The v3.01 update is now final and ready for download from Amazon servers, for all Kindle 3’s. Apparently, their private feedback was as good as feedback seen on the Amazon forums.
See yesterday’s original report of the v3.01 update for the details that were in that.
At the linked page (above), Amazon also states:
‘ We’re excited to announce that a new, free software update is available for the latest generation Kindle 6″ device. This software update adds the ability to create a new Amazon.com account directly from your Kindle, as well as additional performance improvements.
Here’s how to download Kindle software update version 3.0.1 and transfer it to your Kindle via USB (we will also deliver this software update wirelessly in the coming weeks for customers who choose not to manually update via USB now). ‘
So there’s no escaping this one, folks. 🙂 I installed it on my own well-functioning Kindle 3 last night and reported at MobileRead Forums the following (slightly modified for this blog entry):
‘ Nevertheless, being an experimental type, I did install it to see what effect it might have on my problem-free one, since Amazon treated the update as helpful for anyone who wanted it, stating no caveats. My Kindle 3 was already responsive and quite smooth but seems even smoother now.
Before and after the update, though, my books take a bit longer to load initially than they did with Kindle 2. Page turns happen quicker but the reverse image black is there longer for me because I can see an entire next page’s contents before it loses the black.
I was surprised, even before the update, that when you change the orientation (rotation is done with the ‘Aa’ Text-key) WHILE web-browsing, the earlier Kindles had always reloaded the web page, which taught me to avoid changing orientation while browsing.
The Kindle 3, though, doesn’t reload a web page when changing orientation — it just reformats what it had in a way that’s practically instantaneous.
With all Kindles, I’ve learned that the Kindle’s experimental Web Browser can do OK, if Very slowly — though much faster in the last 4 months or so — but will eventually run out of remaining memory eventually for a next request and just reboot.
Rebooting clears memory and when the earlier Kindles restarted, I would just go back and be able to browse successfully the web page that had seemed to cause the earlier reboot.With the 3.01 update newly installed last night, I browsed somewhat frenetically, trying everything and wondering when it would reboot.
Never happened. So they have quite definitely improved handling of situations in which conditions of insufficient memory remaining (or plain confusion) could cause reboots on any Kindle web-browsing — and resolved those another way). ‘
So, this is a good update to have and if you don’t want to install it manually from the step-by-step instructions given at their Kindle 3 software update download page, then they’ll eventually be sending it to your Kindle 3 anyway as part of an official update via Whispernet.
I’ll be posting soon some things I learned while experimenting more with the web browser.
Via Andrys Basten’s A Kindle World blog
The Kindle has a lot of stuff to fix, IMHO. I bought a couple (a white and a black one), and both of them crash frequently and unexpectedly. Interestingly, they also have different WiFi reception (the black one often showing 4-5 bars where the white one only gets 2).
Also, I am missing the Kindle 2 hotkeys (lost due to the removal of the number keys).
Finally, on many webpages, I can not enter text in forms.
Apart from that, I like it a lot.