Right here’s one thing that’s going to set off some conspiracy theories. As individuals are getting the new Kindles that have been launched final week, they’re discovering out that the brand new fashions are mysteriously lacking the obtain and switch through USB choice for bought ebooks from the content material web page at Amazon.
So now individuals are leaping to the conclusion that Amazon is within the technique of phasing out the obtain and switch choice fully shifting ahead, and that may very nicely be the case.
Contemplating the brand new Kindles have been simply launched 4 days in the past, it might additionally simply be a glitch or a bug that must be fastened. However there are some indicators that they have been deliberately omitted from the obtain and switch record.
First off, the brand new Kindles do present up on the “ship to” record, which is actually the identical generated record on the identical web page because the switch through USB choice.
There’s additionally the truth that the “new” primary Kindle isn’t actually new, not within the typical sense. Amazon nonetheless lists it as an eleventh gen mannequin, the identical because the 2022 Kindle, and it nonetheless makes use of the identical ID quantity, so so far as Amazon’s system is worried it’s the identical Kindle. It simply has some minor {hardware} revisions, together with a brand new display screen, and it does look higher so a minimum of there’s that. However the truth is the 2022 eleventh gen Kindle reveals up on the record and the 2024 eleventh gen Kindle doesn’t.
I’ve each the new Kindle for 2024 and a new Kindle Paperwhite 6, and I can affirm that neither are displaying up on the record of gadgets to obtain and switch ebooks through USB.
Granted, this isn’t going to have an effect on that overwhelming majority of Kindle customers, however there’s a subset of those that prefer to obtain their bought ebooks to make backups and to take away the DRM to learn the ebooks on different non-Kindle gadgets.
If Amazon phases out the obtain and switch choice, it’s going to create issues for people who like to do this. Amazon already made it tougher to obtain books utilizing the Kindle for PC app final 12 months to dissuade individuals from backing up their bought ebooks, and so they additionally eliminated the obtain choice for Kindle Limitless books final 12 months.
From Amazon’s perspective, I can see why they’d wish to remove the obtain and switch choice altogether, nevertheless it’s going to tick off lots of people in the event that they do it.
The obtain and switch choice goes manner again to the early days of Kindles when web entry wasn’t as widespread and WiFi wasn’t obtainable nearly in all places. Individuals with out WiFi or a dependable web connection wanted a strategy to obtain and switch bought ebooks to Kindles utilizing a USB cable.
Now most individuals simply obtain their bought ebooks over WiFi and don’t ever use the obtain and switch choice, however for people who do it’s going to trigger some issues if Amazon is certainly eradicating that choice on newer Kindles, and it additionally creates extra of a walled backyard the place individuals can’t take their bought ebooks and depart for an additional platform.
To date older Kindles nonetheless have the obtain and switch choice so it’s solely a problem with the new Kindles. Hopefully it’s only a glitch that may get fastened quickly, however at this level it seems to be like an meant change for the way forward for Kindles.
