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Amazon Backpedals On Encryption, But Fire "Still Sucks"
Just a day after it made headlines for announcing that it would remove encryption from its line of FireOS devices, reports Ars Technica, the company has reverted the change, and says that encryption will again be a user-selectable option, with an update to come sometime this Spring. Judging from comments here on Slashdot, that ought to please a lot of people. However, encryption isn't the Fire's only problem; Ricki Jennings at ComputerWorld has collected some of the user reaction to the change, and says that anemic hardware means that even with this small course correction, the Fire tablets themselves "still suck." I'm not so sure; I bought one of the low-end Fire tablets and returned it, disappointed not in the hardware (seemed not bad at all for $50, with a decent screen, snappy video, and sound that was better than reviews had led me to expect) but rather by the intentional limitations of the OS itself.
The part of this that's truly sad is that even with encryption disabled, FireOS was still better than Firefox OS.
I bought a Fire on the first day of release as well, and set very low expectations for it based on how much I was paying. Ultimately, all I ever use it for is to watch movies I've downloaded on flights. It's Browser performance (just performing DNS lookups as far as I can tell from the UI, forget about getting pages to render) is anemic at best. I haven't even bother installing any applications that I could use to create or add data to it (like a text editor, dropbox, or even a non-throwaway email address), but I'm sure some people do that.
Oh on the plus side, it plays Minecraft like a champ, so it's useful for quieting the house.
Just amused that it can render rudimentary 3-D graphics, play full screen, full motion video, but I can't even use it to visit Slashdot...
If in this day and age you are still disappointed by intentional limitations, you have been living under a rock the last decade.
"intentional limitations" is the core business model of all major technology companies, and most smaller ones to.
Plenty of lesser hardware provided a good and snappy user experience. Most of it was developed in the 90s, though, so maybe what passes for "devs" these days just isn't up to it. Orrr it's management being management. Orrr both.
It's actually very simple to get Google Services, including the Play Store, on the Fire. You don't even have to root it—just enable developer mode, activate USB debugging, install some drivers on your PC, and sideload a software package. Then, boom: you've got the Play Store and nearly every app I've tried works just fine. (Oddly enough, Google Inbox is one that doesn't.) As a side effect, it also disables Special Offers for free.
I gather you can go further with further hacking, outright replacing Fire OS with CyanogenMod or whatever, but I've never felt the need to. I have other pure Android devices, and this Fire the way it is is good enough.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
In an era in which computers, of all kinds including smartphones and tables, are powerful enough to do most things one could ever imagine, it's irritating that manufacturers impose artificial software limitations.
Those include: Being unable to install software from outside of an official app store (iOS and Windows Phone), being unable to uninstall certain bundled programs (You can't uninstall certain Google apps even from unlocked Android phones), being unable to install apps on SD cards (Android), etc... All of them can be summed up as not allowing the user to be root on their own device.
Nothing they can do about that. I just thankfully that third party OS like Cyanogen can be installed on many Fire devices.
I don't doubt, because this is Slashdot, that a few people use them - with a stock ROM installed - for checking their email, but that's not really their purpose and Amazon doesn't go out of their way to encourage that kind of use, unlike Google Android where you pretty much set up Google's groupware suite as part of the setting it up process, and unlike phones where you have all of the above plus the mandatory text messaging.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Easy to push google stuff on to, easy to root. Cheap. Quad processor. Faster browsing than windows. Long battery life.
Programs like keyboards can get you to the hidden OS pages for installing keyboards.
okay for $39, find anything remotely close to this device. What I'd like to know is if I can program for it and use it's usb to control my arduino.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
My question is will they attempt to do something mind-bendingly stupid like enabling a secret master key or key escrow when they re-enable encryption on the device. You know, just so they can cooperate with the FBI and show how they're better than Apple.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The damage to Amazon's reputation is already done.
Seriously, for a little bit of money you get a decent throwaway tablet. If you lose an 800 dollar iPad you'll cry. If you lose this you'll go, "meh!"
If they can retroactively remove encryption, then it wasn't encrypted to begin with.
So the hardware and the O/S is a little limiting? Fine. It isn't the type of device you need.
On the other hand, all of the ridiculous levels of settings and personalizations and all that on a 5.1.1 or 6.0 Android box is too much for my parents to want to argue with.
There's something to be said for "works well enough". As developers we should not forget that, lest a simpler product line come along and put your complex fully-featured super-product out to dry, no matter what features the new upstart is missing.
I'm not saying Amazon's Fire will do that to Android, as the tablet market right now is still pretty large and has room for all (and of course, Fire could easily re-enable Android features they've suppressed at a moment's notice should the demand truly be there). But it is something to consider that not all products are the right fit for all audiences.
I have a Fire that I use for reading at night (Feedly, Pocket, and Facebook - all the links i've saved throughout the day - and kindle books if i'm still awake after all that). It works perfect for that purpose (I also use it as test platform for my apps since i'm targeting that easier-to-use market).
But I take a Samsung Tab 4 with me during the day, because that's the better one for when I want interactive stuff or games or things that require Google Play Services and all that.
