi connection.

But, being held hostage to changes in platform/software/licensing conditions is one reason why I continue to buy actual physical books, cds and dvds. Yes, the convenience of a kindle would be nice, but the fuckers have "built in obsolescence" as a key part of their business model.

I'm not surprised you're fuming, though, OP. Interestingly, in contract law, I believe a contract is unenforceable if it's unfairly detrimental to one party. I'd love to see some sort of legislation which said "no, you can't give lay people who are buying your product a hundred pages of legalese deliberately obscuring what you're doing, two pages of A4 max with the key points as they actually affect the consumer, otherwise your contract won't stand up in court." I seem to remember BBC TV doing an experiment once where they got contract lawyers to re-write T&C for people like Amazon, Netflix, etc in plain English with the key points at the start in bold, and most people were horrified by what they were signing up to.

cdtaylornats stay away from Northern trains then as we still don't have WiFi on the Calderdale line (unlike snazzy Metrolink)

Kindles will be redundant in the not too distant future

My effing Kindle's "redundant now! I bought nine books to read on holiday, put on my kindle and the effing screen was half blank! I rang up and was on the phone the best part of half an hour getting passed from department to department, having to explain myself each time (and for some reason, the words "The bottom half of the screen is totally blank - as though someone had cut it off with scissors." seemed t mean nothing.)

I need to reset it (I'd done that already, but did it twice more at their insistence), then they told me to go into menu and press settings.

"I can't do that"
"Press settings"
"I can't - it's on the bottom half of the screen"
"The just press it"
"There is nothing on the bottom half of the screen. This is the problem. The bottom half of the screen is blank. I've explained - there is text on the top half, but the bottom half is BLANK"

"Oh - then there's nothing we can do. We can give you 15% off a new one"

(Mentally) I told them to stuff it. I've downloaded an app and read on my laptop.

@scaryteacher

I think you misunderstood my definition of 'cease to exist'. I meant they will become less and less popular as time goes on with companies no longer investing in improving them or marketing them and them eventually becoming obsolete.

You may not like consolidation but most people do. When you're husband's fixing Range Rovers on submarines he may need specific tools. I work in IT and I have a desktop with 4 monitors, 2 laptops, a Surface Pro, phone and kindle all around me now in my office. Sometimes you need the right tool for the job but if I want to work in the conservatory I don't carry everything downstairs, I take as few multi-purpose tools as possible. I realise this isn't exactly engineering but I used to have a wimpy, cordless drill / screwdriver and a corded one for bigger jobs. I now have a single cordless drill which is better than both it replaced.

In the image I uploaded, you can see declining digital camera trends for compact cameras yet DSLR cameras (and mirrorless cameras) remain fairly constant. That's because the differentiation of the qualities. Average cameras are pretty much obsolete due to the improvement in technology meaning that excellent cameras are expected to be included in phones.

You said you like the size of the Kindle. Bendy screens and lighter-weight materials will negate that. The ipad has gone from 750g to 450g in its short life. eReaders will be around for a while but in the not too distant future, a single device will negate having a kindle and a tablet.

I agree that sometimes we need differentiation but when 1 thing does a job acceptably as well (or better) than 2, the original tools are obsolete.

I haven't been on any sort of train journey in years that didn't have onboard wifi

That's not really the point.

I'm not surprised you're fuming, though, OP. Interestingly, in contract law, I believe a contract is unenforceable if it's unfairly detrimental to one party. I'd love to see some sort of legislation which said "no, you can't give lay people who are buying your product a hundred pages of legalese deliberately obscuring what you're doing, two pages of A4 max with the key points as they actually affect the consumer, otherwise your contract won't stand up in court." I seem to remember BBC TV doing an experiment once where they got contract lawyers to re-write T&C for people like Amazon, Netflix, etc in plain English with the key points at the start in bold, and most people were horrified by what they were signing up to.

Thanks. I can appreciate that the nature of software is such that stability updates might be required - what I can't accept is that they can remove a basic function from it if they want to. The description on Amazon says it works right out of the box and supports MP4 formats, but that is no longer the case.

I wish I had been calmer when I e-mailed their customer support. I would have remembered to use the word incandescent, instead of furious.

@totallypissedoffwithAmazon

I think this is a bug as opposed to removing functions. Have you tried the solutions I and others have suggested such as navigating to it and then using VLC player?

Having read for 5 minutes on google, a factory reset seems to fix it although is a pain in the arse.

Surly that obsolescence depends on consumer demand though Cheesy? I do not want or need a smartphone for example, I can still get a very cheap mobile that just does the basics. I like having a reading Kindle as opposed to a tablet upon which I can read. I'll just go back to buying hard copy books if I can't have a dedicated reading Kindle. I had the Fire HDX first, but didn't find it that brilliant for reading.

My food processor chops faster than I can, but I use it rarely due to the faff of getting it out and washing it up afterwards. My trusty Sabatier is far less hassle.

No obsolescence depends on advances, in this case technological. Supply depends on demand and supply depends on demand. One can lead to another but are not dependent. I'm not arguing about what you personally like, but instead guessing about what will happen to the market in the future.

If technology removes the problems that e ink screens solve (along with weight / size) then companies (Amazon) will likely cannibalise their own products in the way that Apple probably won't make iPods for much longer.

I'm so pissed off that this piece of shit was installed without my agreement

You did agree to it in the original terms and conditions you signed up to when you got the Fire.

That was discussed earlier, and it rather depends on how you interpret the word "offer". I would be surprised if I was the only person not to read "we will offer updates" as "we will update whether you want it or not, perhaps stripping out basic functions as well".