19 ms·

Amazon Kindles with 3G will start to lose cellular network access in December

321 points by theduder99 5y ago

pgrote 5y ago
This is for cellular connections. "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."
- floatboth 5y ago
  Huh, they made cellular-only models? That's such a bizzare idea.
  - michaelbuckbee 5y ago
    At the time it was pretty clever as WiFi wasn't as ubiquitous and the bandwidth used by them was so low.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    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.
    - sumtechguy 5y ago
      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'.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        >So many times it was 'go stand at the end of your driveway and try'. Like my dad's house in Maine today :-) In the early years of the iPhone in the US, there was--including on this site I imagine--much wailing and gnashing of teeth over AT&T's coverage.
        sumtechguy 5y ago
        Think with early kindle it was altel and sprint. Verizon buying altel fixed a lot of that issue. But there were still gaps.
      - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
        ...how were they calling you if they had no cell service?
        sumtechguy 5y ago
        Good question! We had the same one. They had a satellite phone. edit: What I find interesting is that the things had location tracking built in and no one blinked an eye.
  - hellotomyrars 5y ago
    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.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      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.
  - jhbadger 5y ago
    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.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      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.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        I don't think a Kindle would need broadband, though there probably weren't all that many dial-up connections plugged into wifi routers.
        ghaff 5y ago
        Right. You don't need the bandwidth. But while it's presumably possible, also presumably almost no home users had WiFi before they got broadband.
        tomjen3 5y ago
        We didn't but we did have a LAN. That was probably a special case though.
    - Nition 5y ago
      You could also plug it in via USB if you needed to transfer data another way.
  - ssully 5y ago
    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.
  - filmgirlcw 5y ago
    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.
  - Cd00d 5y ago
    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!
  - dade_ 5y ago
    Though the article mentions that USB also still works. Complete non-story, except they are offering a great upgrade promo.
- vessel 5y ago
  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"
  - eli 5y ago
    Also really buried the fact that you are eligible for a free upgrade to a new Kindle
    - echelon 5y ago
      It's not free? You get a $50 coupon.
      - eli 5y ago
        Depends which model I guess
      - prophesi 5y ago
        From the article: 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.
        filmgirlcw 5y ago
        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.
        vbsteven 5y ago
        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.
WalterBright 5y ago
I have a couple Kindle Keyboards and a DX. I wish Amazon would re-release them with a high res screen and updated electronics. No other changes. I've tried the newer Kindles, and keep going back to the KK and DX. Well, I would make one change. Have the last page read be the screen display when off instead of those boring and useless pictures it shows.
- flatiron 5y ago
  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.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  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.
- flakiness 5y ago
  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.
- wwweston 5y ago
  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.
thrower123 5y ago
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.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  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.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Also on Oasis for same reason. I do wonder when there will be significant improvements or if it's all going towards ipad land etc.
    - fumar 5y ago
      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.
  - majormajor 5y ago
mrfusion 5y ago
When those came out we thought it was free forever :-( https://xkcd.com/548/ https://xkcd.com/548/
- wccrawford 5y ago
  Yeah, that was before they started turning off networks like analog TV and stuff, so we didn't think much about that functionality just disappearing.
- andrewguenther 5y ago
  I mean, free for as long as the cellular infrastructure exists is still pretty damn good
- lozenge 5y ago
  It didn't actually let you browse websites, did it? The one I had would only load the Amazon store and download books.
  - ok123456 5y ago
    The 3rd generation at least had an 'experimental' web browser that let you go wherever you wanted.
    - BostonEnginerd 5y ago
      The 2007 Kindle also had a basic web browser.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    As I recall, browsing was an "experimental" feature (I had a second gen I think?) and it was nearly unusable for most purposes.
    - striking 5y ago
      It was good enough for Slashdot on the beach, so it was enough for me.
tomduncalf 5y ago
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.
- mttjj 5y ago
  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?
  - heurisko 5y ago
    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.
    - tomduncalf 5y ago
