I was an Amazon intern in 2011 and there was another intern I met at a party who told me about this fact. We all thought it was hilarious.
His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it. Given it's a decade later now, I doubt it still works or works for very long.
I'm pretty sure Amazon agreed to a fixed fee from a number of carriers, and moved on. The few outliars might have costed a few $M over the years, which is a rounding error for Amazon.
I think I remember encountering that project. It got built out a bit more by the time I started full-time in 2012. I could be misremembering the specifics, but I think the most recent country from which a device checked-in was used to decided the data cap, because unlimited 3g cost dramatically less when the devices weren't roaming.
> His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it.
I'd rather work for another evil corporation like Mac Donalds than work to remove features from devices people have already bought. When your company is selling surveillance tools to individuals masquerading as e-book readers and you have to struggle to just install a libre Operating System, it's not even close to fair that you get to use the SIM card Amazon planted in your device in whichever way you please.
Having the right to hack your own physical devices is one thing. Getting unlimited access to the cell network just because Amazon sold you a device with credentials for it is totally different and the kind of thing that makes people not take you seriously.
It is a different thing. However they sold you a device with access to the Internet as a feature (not just a SIM slot to put your own). Why would they get to choose what you can do with it?
It's a bit like when Facebook wanted to bring "Internet" into countries where bandwidth is expensive, by branding unlimited access to Facebook as "Internet". Having access to the network should give you full access to the network (net neutrality). Having acquired hardware should give you full access to put your own system (right to repair).
It's only logical that if you paid for a device, and some money of that went into providing you free Internet services, you get to do what you want with both the device and the Internet access and Amazon should have no control over what you do because they CHOSE to sell that to you in an attempt to exploit your attention and control what you can read. That relation was abusive to start with, and that some people find little benefits in it does not bother me from an ethical perspective.
Thanks, definitely not buying one of those. I'm happy to have books that don't require a battery, can't be used to track my habits, and can be lent or given away as i please. If i wanted an ebook reader, i'd go for something 'stupid' (as opposed to smart) that does not provide higher powers the ability to remotely delete my books:
Lol so if you don't have a Kindle, don't want a Kindle, and don't intend to get a Kindle... then why are you here talking about Kindles? What's your skin in the game?
Lol so if you don't do murder, don't want murder, and don't want to do murder... then why are you here talking about murder? What's your skin in the game?
Do you see the absurdity of your argument? It makes perfect sense to criticize something you find profoundly unethical even when you're not directly concerned by the situation.
I don't agree with his/her outlook, but I don't think "don't buy it" is a valid counterargument
Alice: "Don't work for Foo vineyard. Foo vineyard puts poison in the wine that people buy without them knowing it."
Bob: "Just don't buy Foo's wine yourself, then."
(Millions of people are still being poisoned drinking Foo wine and would probably buy a different wine if they were informed about it.)
However, if you morally object to anyone purchasing Amazon's Kindle on the basis of surveillance capitalism, I'm not sure if arguing over limiting data use with their SIM cards is the best use of your energy.
It's not poisoned. It just doesn't have features that you want. The analogy would be that you don't like the style of the wine.
They're arguing 'I bought a product which doesn't offer feature X and I'm mad that it turns out it can't do X'. Use your common sense. Buy a product that explicitly does have X if you want X.
It is also a little more subtle than you are describing.
People ask why do right to repair laws need to exist despite John Deere having thousands of competitors for tractors? Similarly, the market for e-readers and smart phones should allow limitless competition.
How many e-readers companies could negotiate great terms for e-ink displays and world wide 3g coverage? If any of them did, might Amazon automatically get their negotiated best price as part of the clauses Amazon could negotiate given it has most of the volume?
If Amazon and Sony get the best price on e-ink displays, Amazon and b&n on US networks, and Amazon and Kobo on European networks, who is actually competing with Amazon to sell an ereader with world wide coverage?
No, it's not exactly like that. It's like selling a bottle of wine (marketed as such), that will purposefully self-destruct if you try to open it in a setting that the manufacturer does not approve of, say an orgy or a popular ball (as opposed to a bourgeois banquet). Technically, it's wine that's intended to be drunk. But the manufacturer enforces that you use it however they please, not you.
So you paid money for the product. The product is technically capable to fulfill your greatest needs and desire as someone who purchased it, yet it has built-in mechanisms to enforce the will of someone else on your life.
Would you find it normal to have screws sold with Ikea furniture that are made so that they can only screw Ikea furniture? Or gasoline sold with a BMW car that only works in BMW cars? Or bread sold with a butter that can only go on that kind of bread? It makes no sense, as interoperability is a fundamental property of most things around us, going against that is an insult and an injury to all of humanity, and to our planet that's ever more polluted because our overlords have decided we should keep on producing and throwing away hardware instead of repairing/re-purposing things as we used to not long ago.
It seems safe to post this too now that it's closing.
It was also possible to SSH from the Kindle, over its 3G connection.
So the SIM card could be kept in the Kindle, to be used as originally intended. But also (in an emergency) to use a few KB of data anywhere in the world for SSH.
I was very careful to use <1 MB of data - as this use case isn't quite what the Kindle was designed for, probably. :-)
From memory, broad steps were:
- Root (jailbreak) the Kindle, and sideload "USB Networking" (to allow tethering - i.e., connect the Kindle to a computer via USB, and the computer would share the Kindle's Internet connection)
- Read the magic key (which the HTTP proxy required) - it was sitting in a plaintext file within /var/local/ so could be easily read after rooting the Kindle
- Run an SSH server on the HTTPS port (TCP/443), then use proxytunnel to connect via the HTTP proxy server - https://github.com/proxytunnel/proxytunnel (proxytunnel has an option to pass an arbitrary HTTP header containing the magic key)
As another nice-while-it-lasted data deal, Verizon used to allow previously-used SIM cards to connect to their LTE network. Once connected, all TCP/IP traffic would be redirected to a captive portal page.
There lies the problem; UDP traffic could still flow freely. Yes, that included OpenVPN (WireGuard hadn't been invented yet). I never really abused this, but someone must've, as when I checked a month later, activation was strictly handled through phone calls; previously-used SIM cards no longer received any type of LTE service.
One of the tricks in the past to get past captive portals that allowed only DNS traffic, but did not redirect DNS traffic to a controlled server, was to tunnel traffic through DNS. I remember I went on a cruise once and that was my plan to get out of having to pay exorbitant fees for data access on wifi. I never ended up doing it though, because I ended up not really using my phone or laptop while on the cruise, which I count as a win.
It was a lot easier to not actually use the internet then though, as it was 10-15 years ago. The last time I was on a cruise, 3-4 years ago I think, I bought the wifi package, and it was so poorly implemented and/or overloaded that it was a pain at best to use. All things considered, not usually an issue when you're relaxing, but when you need it for a moment and it feels like you're using an old 3G connection, that sucks.
