I can’t help but notice there’s been a lot less people leaving angry comments about the new Kindle user interface lately.
It makes me wonder if people are getting used to the new interface and are starting to come around to it, or if they’ve decided to move onto using something else for reading.
Have you stopped using your Kindle because of the new interface? There were a lot of people saying they’d do just that or buy something else if Amazon didn’t change things back soon, and since it appears that Amazon is definitely staying with the new interface at this point, I was wondering how many people followed through with those threats.
I’ve gone back to mostly using the Kindle Voyage (not because it still has the old user interface but because the screen is nicer and it fits in my back pocket better than the newer models) so I haven’t been dealing with the new interface much at all lately.
As mentioned before, I do like the new list view and I like how it’s easier to access the quick settings menu now, but I think the new homescreen is completely useless. Who wants to scroll through a bunch of recommendations? They could at least put some reading stats on the homescreen or something that’s actually useful. A big long list of advertisements is pretty boring and makes the homescreen rather superfluous; there’s no reason to ever use it.
With the new user interface, collections are handled a bit differently now and list view was changed to show covers now too, but the reading experience has mostly remained unchanged so if you can get used to the new home and library layout it’s not a lot different than before.
So have you adapted to the new interface or have you moved on?
The interface is such a minimal part of the kindle (not so much for an Android device) reader experience…. I’ve don’t think it matters very much..
Definitely not horrible. Mediocre at worse…but, I don’t mind it at all.
At first I did not like losing the ever present BACK button and not being able to turn off recommendations on home screen. Then when I got the PW5 I decided that this is just how Amazon’s going to do things for now.
For me it’s an e-reader only. I’ve got my brightness, warm light , font, font size and reading stats on the pages set and rarely change them. If I’m not reading a book on the Kindle I’m downloading a new one. I stay in Library tab and go to Kindle store. As long as I can get to the current book, library and store with a few clicks, I’m happy with it. I really do like the drop down menu for quick access to airplane and dark mode. That is a real improvement!!
I agree with everything you said.
So do I.
I still dont like it. And my next e-reader wont be a Kindle, unless it get at lot better.
I hate it. Nothing works the way I know and want it back the way it was
I went back to using my Voyage. I wish for an option to go back to the old one.
I still use a Voyage so didn’t realize there had been a change! I watched your video in the previous article and agree there are some improvements I like and others I don’t care for.
In particular I agree with you on the small font for the list view. I like reading on a Kindle so I can bump up the font when reading. In the same vein it would be nice to be able to bump up the font in the interface as well – and certainly not change it to be potentially smaller! I wouldn’t expect the interface to have the wide variation in font size as compared to reading but having some variation could make various groups happy – me who needs larger font for more comfortable viewing and others that may prefer smaller more compact font to minimize scrolling.
I don’t keep more books on my kindle then I am reading and the next one on my reading list. I don’t spend any time on the Home Screen and very little time on the library screen. I have no complaints with the interface.
Same here !
I just want the back icon again.
Still hate the new interface.
I use the Voyage exclusively now.
Me, too., at least for Kindle ebooks. However, I find myself using either a Kobo Libra 2 or a Kobo Sage far more often these days.
I love the new interface and I hated the old one, so yes, I got used to it easily 😀
I stick to the library tab as much as possible.
Outside if that my main gripe is how they messed up the collections view for me. I use to have the collection icons for organized books and then those outside of the collections I haven’t read yet out in the open.
Also one less book seems to be viewable now on the drop down list. It feels as if the interface is slowly becoming more bloated, and taking up unnecessary space. Which irritates my minimalist needs.
None of its a make or break experience. Just minor irritations. If more of my favorite authors published on other platforms though I’d be more likely to look elsewhere.
Hope everyone’s having a good day. 😊
This is the biggest annoyance for me with the collection view. I used to like going through my collections and all other books appearing after those.
Absolutely bugs me now.
The interface doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me. I use Goodreads to keep track of my ebooks and where I am in the reading order of the series so I just search for the next one I want to start reading.
Once I figured out the appropriate filters for what I wanted to display in my Library, all is well. While I don’t care for the main view, I’m rarely there. Once I finish a book, I do the small housekeeping of moving that book to my Finished collection and removing the book from the Kindle. I move the next book from Read Next to my Nightstand collection. Since the Kindle opens to the book I’ve been reading, I have no need to see anything else.
I don’t know if I could say I’ve ever been “mad” about the new interface. I certainly wouldn’t invest in a new ebook reader over something as trivial as this. I suppose if all of my Kindles died on the same day, I might think about trying another brand. Or not..
Overall, my Paperwhite 5 is superior to my Kindle Touch, but I would still prefer to have a back button. The new thing they put at the bottom of the screen go back or stay partially covers the bottom line of text, and it hides information at the bottom of the screen, such as how far along you are in a book. Even when going to footnotes, I like to see where they are in the book to get a better sense of where the book actually ends. I would also appreciate the option of going directly to footnotes, as the Kindle Touch does, instead of seeing a single pop-up footnote at a time. In general, I would appreciate having more options to keep doing things as older Kindles did instead of having to keep up with changes all the time.
I do like the new library view. Since I have a lot of fonts installed, I wish the font requester would behave the same way as the library view, allowing me to quickly jump to where I want to go. Instead, I have to page through my fonts to get to the end, which leads me to favor fonts starting early in the alphabet.
The home view is working well, but it seems to have lost the option to display the cover of the last book read in a larger size. The recommendations can be helpful when I’m looking to spend some credit I earned or looking to spend enough to earn some credit.
It took me a while to get used to it, but I didn’t hate it. Just had to get used to the new changes. I don’t think it is as intuitive as before. But it doesn’t keep me from wanting to use it. I agree with the first post that the UI is not the main part of using a kindle. The reading experience is still the same, which I really like. And being able to use voiceview and whispersync. I would not switch to a different device. And Amazon still has a great website support. I look at more than just the user interface of the device, I look at all the functionality of the whole service.
Didn’t take long to get used to it.
Reading experience is as great as it’s been. This is the main thing.
Home tab as it’s now is useless (for me), but it’s not particularly annoying.
Once I figured out how to set up Library tab to be the way I wanted, there wasn’t really anything to complain about.
The only thing – they should publish a Kindle manual for the new interface.
People seem to have bizarre amounts of trouble with it. Some are even convinced that kindle has done away with list view entirely (I’ve encountered some really baffling reviews).
I like the new interface—like most, I live in Library and ignore Main view.
My biggest complaint is that covers still don’t display on the Kindle for docs if you send as epub….as mobi will be turned off in a week, I really want that to start working!
Should be able to send MOBI files through the sendtokindle apps through the rest of the year. It is only on email that you can’t send MOBI. You should also be able to directly sideload MOBI files to the device itself.
I still don’t like down scrolling for Library and Collections but I’m too spoiled by the warm light and the size to go back to my Paperwhite 3, and I’m not spending all that money on a Voyager or Oasis. I have no choice but to live with it.
Coming in hot in late 2024, but I STILL HATE IT. I bought this, my third Kindle, right about the time of the upgrade, not knowing that it was going to happen. I still find it very user-unfriendly. It freezes regularly. It’s hard to navigate my library and yes, the back button situation still drives me nuts. Furthermore, half the time when I CAN remember how to get back to my library from the middle of the book, the touchscreen doesn’t realize that I’m touching it, so I end up stuck in the middle of my book. Once this Kindle dies, I am going to (for the very first time!) look at alternatives to see if there’s something more user friendly out there.