Amazon has issued another firmware update for the Kindle Touch. It is a minor update that Amazon describes as adding “general software improvements”.
I was hoping the update would add landscape mode to the Kindle Touch, but alas Amazon doesn’t seem to think that is an important feature—there are lots of people that disagree with that notion, especially when all the other Kindles have landscape mode.
The strange thing is hackers didn’t have any problem adding landscape mode to the Kindle Touch. You’d think by now Amazon would have added it. After all, the Kindle Touch has been out for three and a half months now. At this point it’s fairly safe to assume that it’s never going to happen.
I like the Kindle Touch. It’s a good solid ereader, especially when it can be had for as low as $99, but new devices are supposed to get new features, not remove old ones. Amazon already took away 3G web browsing on the Kindle Touch and the ability to highlight words and phrases in a book to search on Wikipedia and Google.
The 5.0.4 firmware update will be delivered to all Kindle Touches over Wi-Fi in the coming weeks. Or if you want to give it a go right now you can download the update from Amazon. Just put the file on the Kindle’s root folder, then from the homescreen tap Menu > Settings > Menu > Update Your Kindle. It will reboot a couple of times and then it will be good to go.
I downloaded and installed the new 5.0.4 firmware update and can’t find any noticeable differences whatsoever.
great Andrew, Kindle 4 sucks. My Kindle 3 is better!
I sold my Kindle Touch on eBay about one month after it came out. The landscape mode issue is just plain silly, and Amazon and B&N’s price war has taken its toll on the parts and features of the Kindle. Speaker sound quality and features took a nose dive on the KT. The new cases are also a complete rip off at $39.99, and they have a horrible design (and obviously faux leather).
I’m sticking with my Kindle 3 and Nook Touch. Hopefully there will be better days to come for the Kindle.
Newspaper reader at K4 touch is still broken (K3 kompatible, two column mode) in 5.0.4 fw. It doesn’t move between articles and categories well. This is issue for K4 touch only, K4 “keyboard” works like K3. Programmers failed to add touch interface to article reader in correct way; maybe that B&W devices are not a priority for Amazon or they moved their best programmers to the flagship product, K Fire, and left only a less experienced programmers in K4 team.
From my point of view, K4 should be better reader (faster CPU, smaller size, touch screen) but I prefer to use K3… There is no clear winner in eInk readers from Amazon. 🙁
Sorry to hear about the problems people are having. At least from descriptions, I can see why the Kindle Keyboard might be better in some ways than the Kindle Touch.
But since the KT is my first Kindle, I have nothing else to compare it to.
As far as added features in this update:
Well, this might just be me: In 5. 0.3 (& previous), I was not able to get collections to sync FROM the Kindle Touch to my Kindle for Mac app. I could do it the other way around, which I did, since that was the only way I could have a backup of my collections. I had created a whole bunch of collections on the Kindle Touch & when I had to do a factory reset to fix a problem…ZAP! There went all my work & my collections.
In 5.0.4., it seems I now CAN create or modify collections on the Kindle Touch, and the Kindle for Mac app is able to import this information and, wallah! We have collections on both devices!
This is cool, because it’s much easier to add books to collections on the Touch then it is on the Kindle for Mac app.
There is one slightly annoying bug: after importing to the Kindle for Mac all the collections that had already existed before now have an “@” added! Every single one!
However, I’m able and willing to live with this to be able to better manage my collections. So for me this update is huge!
Unless of course, as I said before, I COULD have accomplished this before and just was missing something. But I did try multiple times and never seemed to work.
I’m astonishing with the lack of landscape mode in this new firmeware.. BAD thing.
Great news! It sounds like the UK Kindle Touch will have landscape mode so perhaps Amazon is listening….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17530870
Nice find! It’s about time. Guess it will be getting an update within the next month to add more languages for international support and landscape mode.