That’s a good a find. Back in the mid 90s I was a teenager with a PC but my parents wouldn’t let me go online, so I had to find nefarious ways of accessing the Internet. I had a 50’ phone line cable and had to go online when they weren’t home. One method I found was the Prodigy install CD would have to dial up to the Internet to download the list of servers. I found I could just minimize the installer and go online freely but only for 10 minutes. They ended up fixing this about a year later.
I made a hole in the ceiling and passed a cable that I spliced in the telephone box. I just had to put alligator clips on the cables hidden behind the radiator tubing. That plus some ISP that had a bug in their subscribing system so you got 50 hours for free every time.
> Yeah, must have been those “others” abusing the system while all you were doing was accessing free data in China, Iran and Iraq!
Seriously, what's the problem with that? That model had a basic web browser, so it was basically designed to be used this way. I used it in emergency situations (without taking the card out) for checking email and the like. It was slow and clumsy, but it worked. It would not occur to me that since I'm abroad I'm doing something wrong because the device was actually advertised as having global Internet connectivity, and it was one of the reasons I bought it.
Not much of a problem, just that a global sim with access to unlimited data in those countries must've cost a fortune for Amazon to maintain once those flat-rate providers realized some "Kindles" were using a lot of unexpected data and asked for more money or a data cap.
It's not abuse if the use is within the terms of use. At most you can just call it a bad deal for Amazon or simply an "advertisement cost" of the phrase "Global access."
If anything it's to be applauded that "global" really meant global, not just "yeah global as long as you're in USA, CA, UK, EU, AU, NZ." So many times my "global" MasterCard did not work in some whole country.
> a global sim with access to unlimited data in those countries must've cost a fortune
Nearly every country in the world has at least one mobile network that has a roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom. They have negotiated rates at high volumes in the cents/GB regardless of local pricing shenanigans.
DT is often the local cell providers gateway for international calling, so they have quite a bit of leverage.
If you have to extract a key to do what you're doing, then you should stop and think if you were intended to do this and if you think it's therefore a honest thing to do.
I postulate there are two categories of people: those who assume that if the activity was minimum, the service would continue, and others that assume the service will end, so will pump as much as possible.
I'd found it to be invaluable solving the after-landing-before-you-have-a-local-SIM conundrum.
It wasn't a Kindle, but another country's prepaid SIM that I continued using while in Japan. Phone companies in Japan don't do prepaid: only phone rentals by the day, or 2 year subscriptions. Neither of those were suitable for the 2 months I lived there.
Some international SIM cards would run out of balance and send an SMS as a warning. But others would redirect me to a topup page. Let's just say that wasn't the only page that was available, and the "send this page to a friend" email function is very convenient when Japanese phones have incoming email addresses for sending email-to-SMS.
Google calendar used to be a great way to get free email-to-RSS-to-SMS notifications, but that shut down a couple of years ago unfortunately.
> Phone companies in Japan don't do prepaid: only phone rentals by the day, or 2 year subscriptions.
Prepaid data (sans voice/SMS) have been easily accessible at reasonable prices for at least 6 years; they are now ubiquitous and can be bought at electronics stores, airports, and the occasional convenience store.
These days the 2y term requirement only applies when you get a plan with a subsidized smartphone or pocket wifi. Though you still need (IIRC) 6 month min on your stay for any subscription, so prepaid or rental is the only way if you stay for shorter. High-speed LTE data is cheap and available but SMS/voice is nigh impossible for non-long-term-residents (which is extra problematic given how practically everything/everyone in Japan assume you can provide a Japanese voice number they can call, and LINE does age verification through your mobile provider).
Prepaid where the credit expires after 21 days sounds more like a subscription that lasts 3 weeks and cancels safely.
With my current prepaid SIM, I typically top up $5 every 3 months. Between iMessage, WhatsApp/WeChat/KakaoTalk/Skype/Facebook, free incoming calls, and the occasional emergency SMS, I usually don't need a phone. People don't like it when I don't have a local number though.
I think they're just adding the minimum amount to prevent the minutes expiring and the phone subsequently being cancelled, which I assume happens after 3 months. They would still have to typical rates pay per minute or MB for any usage.
I add the minimum. In many countries (Switzerland, UK, New Zealand) the minutes don't expire, and the number is mine to keep unless it doesn't connect to a network at all for a year or more.
Yes, I pay per minute for outgoing calls, or MB of usage - and those costs are high. That's why I try to use WiFi whenever possible, and use offline maps, offline Wikipedia, etc.
Yep, I pretty much bought a Kindle back in the day for this exact purpose. Unlimited free 3G that worked anywhere? Yes please. Also the Kindle itself had an experimental web browser, so my Kindle basically became an emergency internet connection for overseas travel.
Fi has data roaming for 10$/GB, free after 6GB (speed reduced after 15GB, unless you opt-in to pay extra). This is actually the normal Fi plan- there are just no roaming charges. This is single #1 reason why I am on Fi, no more messing around with local SIMs.
FWIW, T-Mobile US had free throttled global data roaming in most countries since a few years before Fi was launched. It was typically more expensive than Fi for a single line, although usually cheaper for family plans.
Frustrating how individual plans in the US tend to be priced horribly compared to family plans (which are already awfully priced, generally). It's not like I'm going to get a spouse and kids just to save money on my monthly plan, and it also doesn't cost them anything extra, so why is it like this?
It is annoying, but the various MVNO options recently have largely mitigated this problem as far as I can tell. A single line can be had for $20/month with most everything included, or cheaper on promotions (down to around $8-15/month depending on GB of data). That seems comparable with the western European countries in which I've gotten a SIM card, at least.
It's not just 10 minutes. It's every time you go to a new country, having to figure out what the local pay as go is called, finding somewhere to buy a sim, picking a plan, figuring out how to reload. Likely none of this is in your native language. If you are going to several countries consecutively it gets old. And you still can't use your own phone number. Yes, you might save ~50$ a month while travelling, but I will happily 50$ not to deal with local sims anymore. I will only do it if you need a local number for interactions with local businesses.
If you need a lot of data it probably makes sense to get a local sim but if you are travelling through a few countries and really just need it for getting directions every now and then it makes much more sense.
Can you cite examples of prepay SIMs that charge only $1/GB without any strings attached? I've travelled overseas and have looked into local SIMs and can't really recall any that cheap with reasonable restrictions (e.g. valid for a good period of time). For example I recall one local SIMs marketed at the airport to foreign travellers I looked at that offered 40GB valid only for a few days making it more worthwhile to choose a different (marketed to locals) plan with lower data caps that lasted for a month as I was there for a week.
Iliad[1] in Italy has 120GB/10€: That is 0.08€/GB if you use them all. Ah, also unlimited calls and text.
