No more support for Kindle Fire up to v7. No option but to buy another new one if you want to buy their e-books. For no good reason other than their desire for profit.
So now you see what Amazon thinks of it’s e-book customers.
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It’s the Kindle Fire 7 (i.e. the first 7-inch model) and not the Kindle Fire 7 that’s discontinued. These are models manufactured in 2012 or earlier, and which used different communication protocols and EBook file formats to current devices.
Amazon will be able to monitor precisely how many such devices are still in regular contact with their servers, and it may simply be that there’s little need to keep the infrastructure in place to keep these older devices in use.
My bog-standard Kindle is also no longer supported. TBH, most of my choices for that are classic books out of copyright that can be downloaded from the internet archive. However, I guess this means I wont be able to transfer them onto the Kindle via the Amazon service?
It’s not just the Fire, though. My Paperwhite is 12 years old and I’ve just been informed it’s now only fit for the landfill, apparently – even though it still works perfectly and survived last year’s switch from AZW/mobi to epub unscathed. I’m wondering whether an effective, if somewhat faffy, workaround may be to download Amazon ebooks to a PC and then upload them to the Kindle via USB (I’m assuming that Send to Kindle app won’t work any more either). Does anyone know?
Check out Calibre. It’s free and may be exactly what you’re looking for.
This is what I was about to suggest. Free well-written software that seemingly handles all ebook formats known to man. Can also handle magazine subscriptions.
https://calibre-ebook.com/
My solution to it no longer handling Amazon’s DRMed files is to no longer buy any ebooks from them.
Amazon turned off the ability to download books a while ago, so that won’t work.
The Kindle will still be able to handle files transferred to it via USB, but these will have to be free of DRM. Files from Amazon have DRM enabled, so there won’t be any means to get them onto an unsupported Kindle once the relevant servers are turned off.
Calibre did have an unofficial plugin that allowed you to remove DRM from Kindle files, but it relied on an older version of the Windows Kindle app that no longer works.
Oh well. I’ve not used Calibre for over a decade. It looks like it’s time to buy a new e-reader for those who are for the chop. Luckily I’m not affected this time. My Oasis is being spared the cull.
It may still be possible to strip the DRM from files stored on one of these soon to be unsupported Kindles using the same unofficial Calibre plugin, although I’m not certain it still works with recent downloads. I’ll attempt to have a play around with it this weekend, assuming my Kindle still works.
Get a sturdy “We the North” Canadian Kobo! I haven’t yet, need to check if unread books I have bought for Kindle can be transferred without too much trouble. I haven’t used Calibre in about a decade.
* my Kindle has been misplaced, but will be an older model so no longer supported
I switched to a Kobo a year or so ago, and would never go back. They’re much more user friendly (finally I can maintain books in series order!), with a much more appealing UI.
Good to know, could you also transfer Kindle store bought books to it?
I could via a download option, but that has since been disabled by Amazon. What you could do now is plug your Kindle into a computer, use the add book option in Calibre alongside a plug in that disables Kindle DRM, then plug in your Kobo and transfer the new files to it, although I believe recentish purchases are still not able to be cracked. Step by step instructions here, although be aware that this field is a constantly moving target
https://www.cloudwards.net/remove-drm-from-kindle-books/
Thanks but I can’t find my kindle have used my phone lately
I had been planning on upgrading my 4th gen kindle earlier this year, and then stupidly left it on a plane which made the new paperwhite inevitable. The old one would have been caught by the cull, so I suppose I was just slightly ahead of what was coming. Pleased to report that Calibre seems to be working perfectly well with the new model.
I’ve been using the app on my iPhone & iPad far more than my kindle, so it’s not such a biggie.
However, for any other files, I’ve found that the “eBoox” app is able to cope with anything I throw at it.
https://eboox.app/
I am sure it’s been mentioned before but another option is to check if your library uses Borrowbox.
https://www.borrowbox.com/ in case you aren’t familiar with it.
Prompted by a recent thread and my wife’s brief interest in a e reader, I renewed my library card and they have five apps I can use: Aspen LiDA, BorrowBox, Libby, uLIBRARY and PressReader. Early days but there seems to be quite a lot of content available including various international newspapers and magazines.
PressReader has a good selection of newspapers and magazines although the app isn’t as nice to use as Readly. I will have to check if the others are available to me.
Ooh, this is going to be awkward. From decades of lurking (I was a Word subscriber) I know this place to be quite amazon friendly. FWIW, my career was in European publishing. Book publishing. UK publishers primarily and their businesses in Europe.
I saw Bezos speak at the ABA (American Booksellers Association) trade show in ’98 or ’99 and recall thinking ‘well this isn’t good’. The most shocking part of his transformation from nerdy slaphead to ultra right wing MAGA supporting small business destroying union busting below living wage paying billionaire whose primary concerns are living forever and going to outer space is the public’s ready capitulation. Easy consumerism.
I suppose if you ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated, by Bezos, alternatives are available. And to address the OP, I think we’ve always had a pretty clear idea of what Amazon thinks; not only of its e-book customers, but of everything.
The Kindle is actually one of the Amazon products where there are competitive alternatives. The Kobo mentioned above can be used to borrow books from public libraries using Overdrive. In fact, you don’t actually need a Kobo as you can also install Overdrive on a phone or tablet.
I’ve got a very old Kobo which still runs fine but this Overdrive sounds interesting. Installable (if that’s a word) on a tablet would be great. Cheers for the heads-up.
I have a Kindle and use it a fair bit but I’m too tight to get another reader until it dies, at which point I’ll abandon the Dodgers. Unfortunately there are bits of Google, Amazon, Meta infrastructure that are just too embedded. I have 3 people I contact with Signal – everyone else just sits on WhatsApp, for example.
I like what the French are doing, creating their own software options to get away from US suppliers. Allez les mecs!