Software update coming to latest gen Kindles “in the coming weeks”
Amazon just announced the AmazonLocal is coming to KSOs (Kindle with Special Offers).
AmazonLocal, part of Living Social, is sort of like Groupon. You get special offers in your area:
For example, I’ve got a deal right now where I can get $20 worth at a specific (sort of) local restaurant for $10.
Not everybody has AmazonLocal, by the way, and I don’t think it’s outside the USA.
Interestingly, in the announcement in this
Amazon Kindle community thread
they also said:
“The functionality for receiving AmazonLocal deals on Kindle with Special Offers will be delivered as part of a software update for latest generation Kindles in the coming weeks.”
Hmmm….I wonder what else that update might have…
This post by Bufo Calvin appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
I Love My Kindle 
September 15, 2011 at 5:53 pm |
It’s about time they enabled the microphone, for one. Maybe new languages for the UI (German, Spanish, French, Dutch). And of course ePub support.
September 15, 2011 at 5:58 pm |
Thanks for writing, Tom!
I’d love to see the microphone up…for voice navigation and/or for making voice notes (with or without speech-to-text). German might make sense, since they sell through their German site and they’ve done other things in German now. Spanish is trickier, since there are so many Spanish vpoices available through Nuance (the company that makes Vocalizer, the software they’ve licensed).
Maybe we’ll get the ability to customize sleep mode pictures (but not on the KSOs, I would assume).
September 15, 2011 at 6:35 pm
While amazon.es (Spain) is in the works, there’s a huge Spanish-literate market here in the US, and B&N has been targeting that audience with their ebook business. So if they do TTS (and not just the UI), they’ll probably want to use the ‘Spanish Mexican’ voices.
German seems like a ‘must have’ since they have an ebook store set up.
Dictionaries will be needed too.
Yes, sleep mode pictures would be nice. I’d also like to be able to customize the screen timeout period (Nook Touch lets you choose 2/5/15/60 minutes).
September 15, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Thanks for writing, Tom!
I think the best solution might be to let people select the voices from Vocalizer…but that might be hard to implement. I don’t think they could onboard install all of the voices at
http://www.nuance.com/vocalizer5/flash/index.html
just due to memory concerns…and it might be a large download to do a selected one.
There are definitely some other tweaks I’d like to see…might be worth a post just about that. 🙂
September 15, 2011 at 6:25 pm |
I think there’s a good chance this update will include the Overdrive library lending support we heard about earlier this year.
September 15, 2011 at 9:20 pm |
Thanks for writing, Jeff!
Well, the interesting thing about that speculation is that Amazon’s announcement only mentions latest generation Kindles, but the library lending is supposed to be for all generations. It’s possible there will be more updates than just one the one mentioned, of course. I do think there will be a software update for the lending, but I’ve had discussions with people in the Kindle community who make a reasonable argument that it wouldn’t be necessary. We’ll see…
September 16, 2011 at 4:01 am |
[…] I wrote earlier about an announcement that a new software update is coming to the “latest generation” Kindle in “the coming weeks”. […]
September 19, 2011 at 10:23 pm |
Much as I might like lots of additions, I suspect this update is going to be quite minimalist — it will include whatever is necessary to add AmazonLocal to KSO, and perhaps a few other changes that might be necessary to enable smooth migrations from older kindles to the new devices that are in the pipeline.
Since KNG is near the end of its lifecycle, I would be surprised (albeit pleasantly) if Amazon puts much into what will probably be the last feature update (as opposed to bug fixes) for NG kindles.
September 20, 2011 at 3:48 am |
Thanks for writing, Edward!
I don’t think I’ve seen “KNG” before…why don’t you define it for me and everyone else? I’m not sure if you are referring to all Kindles to date…hmm…could it be “non-glare”?
September 20, 2011 at 4:27 am |
KNG Kindle Next Generation
September 20, 2011 at 1:21 pm |
Thanks for writing, Edward!
That occurred to me, but I didn’t get it. Which ones would those be? Amazon has used the “latest generation” label, but I don’t think Next Generation. Would that not include the Kindle 1? Only Kindle 3s? Just curious as to which Kindle model(s) you think are at the end.
September 20, 2011 at 1:30 pm |
I believe I’ve seen the nextgen moniker used even by Amazon to refer to the K3 wave of products — perhaps back a year at k3 launch — anyhow my point is that the k3 “wave” is coming to an end (just like the k2 before it) and that just like at EOL of the k2 Amazon basically stopped doing feature updates. With the exception of the kso, I expect most of the k3 wave will be superseded by new products over the next 6 months.