Just a regular prepaid SIM card, no strings attached. If you use it for just 1 month, no problem, just don't top it up. The SIM itself costs 10€.
This is far from the norm though, this company basically undercut everyone else and they had to lower their prices. The fun part is that they're actually better than most because they don't try to charge you random fees every few months.
They sell you a hotspot that works in 80+ countries with an eSIM. When you land you top up 500 MB of that countries data for a few dollars, which is usually enough to get me to the hotel and then out to a shop where locals buy SIMs. Depending on the device they have 1-2 extra SIM slots and you an hot swap between them.
There is an upfront cost and it doesn't quite meet your price point - but it gives you the flexibility to do a bit more shopping past airport rates.
In Finland I can buy a prepaid and unlimited 200 Mbps for 25€ a month or 7.90€ a week. In Thailand I get $2.10 for 10GB / 5 days or $1 for unlimited 24 hour 8Mbps. In Cambodia basically any data package is around $1 / GB with month validity, but usually with all the promotions and extra data they throw in it ends up being much cheaper. Vietnam is so cheap it's basically free, first package I checked was $1.30, 7GB for 7 days.
When I travel I use airalo to get local e-sims for data and pay probably something like $10 on average for 5GB for 30 days. (Another option for people who's phones support e-sims)
I had no idea there was a company doing this already! I just downloaded their app, and will have to give it a try when my next travel destination opens its borders again.
- Set up the sim before you leave. It's the worst trying to do it once you land. (Ask me how I know)
- You will get some interesting networks, but I've never had problems with them.
- I think they just fixed it on iOS, but be prepared to type in the details manually (not hard, just not seamless) because they expect you to scan a QR code???
Even with those quirks, it's been great, simple, no problems, and I've used in US/UK/Australia.
Before my provider offered worldwide roaming on my monthly plan for an additional fee of the equivalent of USD 6 (that you pay whether you use it or not), I've used Flexiroam for data when traveling abroad. Good prices if staying for less than a month.
Reminds me of a gps tracker placed on birds that got found in a 3rd world country and the SIM card was used to take up 1000s of dollars worth of calls on the scientists bill.
I have one of these whispernet and I did use the kindle + experimental browser + gmail as form of communication while abroad, and it was great that it had the built in proxy. But many years ago it stopped working in China.
this was one of the main reasons I acquired the kindle keyboard :)
worked excellent as an emergency device when you _needed_ to rebook travel things with nothing else around.
"Amazon’s Kindle e-readers with built-in 3G will begin to lose the ability to connect to the internet on their own in the US in December, according to an email sent to customers on Wednesday. The change is due to mobile carriers transitioning from older 2G and 3G networking technology to newer 4G and 5G networks. For older Kindles without Wi-Fi, this change could mean not connecting to the internet at all."
TheVerge purposefully left that out of the headline for clickbait. It's really not hard to write "Amazon's Older 2G/3G Kindles" or "Lose Their Cellular Connections"
I know that with many publications, the journalists don't get to pick their own headlines. There has been a lot of talk about how journalism is dead, but I have found that often, the article is well done, but the headline paints an inaccurate or divisive picture. I think the editors and maybe the MBAs are more of a problem than the journalists.
For customers with Kindle (1st Generation), Amazon is offering a free Kindle Oasis (10th Generation) device and cover.
Customers with Kindle (1st and 2nd Generation), Kindle DX (2nd Generation), and Kindle Keyboard (3rd Generation) can receive $70 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $25 in ebook credits.
Customers with Kindle Touch (4th Generation), Kindle Paperwhite (5th Generation, 6th Generation, and 7th Generation), Kindle Voyage (7th Generation), and Kindle Oasis (8th Generation) can receive $50 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $15 in ebook credits.
I’m not familiar with their product line but from reading just this comment I would guess that old devices that lose connectivity get a full new device and devices with WiFi losing partial connectivity get coupons and credit for their inconvenience (caused out of Amazons hands through the carriers)
That sounds like a fair deal to me. Although it’s pure speculation. I haven’t checked if that is actually the case.
That would make sense, but it's not in fact the case, many second-gen Kindles don't have wifi.
...I'm actually quite confused as to why the people with the oldest devices—whose Kindles presumably had the longest usable life—are the only ones getting free replacements.
> I'm actually quite confused as to why the people with the oldest devices—whose Kindles presumably had the longest usable life—are the only ones getting free replacements.
Maybe there is a lifetime clause in the AGBs? If they promised 15 years of usable time (for example), this might be their way to get out.
Also, the longest customers are probably the most loyal and bought a lot of books over the years, while also being the smallest subgroup.
Getting a $250 device and cover for a device first sold in 2007 is pretty great, honestly. Even getting $50 off a Kindle and $15 credit is a pretty good option, all things considered.
This is a tremendous deal. Makes me so confident in buying first gen Amazon products. The Oasis is their high end reader. I have one and it’s better than the normal kindles by far.
Doesn't "Kindle (1st and 2nd Generation)" include "Kindle (1st Generation)"? Getting a new device is a pretty nice gesture though I guess very few still have a working 1st generation Kindle.
Rarely have I ever seen a serious tutorial or guide be so wrong on so many levels. I was flabbergasted, entertained and felt pity at the same time. Truly a train wreck of a video, would strongly recommend watching.
No, just one of their people making a video showing "how to build a custom gaming PC" and ... not doing a particularly good job of it. After a few days of mocking they took the video down, and then a while later made sure everyone remembered again by copyright-striking some Youtubers that had made reaction videos using material from the original video. "the verge PC build" on youtube should find stuff.
I think a lot depends on whether you actually had one of those early generation kindles or not. I saw the headline and figured it was about WhisperSync and guessed it was probably due to sunsetting of the cellular networks and not Amazon turning off a feature to get people to upgrade.
Seems like a good opportunity to ask: what are some news agencies that do not use deliberately misleading headlines? For the blizzard thread, Bloomberg was the only article I saw linked with an accurate title
The default Kindle models did not have WiFi for several years. That cost an extra $30-50 or so.
I remember thinking at the time that hacking these would make nice sensors to deploy in the field and that they could stay online for free, essentially. Kindle had a built-in web browser, so HTTP calls wouldn't be too hard to make.
Controversial HN opinion: ten years ago everyone would be up in arms about this change. Something happened. We no longer care about device obsolescence. It's like our concept of ownership and longevity has been stripped from us.
You stream music instead of owning it, you download games instead of owning physical copies, devices are locked down, you can't run software you want, and we tolerate devices no longer working after a certain date.
It's okay if things stop working, because they weren't meant to work forever. It's sad.
> Ten years ago everyone would be up in arms about this change. Something happened. We no longer care about device obsolescence. It's like our concept of ownership and longevity has been stripped from us.
Broadly speaking, I absolutely agree. People are impressed that Apple supports 6-year-old iPhones, whereas I think that's an unconscionably short length of time. (Particularly given how Apple makes customers reliant on them for everything.)