      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!
ok123456 5y ago
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?
- edoceo 5y ago
  *for the life of 3G, not the life of the customer.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    It’s kind of hard to blame Amazon for cell carriers shutting down 2G/3G service.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gambiting 5y ago
  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.
- rchaud 5y ago
  They get a $50 coupon for a new Kindle, according to the story.
- asciimov 5y ago
  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.
NelsonMinar 5y ago
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.
- franciscop 5y ago
  Rumors of a "new Kindle with USB-C" have been going around for years. Hopefully this year is the year.
WalterBright 5y ago
> according to an email sent to customers on Wednesday ... check your email for a promo code I have 7 or 8 Kindles, and Amazon sends me email all the time. But not this one.
- okamiueru 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, are any of them affected models?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Most of them are affected, like my precious DX.
    - Terretta 5y ago
      DX owner, active, no email.
- mdavidn 5y ago
  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.
- impute 5y ago
  I'm the owner of a 3rd gen with 3G but haven't received an email either. Wow, it was 10 years ago this month I bought it.
  - asciimov 5y ago
    I have the same 3rd gen. I got my $70 offer emailed to me late last night. Maybe they are slowly rolling out emails.
gambiting 5y ago
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.
- trutannus 5y ago
  This is The Verge, the same place that offered an infamously bad build-a-pc tutorial. I'd hardly consider them credible technology journalism.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  It's significant enough that Amazon is offering trade-ins despite these devices being wi-fi capable.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Older Kindle devices didn't have Wi-Fi by default, only cellular 2G/3G. Wi-Fi was a paid upgrade.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  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.
ismaildonmez 5y ago
Amazon is sending brand-new Kindles to replace the affected devices: https://i.imgur.com/NiRn1a9.jpg https://i.imgur.com/NiRn1a9.jpg
- xeromal 5y ago
  That looks like above and beyond customer service to me.
  - dnzkw 5y ago
    I wouldn't expect less of Amazon - that's why they are where they are.
    - xeromal 5y ago
      100%. They definitely take customer service seriously.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Except when it comes to providing a filter on their website to only show products sold by Amazon. Or not commingling inventory.
        queuebert 5y ago
        Or filtering out scummy sellers at least. What happened to Cliff Stoll was awful.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Him and many thousands of others, who don't have much visibility here.
        5y ago
matsemann 5y ago
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.
maerF0x0 5y ago
> the only way to get new content onto your device will be through an old-fashioned micro-USB cable. This makes it a non story. The device is old, you can still download things and get them on the device. Moving along.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  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.
  - maerF0x0 5y ago
    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)
  - mabub24 5y ago
    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.
    - gnicholas 5y ago
      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.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
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
- teruakohatu 5y ago
  The a cover for the new model costs $30. I don't think it is particularly generous offer.
tyingq 5y ago
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.
OnionBlender 5y ago
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.
- Anther 5y ago
  I’d give them a call. Their customer service is amazing with things like this.
- wwweston 5y ago
  Fellow cel-only DX owner, also haven't received an email.
- andrewsouthpaw 5y ago
  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.
mikestew 5y ago
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.
- pradn 5y ago
  It seems like practically anything car companies do that's not the actual car itself is usually bad unless you pay for the superpremium brands.
  - lupire 5y ago
    $250 one-time upgrade is better than the price premium and all the upcharges for regular service on a luxury car.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  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.
- don-code 5y ago
  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.
gordon_freeman 5y ago
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.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  I’ve never been able to get public library apps to work. I’ve tried two or three.
  - gordon_freeman 5y ago
    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.
    - jeromegv 5y ago
      Libby is indeed an amazing app. Surprising how it came from the same company that created Overdrive, which is an awful app.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  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.
Foobar8568 5y ago
Well as an European who bought the kindle keyboard back in 2011, I received nothing :(
- AnssiH 5y ago
  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...
kweks 5y ago
Now that it's closing, it seems safe to reveal - the SIM cards from these kindles made for the best emergency data SIM that money could (not) buy. 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 ...