Right tool for the right job and the right audience.
(That said, FireOS 5 did have a few really annoying bugs I've had to work around, but nevermind... :) )
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
We're all sorry to hear that you lost your job at Amazon.
Amazon makes cheap hardware, I guess that's what it has come down too. Good enough is in, and I do think if you can accept the OS limitations in Fire devices its OK. I personally would much rather use something not tied to Amazon to watch Amazon video. Anytime you buy a proprietary device like a Fire or even the Barnes and Noble devices. You limiting yourself to what they can do vs a Android or IOS device.
Mine is rooted. I buy Amazon books on it and ... nothing else.
Is it possible to root the Fire pad? How?
I know that you can install the Google Play store. Can you successfully install/run Nova Launcher on the Fire Pad? How?
Curiosity got the better of me. At least I think it was HD. This was also some time ago, not sure what iteration it was. Conceptually the interface had a few elements going for it, but as others have commented, it was the overall limited and limiting implementation of the Android OS that was the killer. I never understood the lack of apps in the Amazon App Store. I can see excluding embarrassments like intense 3d games, but the hardware was otherwise quite capable. I was able to side load and run absolutely anything and everything I could not find in their store except the Google Play Store itself. Unfortunately, that resulted in a practically non descriptive ugly blobs of an icon for any such app.
So being Android, and verifying Android apps unavailable from Amazon worked, can anyone explain what kind of licensing might get in the way of offering the full library? If none, that's pretty fucking stupid and lame. Make that double stupid and lame.
Anyway, I gave it to my ex.
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The amazon kindle app will not zoom when reading comic books, on any platform I have tried. It has a zoom feature, but this feature refuses to work. On small devices, or for two-page prints, the text is too tiny to read.
Have they fixed that, or do I still have to go to google if I want to read comic books?
I bought one to watch movies and tv series in the gym and to buy Aliexpress and Amazon stuff on the road when I'm bored.
For 50$ I don't care if I lose or forget it.
The spring update will have a built-in backdoor. Why else would they need an update to re-enable an existing feature except to add new functionality, like a backdoor.
Hate working in an open-plan office? His fault, the bald-headed Millefiori bratcunt.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Boot loader isn't a problem with the right root.
If you already have a Fire tablet, try an alternative ROM before returning/selling. As long as you are able to root the device, you can install safestrap, a ROM like cyanogenmod and Google apps. At this point, you have a fully functional device with a choice of launchers and app stores.
If you are thinking of this route, don't connect to WiFi during device setup. This way, you don't update bootloader and OS from potentially rootable versions and have most options for the device going forward.
Of course there is a wide choice of inexpensive Android tablets when shopping for a new device and rooting is hit or miss. But if you already have one in your hands, it's worth a shot.
I got my Fire tablet for $35 in the Black Friday weekend sale. I certainly get enough use out of it to justify the price. I regularly read Kindle books on it, view web sites and YouTube videos, and occasionally stream a movie or TV show. Streaming from Amazon Video, Netflix, and Google (see next paragraph) all work perfectly.
I sideloaded the Google Play store and services, and use Chrome as my browser rather than Silk. People who have commented on a poor experience with web browsing may be dealing with inadequacies of Silk rather than with the device itself.
I tried the Facebook app on the Fire and ended up uninstalling it. To be fair, Facebook has the same problem on all devices with only 1GB of RAM; it's simply too much of a memory pig to be comfortable with that amount of memory. I use the browser version for my occasional tablet-based Facebook needs; that works fine.
I bought this during the Black Friday sales.
My use case for this is to run SkySafari Pro 4, with the SkyFi box, to control my Celestron AVX telescope mount with a 6" reflector, and my SCB-4000 lowlight video camera for doing video-assisted astronomy.
It does this most admirably, and works very well when out at the scope, and it makes it easy to go chasing magnitude 15 galaxies from my backyard. Locate object in the app's database, center on screen, and tell the scope to slew from the screen. Then, I can see that celestial object on my portable screen.
When I got the tablet, I was aware that the bootloader was locked, but I knew there were alternate roms available via XDA developers forums. The one that I ended up using, SlimLP, renders the tablet pretty much a bog-standard low-end Android tablet. All the installed hardware works well, the bluetooth and wifi are perfect, and when I'm not using it for stargazing I have it on the coffee table for those quick web browses about subjects that pop up when watching my tv shows. The battery life is pretty good, I charge it about every 10-15 days when not in use, and it'll easily last for a full stargazing session when I'm outside.
Yes, the standard OS install is pretty crappy, but once it's rendered as a standard Android tablet, it's proven to be perfect for my particular use case.
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My biggest issue with all Amazon Android devices is the fact that they run branded, trimmed down and crippled versions of Android. I would never buy an Amazon tablet of any kind. I'll stick to tablets running true Android with all features present and available. You don't need an Amazon Kindle or Fire to do the same things you would do with those devices on real tablets. They have free apps for that stuff, ya know and you're not blocked from Google Play on real Android devices like you are on Amazon devices. Wake up people.