However, in the case of these Kindles, I'm a bit more sympathetic to Amazon here. They're not the ones who are turning off 3G networks, so I'm not really sure what they could do.
And they're actually giving pretty reasonable promo codes.
For some reason, I didn't get one--probably because my device is no longer registered on Amazon.com. Not that I have any real reason to run out and buy a new Kindle anyway.
Well, that's not exactly what is happening here. Devices will still work after the internet connection stops, books will still be readable, and it will still be possible to load books through USB (or in some cases WiFi). The free cellular connection was an extra service that was clearly part of the sale pitch but I doubt most people who bought these expected that component to last forever.
Also, there is a clear reason they are turning these off (dropping on 2G and 3G coverage) as opposed to companies that needlessly brick devices just because they turned off a easy-to-maintain DRM server somewhere without an alternative recourse.
> Controversial HN opinion: ten years ago everyone would be up in arms about this change. Something happened. We no longer care about device obsolescence. It's like our concept of ownership and longevity has been stripped from us.
I don’t think this is true at all. Ten years ago, we had already gone through the analog to digital transition in a number of countries [1], obsoleting a lot of older television sets without the aid of a converter box.
In the US, TDMA and AMPS cellular networks were shut down by 2008 (TDMA shutdown started even earlier), obsoleting tons of early cellular phones, but also many phones from the early 2000s (again, TDMA). People were often given vouchers by carriers IIRC, since phones were largely subsidized by rate plans.
DIVX, a terrible DVD rental scheme that helped put Circuit City out of business, went under by 1999, leaving the devices essentially worthless (fortunately, most did receive a firmware update allowing them to be used as regular DVD players).
I’m sure there were some grumbles about some of this stuff (people were very mad about TV, even though converters were given away for free), but it is largely accepted that progress obsoletes certain technologies. This isn’t new.
TV updates coincided with the changeover to HD tv so I don't think people really cared - it ruined my portable since it had a builtin antenna, but that was that.
However there has been many more fights about turning of the FM signals, at least here in Denmark, mostly because people can't upgrade the radio in their cars easily but probably also because the new type of radio is a lot worse than FM. So now we have both.
I suspect that when/if they turn it of people won't get a new radio and will just play music from their phones.
Thank you for the comment. As a ham radio operator and radio junky in general I was wondering how the transition to all dab+ went for Denmark. Here in Austria we have both (more important and larger stations not receivable via dab though) and my car head unit has both. I find the sound of dab awful (to much compression and artefacts) and on fringe areas it pales compared to FM which will deteriorate in quality but still be continuously receivable. DAB just stutters. A real set back at least when used mobile.
They had planned to shut it down in 2019, but it has been postponed until 50% of listening was done digitally.
I still think the major issue is our cars, the fleet is old because there is an extremely high tax on cars, and it isn't as easy to just upgrade the radios as it used to be - and of course with FM available (and as you said, better in many cases) there is no big incentive to update, although we have more channels available on DAB.
Yeah, the timing of HD Radio coincided with the rise of smartphones/iPods/nascent streaming, so it didn’t really take off in the US (and there was never a huge reason to b/c the FCC didn’t shut off analog radio waves), but I do agree that if they cut off analog radio signal (or more accurately, if more stations moved to a pure digital format), some subset of users would complain (tho less as you said, thanks to phones), but that’s sort of my point: this obsolescence acceptance thing isn’t new, it’s how we’ve treated the changing nature of tech for decades. Yes, there might be fewer loud neckbeards who are irate online about it, but the fantasy that we used to all care a lot more about the longevity of devices and tech just isn’t true.
I'm pretty sure my first cell phones from the 90s and 00s won't work anymore because the networks no longer exist. I should get out the pitchforks and torches. I think there might not even be cellular network access for my first iPhone anymore.
In 2007, putting WiFi and cellular in the same radio stack was a real challenge. The iPhone was one of the first phones to have both radios in it — a handful of other devices did too, but it was really rare. Heck, I remember it took years for BlackBerry to successfully ship a phone with both 3G and WiFi (as opposed to having to choose between WiFi and 2G or only a 3G connection).
The big selling point of the first Kindle was the idea that you could access the store to download stuff anywhere. WiFi wasn’t ubiquitous like it is now (and even now, it isn’t as ubiquitous as I think we all would have hoped), which made having a free 2G connection really nice, especially when outdoors in areas that the E Ink display really shined.
Amazon was targeting book readers who may not have been computer users, so they wouldn't necessarily have Wifi (or any Internet) at home. The cellular connection (which was free and not dependent on any data plan of the user) allowed the user to purchase and download books, and so paid Amazon for the very small amount of data used given that a typical book is only a couple of megabytes.
Home broadband connectivity was only about 2/3 of where it was today. The iPhone was just rolling out.
As much to the point, Amazon was also very much aiming for the use case of the business traveler who wanted to buy a book before hopping on the plane in an airport that probably didn't have WiFi and almost certainly didn't have free WiFi.
I won't say 2007 was the stone ages. But a lot of things we mostly just take for granted today didn't exist or were relatively nascent.
It kind of made sense at the time. I have a Kindle DX, and that came out in 2009. Wifi was less ubiquitous and more terrible, and the idea with the Kindle anyways is you could be anywhere and buy a book, and it would just work.
It did open up some very interesting homebrew applications too!
Also the early models with WiFi had the absolute worst radios and constantly tripped over themselves. When I worked for Centurylink in/around 2011 one of the most common issues with wifi was Kindle devices. Thankfully most customers could figure that if their 3-5 other devices were connected and working, the issue was their Kindle, and not the CPE.
WiFi was pretty terrible for quite a while after it came out in general. I remember, in the early to mid 2000s, the Intel Developers Forums had desks set up to try to help press and analysts get, often plug-in PCMCIA card, WiFi working. And it was almost certain to fall over during general sessions anyway--well some things mostly don't change.
But if you actually needed a working network connection in the press room, you plugged an Ethernet cable into your laptop.
It was actually wonderful. My girlfriend at the time, now wife, had a grandmother who was an avid reader but didn't own a computer or have internet. They were able to get her to switch to a Kindle because of the cellular delivery feature. She was able to figure out how to buy stuff directly from the device, but I always thought it was neat how they could buy Grandma books and have the auto delivered to her a device.
The cellular was included with the device. I'd have to stretch my mind back but WiFi wasn't as ubiquitous, as easy to use, or as cheap to implement as today.
Don't know why but this reminds me of one support ticket on those things.
'i can not download any books'
'uh sir according to our data you are 10 miles off the coast of florida?'
'oh yeah I am on my boat'
'do you see any cell towers?'
'no'
'they need those to work'
'ohhhhh'
We were surprised that it even had enough signal to figure out the GPS cords.