- jackson1442 5y ago
  It seems Barnacle made the same mistake: https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnacle-parking-boot-skip-fines-and-get-free-internet https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnac...
- mabbo 5y ago
  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.
  - kweks 5y ago
    I can't even begin to imagine the bills that were racked up via this and others (like the Lime SIMs).. For the Lime SIMs, there was a day when the pipe was turned off - I can imagine it was the day someone looked into their twillio billing in detail..
    - simonebrunozzi 5y ago
      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.
  - 5y ago
deanCommie 5y ago
Actual headline that would get less clicks from the Amazon-hate-train: "Amazon sending free kindle upgrades to customers affected by carriers removing 3G network access"
- Johnie 5y ago
  Why not both? Write two exact articles with the different headlines to capture two separate customer demographic.
- mjparrott 5y ago
  But how am I supposed to get mad at that headline?!
- SoylentOrange 5y ago
  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.
  - lupire 5y ago
    your paperwhite still has wifi, though, doesn't it?
    - ipsum2 5y ago
      The DX doesn't have wifi and Amazon is not replacing it.
BooneJS 5y ago
I have a 1st gen kindle but haven’t used it in ages after I got a paperwhite. It can be traded in for a free Oasis? Woa.
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  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.
trey-jones 5y ago
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.
- rhplus 5y ago
  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.
- mjparrott 5y ago
  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.
  - acjohnson55 5y ago
    Yep, same here. It helped me out in a pinch many times, even though that browser was excruciatingly slow.
    - fouc 5y ago
      This, that browser was excruciatingly slow! It was great for when I was at the airport and I found out I needed to buy an onward ticket to appease the airline. Ultimately the lack of a backlight made me sell it off within a year.
- cmiles74 5y ago
  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.
ben7799 5y ago
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.
blhack 5y ago
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. These things just work. I'll miss that.
- awiesenhofer 5y ago
  while not as ultra cheap by a long shot, this isn't the end of celluar kindles though, Amazon still sells 4g kindles
blantonl 5y ago
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.
WalterBright 5y ago
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.
reflexe 5y ago
Alternative title: "3g is old and going away" What a crappy clickbait.
patwolf 5y ago
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.
hiidrew 5y ago
paperwhite original kindle + library genesis + calibre = a happy reader
guidoism 5y ago
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.
43920 5y ago
For the old Kindles, this’ll be close to 15 years of usability, which is really good. However the list also includes a bunch of newer models: > Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation), Kindle Touch (4th generation), Kindle Paperwhite (4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th generation), Kindle Voyage (7th generation), and Kindle Oasis (8th generation) 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. [1] https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2018/11/09/kindle-paperwhite-4-vs-kindle-paperwhite-3-comparison-review-video/ https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2018/11/09/kindle-paperwhi...
- NelsonMinar 5y ago
  You think 15 years is good you should see the lifetime of books. Some work for hundreds of years!
  - 43920 5y ago
    Well, yes, that is true :)
  - cromka 5y ago
    > Some work for hundreds of years! Yeah, but you don't really have access to them!
    - biofox 5y ago
      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.
    - hansel_der 5y ago
      why not? most libraries even mail them to you
  - 5y ago
knaik94 5y ago
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.
amerkhalid 5y ago
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.
Causality1 5y ago
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.
fortran77 5y ago
Well, this is because 3G is going away.
chx 5y ago
How hard is it create a microcell which translates from 2G/3G to 4G?
toast0 5y ago
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.
ashneo76 5y ago
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. The only got feature out of 5G will be open RAN. Another form of manufactured obsolescence.
- tsjq 5y ago
  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 ?
  - Avamander 5y ago
    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?
    - tsjq 5y ago
      providing long range coverage might not be in the best interests of the service providers' pockets. might prefer to use fiber backhaul for long range.
shimonabi 5y ago
Sad to hear. I have a Kindle DX Graphite (Int). I haven't bought that many books anyway in the last 10 years. I mainly use it to read PDFs with the non-official PDF reader.
wojciechpolak 5y ago
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.
ibdf 5y ago
Why pick on Amazon? The networks are being upgraded… so any devices on 3G networks would have this issue, no?
mtekman 5y ago
I'm actually working on a project to revive Amazon Kindles as personal productivity devices. I'm very close to release, and will open the source soon
knaik94 5y ago
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.
- robinsoh 5y ago
  > 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27980391

