Amazon’s not standing still. They recently officially released Kindle 3 Software Upgrade version 3.0.2, and last night they began requesting feedback on the “Early Preview of Next Version 3.0.3” for Kindle 3.
Thanks to Golf11 (Randall), who alerted us to this one as he did the last one.
As before, this is offered so that “Customers who want to try this early release of the software and provide feedback can download the update” from their servers.
This update will also be available wirelessly in the next few weeks.
Amazon explains that this update includes general performance improvements.
‘After installing this update, please share your feedback with us at kindle-response@amazon.com. We look forward to hearing about your experience and appreciate your feedback. ‘
This time there haven’t been many reports of software quirks — except in one area, reported here as people come with questions about the experimental Kindle 3 WebKit-based web browser.
Caution The software update v3.0.3 may have NOTHING to do with the Webkit browser functions, but customers have reported that the Kindle (UK:K3), while faster than and generally much more capable than the Kindle 2, has been:
1. strangely unable to have its keyboard input recognized on several websites so that some of us have looked for alternate sites that are workarounds.
2. not interacting as well as the Kindle 2 does with mobile-device-oriented websites, which are of course much faster to load (if not as visually impressive) and easier to read than the full-webpage version displayed on the K3 web browser for a screen too small to be able to read complex home pages with fonts that are necessarily tiny.
The website bookmarks that Amazon puts on the Kindle 3 tend to take us to the full version of the websites, which look great but take longer to load and are harder to navigate with the 5-way (‘controller’) button. Maybe we could have an option of bookmarks that are for mobile-version websites.
3. unable to follow website links that are programmed to expect a ‘new window’ opened in addition to the current webpage window (so that the user can stay on the current page while getting a new page and not be ‘lost’ when the new window is closed after we’re through with it).
Some of us have requested that in this case they just ask us, via a dialog box, if we would like to leave the current page and go to the linked site! Ireally hope for this one eventually, since it’s a basic function of a web browser to follow clicked links. It also has been frustrating for Kindle Edition blog subscribers, who cannot follow those types of links.
There IS, when reading a newspaper article, a new web-browser Menu option, with this Kindle model, to choose “Article Mode” to see only the text of the article (no surrounding links and ads), in larger fonts that are easy to read. Once we can navigate TO an article and click to get it, this mode can be chosen and usually works VERY well. We can go back to “Web Mode” after reading in Article Mode.
Instructions at their preview-update page start with:
‘ Here’s how to download Kindle software update version 3.0.3 and transfer it to your Kindle via USB:
- Determine your software version: : From Home, select Menu, then Settings. On the Settings screen you will see the Kindle version at the bottom of the screen. If you see “Version Kindle 3.0.2” or earlier (3.0.2, 3.0.1, or 3.0), please proceed with the steps below to update your Kindle to the latest software.
- Download your software: Visit the appropriate link below to download the software update file directly to your computer: … ‘
They have a good diagram there showing how you can determine which software you’d download, depending on your serial number and the type of Kindle 3 you have.
You’ll see step-by-step directions there for the download. As before, there’s no need to install this interim update unless you actually are seeing any problems (most say they’re not seeing any general ones), but I don’t expect it would hurt, since programming code will check status to see if a fix is needed.
Via Andrys Basten’s A Kindle World blog