Even back then cell coverage was not as good as it is now. So many times it was 'go stand at the end of your driveway and try'.
I pre-ordered the first Kindle and knowing that I could order a book from my airplane seat for a flight before they closed the cabin door was a huge gratifier for me!
Customer Obsession _is_ one of their Leadership Principles, after all.
Their LPs are somewhat fascinating to me in that they're publicly available and you can see how their actions fall into them. Well, save for "Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer."
> Their LPs are somewhat fascinating to me in that they're publicly available and you can see how their actions fall into them.
They're very selective. Much of the Amazon web site is the opposite of customer obsession. I've yet to find a single person I know who agrees with their removing comments from reviews, for example.
I always thought the ads ("special offers") were incredibly unobtrusive. I even proactively chose to work on that team after having owned a kindle because I thought it was such a good example of ads done well. The ads suck on the kindle fire devices, but what else is the screen going to be doing when the device is off?
I honestly keep the ads because I hate the non-ad wallpaper. Its so boring and generic. Now, if Kindle had an option to have the wallpaper be the cover of the book you most recently had open, that would be a game changer.
> For customers with Kindle (1st Generation), Amazon is offering a free Kindle Oasis (10th Generation) device and cover.
> Customers with Kindle (1st and 2nd Generation), Kindle DX (2nd Generation), and Kindle Keyboard (3rd Generation) can receive $70 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $25 in ebook credits.
> Customers with Kindle Touch (4th Generation), Kindle Paperwhite (5th Generation, 6th Generation, and 7th Generation), Kindle Voyage (7th Generation), and Kindle Oasis (8th Generation) can receive $50 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $15 in ebook credits.
Sounds like you should qualify for the $70 + $25 credits. If you are actually considering it, I would contact Amazon if I were you. Personally I have the Kindle Keyboard and I'm not interested in the credit, I'm still happy with it and it still works fine. But I think it's great that they are offering it.
I was also offered $50 but you have two weeks before the coupon expires. This seems extremely short considering they must have had a ton of time to prepare for the cellular shutdown.
Plus, if you go to their site to buy a new Kindle it says you get $50 + 20% off if you trade in your old Kindle. Customer service told me I can't combine offers (plus trade in takes a couple weeks anyway) so it seems the $50 offer is worse than what normal customers get anyway.
Per Android Police, replacement/discount offers are for affected devices that had been "actively reading between January 1 and June 30th of this year".
Was wondering if I could get in on that, but I stopped using my 3G Kindles when they stopped holding charge.
I'm a very old Amazon customer, but don't own an eligible Kindle. I wonder if I could buy one used, register it (I am aware that the oldest models need a sideloaded update), and receive the offer?
At least Amazon had the foresight to use 3G. Our Nissan Leaf, which was built well after the earliest Kindles, came with GPRS in 2011 and it's been several years since AT&T turned those frequencies off. No free upgrades, or coupons, either: $250 for a new cell radio, please. We just had them remove the radio that was there, as Nissan's crap system never worked all that well anyway.
Regardless, neither Amazon nor Nissan can help that another company turned off those frequencies. Amazon has demonstrated more foresight and better customer service, however.
This still seems better than BMW's model - cars were shipping with 3G modems all the way through 2014, and up through 2015, when the whole fleet went 4G. But, since most everything is subscription-based, BMW just stopped renewing subscription contracts for 3G-only cars in 2017. More confusingly, some models are eligible for a new radio (which I assume is a lot of money), and some aren't, even though it seems to vary more by model than year of manufacture.
Unfortunately, I feel this way with most new cars, regardless of the manufacturer. I'm not sure if it's me who's being unreasonable, or them, but I don't like it.
It really depends what you’re looking for. Tech-forward cars a kinda a mess right now since they’re spending all their money on tech while the interior and ride obviously suffer. Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay.
Polestar, for example, has really hard nylon-like seats in their cars but are cramming a bunch of Google tech in it. Say what you will about Google, but it’s time to innovate beyond the infotainment system, and they actually seem to be doing that. Similarly, Teslas have had consistent quality issues and are ridiculously vendor-locked. The Model S drives nice but I haven’t heard great things about the Model 3, as least compared to other cars at its price point.
I’m actually pretty happy with Kia right now, their Niro EV is rather nice and they have a solid warranty on everything. The tech isn’t fascinating and Uvo (their connectivity service) is entirely unimpressive, but their cars seem to strike a good balance between the car and the tech without costing obscene amounts. The EV6 actually looks pretty exciting on both fronts too.
> Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay.
Ehhhhhhhhh I don't know about you guys, but I just slap in a new radio head unit myself and retrofit CarPlay via the aftermarket. I can hack CarPlay into a decent car, but I can't hack a decent car from one that prioritized CarPlay and interior RGB gamer lights over reliability and a decent ride.
This was my approach on most of the cars I've had over the years, but I'm finding it is either harder or less desirable as the headhunt starts to control more of the car than before, namely the A/C. My 2017 Honda Civic shows temp and settings on the display, despite physical controls, and I'm not sure how that translates to a new head unit anymore. Fortunately, I'm comfortable in my CarPlay cocoon. Have you had good experiences with head units that control more of the car? I have the itch.
I usually prefer knobs and crank windows to digital stuff. Easier to fix when it breaks and you get a better tactile sensation (like a mech keyboard but for your car).
I haven't personally been impressed with the aftermarket headunits I've seen, I'd love to fit my car with CarPlay but I can't find anything that looks remotely OEM which is somewhat a priority to me. Definitely don't want it to have RGB gamer lights.
By tech-forward I was more referencing things like mobile keys, connectivity, digital dash, HUD, etc.
To be fair, I pay 70 dollars for a kindle, and 70.000 for a BMW, so I think it's just BMW not realizing it's not 1960 and people expect better customer service.
That's interesting and rather unfriendly of Nissan; after all it has been well known that 2G or 3g or both would be scrapped for quite some time. Here in Norway Tesla replaced the 3G radio with an LTE module at no charge because 3G is being discontinued in Norway. I think owners who had upgraded to LTE at their own expense earlier were also offered some compensation.
Another car example is GM's OnStar system, it first shipped in the fall of 1996. GM didn't give much compensation to these early car owners when the analog cell signal was turned off at the end of 2007.
Tesla is about to give me a new 4g board for my 2013 car.
That original device was magical. Yes, it was ugly, but first-time user experience was magic. 1. You bought it with your Amazon account so it was automatically tied to your account. 2. You bought some books or got some samples before you got the device. 3. When you got the device in the mail you turned it on and Bam, everything just worked. All your books were there. There was no logging into anything. No wifi passwords. It just worked. I've never experienced any product that worked that well from the moment you got it.
The 7th gen paperwhite, for example, was still being sold until 2018 [1]. It seems kind of ridiculous to still be selling a 3G-only device 3 years ago, and to only be offering a partial credit for a device that’s going to stop working so soon after purchase.