321 points by theduder99 5y ago

This is for cellular connections. "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."

floatboth 5y ago
Huh, they made cellular-only models? That's such a bizzare idea.
- michaelbuckbee 5y ago
  At the time it was pretty clever as WiFi wasn't as ubiquitous and the bandwidth used by them was so low.
- ghaff 5y ago
  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.
  - sumtechguy 5y ago
    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'.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      >So many times it was 'go stand at the end of your driveway and try'. Like my dad's house in Maine today :-) In the early years of the iPhone in the US, there was--including on this site I imagine--much wailing and gnashing of teeth over AT&T's coverage.
      - sumtechguy 5y ago
        Think with early kindle it was altel and sprint. Verizon buying altel fixed a lot of that issue. But there were still gaps.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      ...how were they calling you if they had no cell service?
      - sumtechguy 5y ago
        Good question! We had the same one. They had a satellite phone. edit: What I find interesting is that the things had location tracking built in and no one blinked an eye.
- hellotomyrars 5y ago
  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.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    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.
- jhbadger 5y ago
  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.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    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.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      I don't think a Kindle would need broadband, though there probably weren't all that many dial-up connections plugged into wifi routers.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        Right. You don't need the bandwidth. But while it's presumably possible, also presumably almost no home users had WiFi before they got broadband.
        tomjen3 5y ago
        We didn't but we did have a LAN. That was probably a special case though.
  - Nition 5y ago
    You could also plug it in via USB if you needed to transfer data another way.
- ssully 5y ago
  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.
- filmgirlcw 5y ago
  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.
- Cd00d 5y ago
  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!
- dade_ 5y ago
  Though the article mentions that USB also still works. Complete non-story, except they are offering a great upgrade promo.
vessel 5y ago
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"
- eli 5y ago
  Also really buried the fact that you are eligible for a free upgrade to a new Kindle
  - echelon 5y ago
    It's not free? You get a $50 coupon.
    - eli 5y ago
      Depends which model I guess
    - prophesi 5y ago
      From the article: 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.
      - filmgirlcw 5y ago
        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.
      - vbsteven 5y ago
        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.

WalterBright 5y ago

I have a couple Kindle Keyboards and a DX. I wish Amazon would re-release them with a high res screen and updated electronics. No other changes. I've tried the newer Kindles, and keep going back to the KK and DX. Well, I would make one change. Have the last page read be the screen display when off instead of those boring and useless pictures it shows.

flatiron 5y ago
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.
nicoburns 5y ago
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.
flakiness 5y ago
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.
wwweston 5y ago
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.

thrower123 5y ago

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.

wccrawford 5y ago
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.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Also on Oasis for same reason. I do wonder when there will be significant improvements or if it's all going towards ipad land etc.
  - fumar 5y ago
    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.
- majormajor 5y ago

mrfusion 5y ago

When those came out we thought it was free forever :-( https://xkcd.com/548/ https://xkcd.com/548/

wccrawford 5y ago
Yeah, that was before they started turning off networks like analog TV and stuff, so we didn't think much about that functionality just disappearing.
andrewguenther 5y ago
I mean, free for as long as the cellular infrastructure exists is still pretty damn good
lozenge 5y ago
It didn't actually let you browse websites, did it? The one I had would only load the Amazon store and download books.
- ok123456 5y ago
  The 3rd generation at least had an 'experimental' web browser that let you go wherever you wanted.
  - BostonEnginerd 5y ago
    The 2007 Kindle also had a basic web browser.
- ghaff 5y ago
  As I recall, browsing was an "experimental" feature (I had a second gen I think?) and it was nearly unusable for most purposes.
  - striking 5y ago
    It was good enough for Slashdot on the beach, so it was enough for me.

tomduncalf 5y ago

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.

mttjj 5y ago
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?
- heurisko 5y ago
  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.
  - tomduncalf 5y ago
    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!

ok123456 5y ago

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?

edoceo 5y ago
*for the life of 3G, not the life of the customer.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  It’s kind of hard to blame Amazon for cell carriers shutting down 2G/3G service.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gambiting 5y ago
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.
rchaud 5y ago
They get a $50 coupon for a new Kindle, according to the story.
asciimov 5y ago
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.

