It may seem unusual to update a product so often, and so soon, after its release, but I take this as a sign that Amazon is listening to customer feedback and working rapidly to effect repairs. That they want to continually improve the device rather than make their customers wait for next year's revision is a major benefit for users, who can purchase the Kindle knowing they'll receive continued product support. Unlike most hardware devices on the market today, the Kindle Fire is a continually improving machine, not just something you buy today and throw away tomorrow. The device I have today is better than the one I purchased last month, which is a trend I hope to see continue.
Improvement #1: UI
The primary focus of this latest update was to address issues with the user interface, from inconsistent touch response to the touchy carousel, and this is the first and most obvious fix this update has changed. The interface is much more smooth and consistent, and the carousel now stops much quicker on a chosen item, allowing it to be selected more easily. Before, the carousel moved so smoothly that it was difficult to stop, which often made for a frustrating experience. In addition, you can now remove items from the carousel by clicking and holding on its image.
Improvement #2: Password Lock
One of the complaints parents in particular have had is the inability to restrict access to Wi-Fi so as to keep young fingers from wandering where they ought not go (or buying what they shouldn't using one-click purchasing). This certainly makes sense for a multi-user household where children might use the device for reading and playing games, but in order for them to watch movies Wi-Fi would have to be turned on, since there's not enough memory to store more than one or two videos onboard.
Improvement #3: Browser/Streaming Performance
Which brings up the streaming/browser issue. I've only watched a few movies on the Fire just to check it out, and it's always worked flawlessly for me, so I can't quite understand the few complaints I've read of burps and glitches in the video, or slow browser performance. My guess is that the video glitches are due more to low Wi-Fi bandwidth, since to stream video smoothly on any device you need a 7 Mb or better connection, which many people don't yet have, and no hotels that I've stayed in. I have a 12Mb connection at home and the browser loads just fine. Side by side tests with my iPad 2 have had the Kindle Fire load pages faster than the iPad for sites I visit regularly, though not for others (and the 7" size is often an issue with selecting links). This tells me the "Silk" aspect of the Kindle browser is functioning just fine, anticipating my next move before I make it. The more you use the Silk browser, in fact, the faster it gets as it learns your preferences and pre-loads them for you behind the scenes. I suspect that users will begin to find it loading faster as time goes by, and will assume it's due to the firmware update. At any rate, this new update has supposedly improved video streaming performance for those who have had issues, but I can't corroborate that since I haven't had any myself.
Complaint #1: Rooting
The new update comes with one drawback for some users, which is that it undoes previous hacks that allow access to the Fire's inner workings, and prevents some of those hacks from being reintroduced. To me this is a completely bogus complaint, firstly because it only applies to a tiny fraction of Kindle Fire users, and secondly those users are trying to make the device into something it is not, and has never been intended to be. Amazon is selling a product with a given spec, openly divulging what the device contains and how it is intended to be used before you buy it. It is certainly the owner's right to modify a product they have purchased, but to expect the manufacturer to support those actions is ridiculous. If you want to remove the airbags from your car and turn it into a rally racer that's your business, but it voids the warranty and expunges the company of any responsibility for what occurs thereafter. If you want to root around in your device, then complain that Amazon's updates undermine your efforts to do so, then turn off your Wi-Fi and have at it; but you'll have to do so at the expense of all the other features that it offers, like Whispersync and Cloud storage, because Amazon only offers those under certain terms, and they say so right up front. It's the height of folly to think that Amazon's software engineers are going to work their updates around user hacks.
Kindle App Updates
Amazon also rolled out updates to the Kindle app for iOS this week, which includes Kindle Cloud access and Send-To-Kindle email function, support for the Kindle Fire's line of 400+ periodicals, as well as support for PDF and Kindle Print Replicas, which is Amazon's own PDF format, used primarily for textbooks with complex layouts. Unlike standard PDFs on Kindle devices, KPR allows you to annotate and highlight text just like any other Kindle book, as well as allowing them to be shared. All PDFs now have support for Table of Contents and Thumbnail browsing, as well as vastly improved page turn and render speed. Finally, a few new tabs in the main library screen allow you to isolate your personal Documents, Newsstand, or eBooks, as well as showing All Items as before.
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