It’s been exactly four weeks now since the first reports started surfacing of some Kindles getting the new homescreen and library layout after the latest 5.14.2 software update was released.
However, it doesn’t sound like very many people have gotten the new homescreen yet, even after updating, and I haven’t heard any reports of Kindles in the US getting the new homescreen and library view.
I installed the update on three of my Kindles and none of them have gotten the new features yet. In fact the update seems to have done nothing; I haven’t noticed anything new or different since the last update.
The 5.14.2 update is dated January 2022 even though it was released in February, and Amazon’s release notes still haven’t been updated to say anything has changed. They just say the usual, “performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements.”
The new layout is one of those features that has to be enabled remotely by Amazon before it will show up on Kindles; it might not even require the latest update—who knows. Amazon doesn’t give any kind of notice with these types of things. The new layout and new features will just appear at some point on their own, although a restart often seems to trigger the changes sooner.
The same thing happened last year when Amazon added the option to display book covers on the lockscreen when Kindles are turned off. It took 4-6+ weeks for the feature to appear on people’s Kindles after they first started rolling it out.
If they’re using a similar timeline with the new homescreen and library view, then a lot of people should start getting the new layout in the next week or two.
I keep checking my Kindles for the new layout but so far nothing has changed. After four weeks it’s getting rather tiresome.
Does your Kindle have the new homescreen and library view yet?
No new homescreen. At this point I really don’t care. 99% of my time is spent reading (typically and hour or two a day), 1% organizing or browsing.
I’ll continue to use my 9th generation Oasis until it either dies or the battery life drops more than the already pathetic amount. I bought this out of habit/convenience/laziness to replace a broken Voyage. A Kobo is the likely next e-reader. Might even put in the time to get serious about organizing my collection with the more comprehensive calibre-kobo integration.
Nathan, thanks for the work you put into keeping us informed on all things ebooks!
I got a week ago here in Denmark
When your in the Library screen (where it says “Library” at the bottom)… Are you able to scroll vertically? Or, just horizontally?
No. I have both the Paperwhite Signature Edition and the 10th Gen Kindle Oasis, and both have the old Home screen. America.
My PW 11th edition is still on version 5.14.1.1. I do not have a computer to manually update. Does it usually take this long for Amazon to push software updates to devices?
Yeah, sometimes it can take several months for Kindle to update automatically.
I just received my 11th Gen 6.8″ paperwhite today from Amazon. It doesn’t have the update
My standard Kindle gpt the 5.14.2 update a few days ago
I got it on my Oasis 1 but not on the Oasis 2 or 3 or PW4.
I opened the Oasis 1 and it was there! I hate it!
I can only scroll down not horizontally. When I hit the “Forward” page button, it scrolls down. Back button scrolls down.
Did I mention that I hate this update!
My kindles are registered to Amazon USA and I got the latest updates and the latest UI. Today I received my new PW5 (I went ahead and got it) and I had to do a manual update to .2 update. And the UI came up after updating it.
I updated mine manually. And… it is sloooow. Slower with every update. Sometimes I prefer to pick up my old Kindle 5 than PW…
Got the update on my 9th Gen Oasis yesterday.
Got it on my 10th Gen Paperwhite today.
I just read on them and don’t care so much about the features, but I think I preferred scrolling horizontally rather than vertically.
Got it today. It’s horrible. Trying to homogenise the interface across wildly different screen technologies is such a bad idea.
But wait! There’s a silver lining: there is now a ‘permanently delete’ option for news stand items. At last!
I got it yesterday (USA). I hate it! I much prefer the old version. I have the no ads option and I like the library screen to be organized by collections and by list.
With the new update it can be either list or collection. If I choose by collections it only shows the folders for the collections and anything not in a collection is in a folder called uncollected. If I choose by list or grid all my downloaded books are listed. ☹️
That’s the same problem I have. Why have they removed the option to sort that way?
Now my library looks a mess and is harder to find things
Agreed .. hate the new library view. I don’t want to see covers and want to be able to swipe through not scroll down. And no way I see to go back to old view.
No my new 6.8 inch paperwhite still has the old screen and freezes often.
I got it yesterday after restarting my Oasis once again *after* completing the newest firmware update manually.
I actually like it, apart from the fact that the entirely trashy „included in your prime membership“ charts are on my homescreen now. It annoys the hell out of me, I wouldn‘t touch any of these books with a bargepole.
I updated manually about a month ago and still haven’t gotten the updated home and library screen. From what I have read, I am not going to complain. I have the news PW but not the SE. I don’t care about wireless charging and never have more than 10 books on my Kindle at a time. I don’t like the.clutter of so many books.
I don’t have it yet, thankfully!! I hate the screenshots of it and changes. Hopefully when I get it eventually, it’s not as bad in person – although I’m not having much hope.
I finally got the update to the new Home Screen, it is usable. I don’t put many books on my kindle at any one time. So collections isn’t used and neither is series, unless am looking at all f the books.