I doubt most paperbacks printed in the past 100 years will last that long, or can withstand repeated reading for a millennium. (I've replaced enough paperback children's books!)
FWIW: I prefer the backlight on a tablet to paper so much that I'll re-buy a book on Kindle even if I have the print copy.
Why not? Obviously there aren't many titles, but I imagine most independent book sellers have at least some antique books, and you can always apply for a reader's pass to the local public museum or university library, which will be sure to have some. If you expand your definition of "book", there's also the public records office.
Sure, but also, there's the convenience of getting a book electronically delivered to you in seconds; and the ability to carry hundreds of books with you as you travel.
This isn't accurate, as Amazon is only giving full refunds to those with the gen 1 kindle. The rest get a store credit towards the purchase of their next kindle. I have a paperwhite and the $50 credit is less than half of the cost of a new kindle.
The dealbreaker for me is now that I’ve used a paper white I can’t not use a backlit kindle. Most of my reading is at bedtime and it makes it so much more enjoyable.
Agreed, the buttons on the Kindle Keyboard are much better than the touch screen on newer models. Seems like page turning buttons are now only available on the premuim versions!
The screens are much better on the new ones though.
Glad it's not just me -- I felt like the larger eink screen + physical keyboard hit a really nice sweet spot for an ereader tablet and nothing else I've tried has quite dialed it in the same.
I would also love to see larger screen Kindle like DX. I loved it so much. Nowadays I'm using Boox and it's fine, but Kindle DX 2021 would be nicer as a reading device.
For those who bought these devices or used them regularly, what do you use the internet connection for?
I've read on a kindle very close to every single day for at least 10 years (Kindle Touch first, now Paperwhite), and I keep it in airplane mode 99.999% of the time or more. If I buy a book from Amazon, I'll put it on Wifi until it's downloaded, then back to Airplane Mode.
I know that I can look something up on Wikipedia were I online, and this is the only feature I know of that I might sometimes be tempted to use. It's difficult for me to imagine a scenario that I would want to buy a reading device that could connect to the internet on cellular data.
When I used a Kindle, I didn't carry it with me all the time. Sometimes I'd pull out my phone and continue reading my book if I had a long wait.
If I'm doing a lot of reading while sitting upright, I'll open Kindle on my laptop so I can have the giant screen and bigger text.
If I read in the hot tub, (my favorite place to read,) I use an older phone or a cheap tablet. This way, if it gets wet I don't break my primary device.
I brought my kindle with me on international trips because back then it wasn't so common to have a smartphone/wifi everywhere. I used its browser feature all the time when traveling. I even used it for texting people, gmail, etc.
In 2013 there was a massive snow/ice storm and power outage here in Ontario, Canada lasting multiple days [1]. Having the paperwhite was amazing, because it had near-unlimited battery, and I used the 3G to buy a few books. Nearly every other portable electronic device was useless, since most phones at that time had maybe 12 hours of battery life. That event made me truly fall in love with the kindle.
At this point I usually only use my DX for reading textbook-like content where being able to have a large visual field matters.
But for the first few years I owned it, I actually used it to read nearly all of my ebooks and do a significant amount of web browsing and communication, including HN, Gmail, FB, and anything else. The e-ink + physical keyboard made it my favorite web mobile device.
Somewhere between 2012 and 2015 sites stopped working as well and I realized it was because of https requirements which the experimental browser wasn't supporting, and I stopped using it as much, and then not too long after became a less frequent user of it to read ebooks -- my iphone was always with me and almost as good for most ebook content.
Cellular can be used to buy and download books while travelling without having to connect to random WiFi APs. It could also be used for email, if you were patient enough.
I used a Kindle keybkard for a long time to read all sorts of text based websites on the experimental browser as well as sending emails. The screen Refresh times weren't good but for text stuff it was alright. At the time I had an extremely limited data plan that still cost $40/month and provided minimal data so offshoring anything to the Kindle was a benefit. I took it travelling to the us and the middle East a handful of times as well.
As the unit aged, more and more I would also leave the wireless on my DX disabled. I would turn it on when I needed it which, as you mention, has become more and more rare.
My real use-case for the DX was textbooks because the screen was large and it was easier to read code snippets. Back in the day I bought a lot of those from Manning or O'Reilly directly and then loaded them onto the DX via USB. Reading PDFs was nicer as well, but again, I loaded them over USB.
I keep mine connected to the internet so that it automatically updates my reading place because I frequently switch between reading on my phone and my kindle.
Ah man this kindof sucks. I've been buying these on ebay for ultra cheap when they inevitably break (I bring them everywhere with me).
The ability to just sync without having to think about anything, is amazing.
There used to be a dream that was ubiquitous free wifi (like water fountains), but it unfortunately never materialized. Everything requires a password, some terrible captive portal, and often a registration of some kind to use now. It's really sad.
I really miss my old, old Kindle keyboard. It was the perfect form-factor for reading fiction, and the physical page turn buttons on both sides were literally perfect - holding the Kindle in either hand, the page forward button is in exactly the spot where my thumb wants it to be.
When the last of my old Kindles with the physical buttons died, I broke down and bought an Oasis, and... it's wildly better than a modern Paperwhite or a Kindle Fire, but it's pretty shittily designed from a usability perspective. The whole thing should be as thick as the offset thick edge, in order to hold it comfortably, and while it is nice to have physical turn buttons back, they're really awkwardly placed to use if you're trying to hold the thing in one hand and use your thumb, as one does with a Kindle.
I actually quite like the buttons on the Oasis. I've had regular kindles and then the Oasis, and far prefer it in every way. I've thought about buying a new one, but they don't seem to have really changed much, so I'm still on my original Oasis.
The buttons are well-placed for me. I hold it in one hand and my thumbs naturally rest right there.
My one complaint is that the touch-screen is still active and sometimes it changes pages when my thumb moves too far in, or when I close the cover. (No idea why the latter happens. Does the cover touch the screen and cause a page flip?)
There might be a better arrangement for the buttons, but I can't imagine what it is.
Oasis is my favorite kindle next to the original. I have had many. Oasis is a great travel size. It fits anywhere. I wish they would release an updated version of the smaller one.
I have an Oasis. I kept dropping it, so I compared it with my trusty Kindle Keyboard. The KK has a texture that sticks to your fingers. The Oasis is slick. I kept dropping the Oasis like I kept dropping my slick iPhone until I bought a sticky shell for it.
I agree with the button placement. KK got it right, Oasis got it wrong.
I've only ever had a paperwhite but I've never had an issue with just moving my thumb over the screen a bit and tapping to go the next page. If it was a 50/50 split it would be and issue but it's not.
Yep. I've had buttoned eReaders like the Sony PSR-505, original Kobo and used early Kindle models. Buttons just aren't needed with the decent touch screens they have now.
