EduKindle

In a surprise update (a surprise to me, anyway), Amazon announced improvements to the firmware of the Kindle 2 yesterday. Thanks to Teleread, Len Edgerly, and the KnuckleHeadNetwork, I learned about the improvements in great detail.

For an educator, this upgrade is a win. First, the K2 will now support PDF files directly, without conversion. On top of that, Amazon is offering a PDF conversion via email that will make the text reflowable. Interested to hear what people who have tried that think.

Second, the battery life has been extended. Since the same battery is in the device, the software must manage the connection to the Whispernet better in some way. I have to say by manner of recantation that my whining about the departure of the exterior Whispernet switch in an earlier post was wrong. The battery management on my DX has only gotten better and better, and this update promises even more.

Finally, the firmware update apparently enables manual control of the page orientation on the K2, a must-have feature for the reading of PDFs and the viewing of images. Even with the zoom and the landscape orientation, the Kindle resolution still isn’t good enough for the detailed illustrations from, say, an AP Biology textbook. But it’s getting there…

I knew something was up when I got up this morning and saw Ralph Ellison staring at me from my sleeping Kindle DX. Just a little extra touch from the Kindle folks, and a nice one at that.

Now that I have been using my Kindle DX for a couple of weeks, I have some observations. First, all of the menu-driven controls that I criticized a little bit in assessing the changes from kindle 1 to Kindle 2 are not as problematic as I thought. Switching the wifi on and off is pretty easy, and, as long as I make the assumption that the thing is on when the machine is asleep or off (and I can’t see the indicator), not a difficult to deal with as I thought. Also, the battery life is better, so leaving the wifi on doesn’t kill the machine as quickly as it does on my Kindle 1. All good. And I do have to say that since getting the DX, my Kindle 1 has pretty much stayed put in my bag.

As I look at the DX, I think that its fate will be one of the following:

1. The DX will be known in the long run as the Kindle, and people will ask, “Wasn’t there another, smaller version of the Kindle before this one?” (Yes, it doesn’t fit in a handbag the way the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2 fit in a handbag, but given the size of the handbags carried by my wife and daughter, the DX will fit in a lot of handbags just fine.)

OR

2. The DX will be overwhelmed by the flood of newer, bigger machines from other manufacturers in the next 18 months, and people will wonder about that funny machine that Amazon used to produce that was too big to be really convenient, too expensive to be adopted en masse, and not quite functional enough to read a magazine or newspaper on. (And isn’t that the one with no color?)

Somehow, I think it will be one or the other: the standard for ereading devices, or a footnote in the development of ereaders, an historical oddity. Whichever it is, the machine I have in my hands right now is pretty cool!

There is another way in which Amazon is “veering away from supporting educational uses.” The Kindle 2 actually makes it harder to manage the settings of the device. How? Most importantly, the Kindle 2 pushes the wifi “on/off” setting into a menu and removes the button from the exterior of the device. Stylish, yes. Helpful, no.

OK, I am an admitted battery life freak. So maybe I am overreacting to the fact that I would have to open up a menu on the device to toggle the wifi on and off. And I also admit that my whining on this topic sounds remarkably like the whining about “new new” things that I deplore when others do it. BUT, this innovation of removing the wifi switch from the exterior of the device encourages the user to keep the wifi ON (all the easier to buy books with, my dear).

For me, I watch that switch on the back of my Kindle 1 like a hawk, and even audibly sigh when I notice that I left the darned thing on for hours without realizing it. Because of that switch, I can check and adjust the wifi setting when the Kindle is 1) in display mode, 2) off, and 3) in sleep mode. The user of the Kindle 2 can perform that check when the Kindle is 1) in display mode, 2) um, oh yeah, that’s it.

Now one of the great advantages of my Kindle over my iPhone is battery life. A key feature that gives the Kindle (and other e-ink readers) promise in the educational space is the low power requirement. That advantage is eroded by anything that fails to optimize power management. Clearly, the Kindle 2 makes it harder to manage battery life. (Plus, I’m thinking that 3G network chews power even more than the old-style Whispernet, even if I stipulate that the Kindle 2 has better battery life than the Kindle 1.)

Next: Why Educators Should Mourn the Departure of the SD Chip Slot from the Kindle 2

So what, you ask, is the difference between Kindle software Release 1.04 and 1.08? Apparently, less that you’d think. According to the Kindle Help page, “There is no difference between these software versions.” Go figure.

There is, however, apparently a difference between these two (er, one) versions and Release 1.0. Kindle users report that battery life management improved when they upgraded from 1.0 to 1.04 (or to 1.08 for that matter).

What release is your Kindle running? Go to “home,” scroll to “settings” and click. At the very bottom of the settings screen you will see the version of the Kindle software you are running. If it is 1.0, go here to figure out how to upgrade to 1.04 (or 1.08, for that matter).

And another thing about the Kindle battery: I only charge with the wall socket adapter. I plugged the USB cord into my computer and let it charge while in sleep mode one day, and it actually ran out of power while it was supposed to be charging! Maybe this approach to charging would work if the Kindle was in the “off” position, but it was discouraging to see the battery go dead while connected to a power source under any conditions.

Oh, yeah, even plugged in to the wall, I find that my Kindle charges faster when in the “off” position. That’s recommended (by me).

The rule of thumb is that if you are not 1) using your Kindle like an iPod, 2) using an SD card with a couple thousand books on it, or 3) leaving the whispernet on all day, then anything short of three or four days on a charge is abnormal and should be reported to the authorities immediately.

From what I hear, they will replace the faulty battery for you.

The different experiences that people have with battery life on the Kindle has led to a bunch of theories:

1. that turning the Kindle off saves more battery than sleep mode
2. that “indexing” of the books on your Kindle goes on in the background and drains the battery
3. that playing music on the Kindle drains battery life more quickly than reading

What do we know? First, sleep mode and “off” mode drain precious little power. I can’t tell the difference, and I don’t have to wait for the Kindle to boot when I want to start reading, so I go with sleep mode. Second, it seems like the phantom “indexing” comes into play the more “junk” you have loaded onto your Kindle, particularly if you are using an SD card for additional storage. It makes sense that the more file management you require, the more the battery will drain. Finally, who plays music on the Kindle?

My experience, with lots of sleep mode every day and no SD card, is that I charge the Kindle twice a week. Since most of my little freeze-ups and other funny outputs seem to come with a single bar showing, I charge the minute the third bar disappears.

What you can count on: me forgetting to turn the whispernet off after downloading the Journal every morning noticeably reduces battery life.