I got the update, finally. I like it, especially the list view in library.
I just got the new UI, and I am struggling with it. I used to be able to sort by author and title then enter the first few letters of author/title or you could go to a page number. Now I am endlessly scrolling.
I just received the new Homescreen yesterday. I hate it! The interface is awful and the UI moves much slower than before. It also appears that I have to press much harder on the screen for it to register a touch. Another problem I have is that it duplicates some of my books. So it shows multiple copies of Book 1 or Book 4 of a series I’m reading. It doesn’t happen with all books in a series, but certain ones after I download all of the books of a series. Then some books will show as downloaded, but when I scroll back up in list view, the checkmark is removed and it shows the book was not downloaded. This new Home screen is plagued with problems. I have not looked at my Kindle Oasis, which is a much faster device, to see if it received the new Homescreen. I have been exclusively using the new Paperwhite Signature Edition.
It appeared on my Kindle today.
PROS
The vertical scrollbar lets me move through my library or the home page more quickly.
The Discover Books section on the home page includes different options. I might start making some use of the home page instead of ignoring it.
CONS
Instead of giving me filter and sort options in the familiar form of a drop-down list, it spreads options out across the screen, which is slower to read. Maybe I’ll get used to it by the time they change it again.
I got the new homescreen on my kpw5 today.
After a couple of days of using the UI Home Screen, I am seeing the pros of using it. While I prefer the older Home Screen I can get use to this new one.
I updated my PW5 very first day, but changes didn’t coming out until 2 days ago that I connected my device to laptop to sideload new books via Calibre. When I unplug it, it gets up with new interface
My Oasis is on 5.14.1 and the update control is grayed out so it doesn’t even pretend to know about an update, much less activate it. I wish Kobo had the infrastructure and bandwidth as they are far superior devices. Heck, if they just had the ability to highlight and export it would be enough.
I woke up to the new update yesterday, I really dislike it. The grafics are larger, but still very hard to read, they have limited your choices of how you want to file your books. They acually created a new collection for me full of books that I do not recognise. The listing feature is just a long list of the a grafic of the books in you kindle, with no organization or sense to it So if you are like me, someone who has number of book you have not read yet, the one you are reading takes time to find.. It is a big mess. Persaonally, I really dislike them rearranging my books in a different order when ever they feel like it. I paid for those books and the kindle, they are mine to arrange the way I want to. Honestly, it feels like someone going through your personal files. This upgrade has made the my white worse not better. I miss the Home Page, they should put it back.
Got the update last night on my 6.8″ Paperwhite and the UI changed right away. I HATE IT. I was never bothered by homescreen changes before because I’m always on the Collections screen, but the vertical scrolling affects this too. Vertically scrolling on the Kindle app on my tablet is great. On my Paperwhite, not so much. It’s slow and janky. It doesn’t always register the swipe motion.
I hope Amazon, at the very least, reverts the Collections section back to the way it used to be.
The new Kindle software is a disaster. It is almost impossible for my wife and I to use. Because of uncorrectible vision problems, she has to use very large type to read. My vision problem makes seeing words in book covers almost impossible. Fortunately I can read words. I worked for an hour with customer support on March 10, the day after the update on my Kindle 10. He understood the problem and kept trying to get me to the “Personalization” page. Huh… There is none. I just spent an hour with the worst support agent who took 30 minutes just to find my account (language problem). It took 45 minutes for her to find out that the problems have been “sent to Investigations” and that to just not use my Kindle until they contact me. When? She had no idea. The only way this recent downgrade makes sense is for a competitor to have taken control of the software design team. No other way can I understand such significant discrimination againt visibly impaired readers. After using my Kindle (loaded with 2000 books) for hours most days, it’s now turned off.
I agree with you about the new Kindle forced update – a disaster – and makes it difficult to use my Kindle. I normally find the books I want to read by going to one of my collections, depending on what genre or author I want to read, but now when it is in Collections view, I have no idea what books I am looking at because I can’t read what the titles are or who the author is on the book covers shown, especially if it is a boxed set. A list option is needed so that I can actually see what it is I am looking at.
If I go into list view I can see the title of the book and the author, but that is no help because I need to scroll through the 2,000+ books I have in my Kindle.
Customer Support, once I got someone who knew what I was talking about, told me he quite understood my frustration not being able to get a list view in my Collections, and would pass on my complaint to the development team, who might do something if there are enough complaints about the new upgrade.
And as for the Series option, which could be useful, it only appears in the list view and not when in a collection.
Not happy !!
There is a way to view your collections in list view. It’s just not intuitive and not set that way by default. See here: How Collections Work After Latest Kindle Update.
Mine updated to 5.14.2 when I wasn’t using it so it has the new UI now. I don’t like it although I’ll admit to interacting with it minimally so far with no intent to do so any more than absolutely required. I still want to revert to the way it was a year ago when it was MUCH better than now.