NelsonMinar 5y ago

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.

franciscop 5y ago
Rumors of a "new Kindle with USB-C" have been going around for years. Hopefully this year is the year.

WalterBright 5y ago

> according to an email sent to customers on Wednesday ... check your email for a promo code I have 7 or 8 Kindles, and Amazon sends me email all the time. But not this one.

okamiueru 5y ago
Out of curiosity, are any of them affected models?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Most of them are affected, like my precious DX.
  - Terretta 5y ago
    DX owner, active, no email.
mdavidn 5y ago
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.
impute 5y ago
I'm the owner of a 3rd gen with 3G but haven't received an email either. Wow, it was 10 years ago this month I bought it.
- asciimov 5y ago
  I have the same 3rd gen. I got my $70 offer emailed to me late last night. Maybe they are slowly rolling out emails.

gambiting 5y ago

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.

trutannus 5y ago
This is The Verge, the same place that offered an infamously bad build-a-pc tutorial. I'd hardly consider them credible technology journalism.
Apocryphon 5y ago
It's significant enough that Amazon is offering trade-ins despite these devices being wi-fi capable.
frosted-flakes 5y ago
Older Kindle devices didn't have Wi-Fi by default, only cellular 2G/3G. Wi-Fi was a paid upgrade.
salamandersauce 5y ago
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.

ismaildonmez 5y ago

Amazon is sending brand-new Kindles to replace the affected devices: https://i.imgur.com/NiRn1a9.jpg https://i.imgur.com/NiRn1a9.jpg

xeromal 5y ago
That looks like above and beyond customer service to me.
- dnzkw 5y ago
  I wouldn't expect less of Amazon - that's why they are where they are.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    100%. They definitely take customer service seriously.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Except when it comes to providing a filter on their website to only show products sold by Amazon. Or not commingling inventory.
      - queuebert 5y ago
        Or filtering out scummy sellers at least. What happened to Cliff Stoll was awful.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Him and many thousands of others, who don't have much visibility here.
        5y ago

matsemann 5y ago

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.

maerF0x0 5y ago

> the only way to get new content onto your device will be through an old-fashioned micro-USB cable. This makes it a non story. The device is old, you can still download things and get them on the device. Moving along.

gnicholas 5y ago
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.
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  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)
- mabub24 5y ago
  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.
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    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.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

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

teruakohatu 5y ago
The a cover for the new model costs $30. I don't think it is particularly generous offer.

tyingq 5y ago

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.

OnionBlender 5y ago

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.

Anther 5y ago
I’d give them a call. Their customer service is amazing with things like this.
wwweston 5y ago
Fellow cel-only DX owner, also haven't received an email.
andrewsouthpaw 5y ago
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.

mikestew 5y ago

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.

pradn 5y ago
It seems like practically anything car companies do that's not the actual car itself is usually bad unless you pay for the superpremium brands.
- lupire 5y ago
  $250 one-time upgrade is better than the price premium and all the upcharges for regular service on a luxury car.
kwhitefoot 5y ago
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.
don-code 5y ago
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.

gordon_freeman 5y ago

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.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
I’ve never been able to get public library apps to work. I’ve tried two or three.
- gordon_freeman 5y ago
  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.
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    Libby is indeed an amazing app. Surprising how it came from the same company that created Overdrive, which is an awful app.
salamandersauce 5y ago
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.