Kindle keyboard is kinda bad form factor itself. You have a keyboard that's rarely ever used for the main devices purpose taking up a third of the device adding extra bulk and weight.
I have an Oasis and was confused about this cause I knew mine was not current.
Turns out I'm fine, there are 3 generations of Oasis:
The original 6" with the weird battery in the cover, then the 7", and now the 7" w/color temp adjustment
I've wanted a good excuse to get the latest one for a while but I guess this isn't it.
The 3G has never been critical for me but it's always nice enough to have that I've paid for it on various models over the last 11 years. It can save a lot of hassle when traveling, even if there's a strange Wifi network you could use. A lot of the time the security support on the Kindle has been a bit behind the times and it'd be tricky to get on some networks.
Minor nit, but the article talks about "an old-fashioned micro-USB cable". That'd be mini-USB cable for many of the oldest Kindles and Amazon stuck with that connector for far longer than most manufacturers (it's apparently prone to mechanical failure). I still have to keep one of these cables around for my old Kindles and it's a nuisance.
You get a $50 coupon towards a new model that can download your new purchases, and you'll continue to be able to access everything you've already downloaded on your old device. And you get a heads up so you have lots of time to download stuff before service ends
For anyone who doesn't have an anti-Amazon agenda, this is either a non-story or a model example of how to gracefully and professionally handle a transition away from obsolete hardware
My kindle 3 is still a workhorse. It predates the idea that physical buttons and text to speech should be premium features. With cheap replacement parts still available it may last me for decades.
Off topic but I'm hoping there'll be a new Kindle announced soon. Great device but I would love an adjustable colour temperature backlight, but not sure I want to fork out for an Oasis.
So the thing you want already exists but you're not willing to pay for it but you hope Amazon releases a new version because then you'll buy it? Do I have that right?
Originally the front light was a Paperwhite-only feature, until it was also introduced to the basic Kindle range.
It's reasonable to have the wish that color temperature might be similarly introduced to a basic model, when the other features of the basic model otherwise suffice.
Yeah sorry, this is exactly what I meant - I was hoping that feature would filter down to the base Paperwhite model. However I do now see that they offer 20% trade in off the Oasis, which makes it a bit more tempting… seems like some sites think they might release a new model this year is the only thing, but who knows really!
Back when I was younger with a limited texting plan, I got a google voice number and managed to get a used kindle keyboard with free 3g for life. Had some wonderful conversations on the kind of solution a broke teenager puts up with. I had to refresh the mobile google voice page in order to see any new messages.
It's not really Amazon's fault, I know a relative is receiving a free flip phone through AT&T because the old phone they were using doesn't have 4g LTE support. In that case I think it has to do with being able to call 911.
What actually surprises me is that they have kept backwards support through wifi for these devices, to be able to browse the kindle store. Whispersync, at least the part of it used for cloud sync between kindle and your amazon account, seems to be working too.
I have a Kindle DX with cellular only but Amazon's trade in page is only offering me $5. How do I get the $70 off a Kindle Oasis plus $25 ebook credit that the verge article mentions? I never received an email from Amazon.
I didn't get an email, so I just called them. I needed to connect with a supervisor, but then they were quite helpful and gave me the $70 credit. Wasn't able to get the ebook credit as well but whatever $70 is still a lot more than $0.
Somewhat off-topic but still wanted to share. A while ago, I realized that I am consuming so many books through Public Library service Libby in the form of Audiobooks nowadays and for a few books that I want to "read", I can just read in the Libby app itself on my phone. This saves me time in transferring an ebook to Kindle mainly but also the entire UX of Libby is just so great that I don't even feel a need to read a book on Kindle. Because of this, I have not been using either Kindle app or Kindle eReader lately and may rarely do so in the future.
That's part of why I love my android eReader. I still get all that eInky goodness but I can also just use the Libby, Kindle, Kobo, Google Play Books etc. apps all on 1 device.
I'd suggest you to give Libby a try once. All you need is to search your local library and add Card Number and PIN and that's it. No logins required and a very polished UI.
If this were a smooth process, I would agree. But a relative of mine, who is a retired computer science professor, was unable to sideload books onto his Kindle. I worked with him to troubleshoot it, and it took us nearly an hour to complete the transfer.
I've noticed devices seem to be doing away with basic computing primitives. File systems for example. Opening a file in a program should be a simple feature, but lately it seems that they deny you the opportunity to target what it is you want to open....
(yes of course it's still a file system under the hood, but it's abstracted away by a less powerful gui)
Have they changed something? It shows up in your finder/explorer as a drive like any other USB drive. You can drag and drop books into the documents folder.
If it's azw3 stuff, push it through Calibre to mobi, then drag and drop like anything else.
IIRC, it wouldn't even show up. We uninstalled/reinstalled the software on his Windows computer, wiped the device, and tried several different USB cables. It was some mix of these steps that finally got it working.
The amount global electronics waste the disablement of 2G and 3G is going to be astonishing. 15 years of perfectly working devices, rendered useless.
And no 5G is not a replacement. I can manage perfectly fine doing remote work with hangouts/zoom calls on 4G when needed and jumping to 3G/2G for calls and text. If you need security then you can jump on internet.
The 2G/3G spectrum is not open for amateur development.
5G is just for pushing more data faster down people's throats.
I mostly agree. however: the turning off 2G & 3G : will free up frequencies to reuse in 4G which is more efficient (for the carriers) and better (for the users), no ?
Theoretically it could free up frequencies to reuse with 5G as well. A better question IMHO is, will they use one of those frequencies to provide better long-range coverage?
What's up with this clickbait title? Older kindles can absolutely maintain their internet connection, just not through 3G as 3G is being switched off entirely.
It's not THAT clickbaity. The oldest Kindles do not have WiFi at all. Only cellular. So for Kindle 1s,2s and DXs they won't have internet connections at all.
Just to be clear, it really only matters for downloading books from Amazon which is why this discount Amazon is providing makes more sense for those kindles without wifi and while it technically is a breach of "lifetime" data. The web browser in my Kindle 3rd gen hasn't worked properly with https authentication for years. But the kindle model is almost the same as a game console model, you make back the money on underpriced device from people buying into the Amazon ebook and Audible audiobook ecosystem.
That's also why there's been no big rush for competition until pretty recently, with e-ink Android tablets and Kobo becoming more competitive in general.
Not to mention the patent hell around eink display technology itself, which thankfully has also slowly gotten some momentum.
This is a good deal for people who haven't upgraded yet and were looking for a new kindle but for those looking for control over their device, I recommend Kobo instead.
You're basically given root access by default. And Kobo is priced competitively. I have a kobo glo hd that's great, wish it had a slightly bigger screen. I can recommend the forma. Kobo even has dropbox support and epub support.
Kindles don't natively support epub. A jailbroken kindle with koreader is required to open up epub, or converting epub to mobi which changes the formatting sometimes.