Foobar8568 5y ago

Well as an European who bought the kindle keyboard back in 2011, I received nothing :(

AnssiH 5y ago
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...

kweks 5y ago

Now that it's closing, it seems safe to reveal - the SIM cards from these kindles made for the best emergency data SIM that money could (not) buy. 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 ...

jackson1442 5y ago
It seems Barnacle made the same mistake: https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnacle-parking-boot-skip-fines-and-get-free-internet https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnac...
mabbo 5y ago
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.
- kweks 5y ago
  I can't even begin to imagine the bills that were racked up via this and others (like the Lime SIMs).. For the Lime SIMs, there was a day when the pipe was turned off - I can imagine it was the day someone looked into their twillio billing in detail..
  - simonebrunozzi 5y ago
    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.
- 5y ago

deanCommie 5y ago

Actual headline that would get less clicks from the Amazon-hate-train: "Amazon sending free kindle upgrades to customers affected by carriers removing 3G network access"

Johnie 5y ago
Why not both? Write two exact articles with the different headlines to capture two separate customer demographic.
mjparrott 5y ago
But how am I supposed to get mad at that headline?!
SoylentOrange 5y ago
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.
- lupire 5y ago
  your paperwhite still has wifi, though, doesn't it?
  - ipsum2 5y ago
    The DX doesn't have wifi and Amazon is not replacing it.

BooneJS 5y ago

I have a 1st gen kindle but haven’t used it in ages after I got a paperwhite. It can be traded in for a free Oasis? Woa.

LorenPechtel 5y ago
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.

trey-jones 5y ago

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.

rhplus 5y ago
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.
mjparrott 5y ago
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.
- acjohnson55 5y ago
  Yep, same here. It helped me out in a pinch many times, even though that browser was excruciatingly slow.
  - fouc 5y ago
    This, that browser was excruciatingly slow! It was great for when I was at the airport and I found out I needed to buy an onward ticket to appease the airline. Ultimately the lack of a backlight made me sell it off within a year.
cmiles74 5y ago
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.

ben7799 5y ago

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.

blhack 5y ago

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. These things just work. I'll miss that.

awiesenhofer 5y ago
while not as ultra cheap by a long shot, this isn't the end of celluar kindles though, Amazon still sells 4g kindles

blantonl 5y ago

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.

WalterBright 5y ago

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.

reflexe 5y ago

Alternative title: "3g is old and going away" What a crappy clickbait.

patwolf 5y ago

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.

hiidrew 5y ago

paperwhite original kindle + library genesis + calibre = a happy reader

guidoism 5y ago

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.

43920 5y ago

For the old Kindles, this’ll be close to 15 years of usability, which is really good. However the list also includes a bunch of newer models: > Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation), Kindle Touch (4th generation), Kindle Paperwhite (4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th generation), Kindle Voyage (7th generation), and Kindle Oasis (8th generation) 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. [1] https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2018/11/09/kindle-paperwhite-4-vs-kindle-paperwhite-3-comparison-review-video/ https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2018/11/09/kindle-paperwhi...

NelsonMinar 5y ago
You think 15 years is good you should see the lifetime of books. Some work for hundreds of years!
- 43920 5y ago
  Well, yes, that is true :)
- cromka 5y ago
  > Some work for hundreds of years! Yeah, but you don't really have access to them!
  - biofox 5y ago
    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.
  - hansel_der 5y ago
    why not? most libraries even mail them to you
- 5y ago

knaik94 5y ago

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.

amerkhalid 5y ago

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.

Causality1 5y ago

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.

fortran77 5y ago

Well, this is because 3G is going away.

chx 5y ago

How hard is it create a microcell which translates from 2G/3G to 4G?

toast0 5y ago

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.

ashneo76 5y ago

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. The only got feature out of 5G will be open RAN. Another form of manufactured obsolescence.

tsjq 5y ago
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 ?
- Avamander 5y ago
  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?
  - tsjq 5y ago
    providing long range coverage might not be in the best interests of the service providers' pockets. might prefer to use fiber backhaul for long range.

shimonabi 5y ago

Sad to hear. I have a Kindle DX Graphite (Int). I haven't bought that many books anyway in the last 10 years. I mainly use it to read PDFs with the non-official PDF reader.

wojciechpolak 5y ago

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.

ibdf 5y ago

Why pick on Amazon? The networks are being upgraded… so any devices on 3G networks would have this issue, no?

mtekman 5y ago

I'm actually working on a project to revive Amazon Kindles as personal productivity devices. I'm very close to release, and will open the source soon

knaik94 5y ago

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.

robinsoh 5y ago
> 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27980391