Android based e-ink tablets don't have the proper processing power to make it feel like a real tablet so you might be left disappointed, like no proper multiple apps running at the same time. I just returned a LikeBook P78. Onyx Boox seems out of budget and there have been other controversies posted here about gpl violations.
Regardless of what ereader you have, I would strongly recommend setting up calibre. Mobileread forums is where a lot of the dev work is shared on jailbreaking basically all ereaders.
> Not to mention the patent hell around eink display technology itself, which thankfully has also slowly gotten some competition.
I work in the display industry. I've never heard about a "patent hell around eink display technology" from colleagues, coworkers or even gossip at conferences. I've only seen it on HN, which then got picked up by Boing Boing and then blogs and then comments on HN which referenced those blogs. Surely, if this patent hell was true we would have heard about it. Could you elaborate on your claim and if you experienced this patent hell and which patent or patents you are referring to? Please see my comment history to see why I keep asking about this. Hopefully this time I can get a positive data point where I can learn something unlike what I got the last time I tried to ask about this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27980391
I'm curious if this is just normal supply and demand or something else too. I have never been able to get an eink screen at any cost approaching the Kindle - continually, everywhere, the cheapest way to get started with eink is to jailbreak a kindle and just load your own images onto it.
A 7" b&w non-backlit eink display would cost several times over that of a 5-6" kindle, which doesn't even account for the wireless chips, display board controller, or anything else, even for a loss leader.
> I have never been able to get an eink screen at any cost approaching the Kindle - continually, everywhere, the cheapest way to get started with eink is to jailbreak a kindle and just load your own images onto it.
That's true because of volume. I would never expect to be able to get a raw panel in volumes of under 10,000 units directly from a tier 1 supplier, I'd have to get it from a distributor and they'll mark up based on the volume of that specific model. If I wanted a 32" OLED display, the cheapest way for me to get it would be to buy a OLED TV and then extract the panel. If I tried to ask Samsung Displays Inc, they'd be laughing me out of the building. For niche or exotic low volume displays, the markup the distributor would apply would be large since they're holding stock for a long time. And yes, displays do go bad in storage because of accidents, soaking, wetting/corrision due to condensation, improper storage.
> A 7" b&w non-backlit eink display would cost several times over that of a 5-6" kindle, which doesn't even account for the wireless chips, display board controller, or anything else, even for a loss leader.
That doesn't sound right, how do you actually know the costs ad loss leader subsidy? But anyway my original question was about this so called eink patent hell that HN commentors keep talking about.
Another major set of products facing this same predicament are home security systems with cellular backup modems. Quite a few of them were deployed with 3G modules that will be useless after this year, requiring mass module replacements.
I know multiple people that bought it here in the EU, just to use the experimental browser while on vacation. Worked basically world wide (albeit slow), and at the time roaming charges even within EU was insanely high.
The free cellular was really nice back when roaming charges outside of the US were crazy high. Checked my gmail occasionally with the experimental browser from Mexico for free. Though the screen lag was pretty bad.
I got email from Amazon about the $70 off. I have 3rd Generation, bought directly from amazon.com back then.
But according to the Terms: "Offer only valid for invited Amazon customers located in the U.S. who have received this offer directly from Amazon through email."
I don't live in the US and amazon.com refuses to send it to my home address in Europe, but my regional Amazon doesn't accept the promotional code. Bummer.
"To thank you for being one of our earliest customers, we’d like to offer you a promotion code..." Yeah right, a middle finger to you as well.
People are going to go back and very closely parse what was promised. It was billed as being "Free Lifetime 3G". Are owners of these devices entitled to a buy out?
But Amazon isn't changing anything - and in fact since Kindles 3G have global roaming, I imagine they will continue to work in countries that still have 3G.
Depends on how old of a unit you have. I have a 3rd Gen, and was offered $70 off a new Kindle (paperwhite or oasis) and $25 in Kindle credits. (I'm not sure the last time that I used whispernet, but I did see use when visiting relatives. Not sure I am going to pay for that privileged again.)
Some that had a 1st gen have been offered a free Oasis and cover.
I just tried the "Experimental" browser on my Kindle Keyboard and DX. It won't connect to many sites, with an error message about being unable to establish a secure connection. I presume it's because the migration to https left them behind.
Unfortunately, Amazon has provided no updates to address this. The DX cannot connect to Amazon update because it can't establish a secure connection.
FYI, If you had a 3g kindle registered and all the Amazon stuff worked to get you an email with a coupon code, those work on the used kindles too (at least the targetted models). If you got a $70 code, that totally covers a used current gen paperwhite (with ads). For me, I bought a (used) Kindle Keyboard with 3g after I broke a newer one and it was the same price as one without 3g, so why not... and now a bonus.
I always suspected this day would come for my 2nd gen Kindle. I still remember getting it over a decade ago and feeling that there was something magical about having content delivered to it wirelessly. Now that smartphones and smart devices are ubiquitous it seems mundane, but at the time it was amazing.
Well, presumably in your country 2G and/or 3G still works.
At least here in Finland, while 3G shutdowns are planned by most major carriers, 2G shutdown is probably at least a decade away - the 2G network has slightly better coverage in some rural regions, and there are a lot of M2M 2G data users (like electricity meters - those installed over 10 years ago generally use 2G, which is the majority of electricity meters overall).
Large books will take some time to download over 2G, though...
I absolutely love Kindle Keyboard, in fact, even more than my Kindle Oasis. Luckily, it has WiFi. But if needed, I rather use cable to transfer content than give it up. Hoping one day we will have another non-touch screen Kindle.
I have an impacted Voyage and did not receive the message either. Perhaps they only notified customers that use 3G? I always have mine connected to WiFi to extend battery life.
I've got a couple of Kindles that aren't old enough for that deal. I've ended up with them in a drawer, only using the Kindle app on my phone. The number of times I've wanted to read while out in the sun just hasn't been enough to bother with.
"I'm happy with my Kindle 2 so far, but if they cut off the free Wikipedia browsing, I plan to show up drunk on Jeff Bezos's lawn and refuse to leave."
You had to click through a few menus to use it, but yes (I think it was called “experimental web browser” or something). Worked internationally too, I used it to look up some stuff when I was on vacation in Turkey in 2010.
Their experimental web browser was the only reason I kept mine...
Free web browsing when international + e-mail access through gmail. The proxy used to be able to get you through the Great Firewall of China...but that stopped after some years.
Everything passed via an http proxy, with a key that could be easily extracted from the Kindle via SSH.
The SIM worked globally - I'd used it in China, Iran, Iraq, etc - all sorts of places that normally are not covered by providers.
At some point others must have abused the system, because the unlimited data got capped to 150MB a month, but in a pinch, it was an incredible tool.
Ditto with first generation Lime scooters that had unlocked global twillio SIMs ...