Yeah, that seems to be the answer I’m finding too. I think she’ll probably just stay away from Prime and avoid the issue for the most part.
Edit: Well, we opened the Fire and I got it charged, registered it, and we were both surprised to have Prime start automatically and display all the TV shows and movies that are free to watch with one click. My friend was unhappy with this and the idea of her 10 year old watching something inappropriate, and there’s no way to restrict shows. So she’s going to return it.
Huh? Disabling 1-click was the first thing I did on the wife’s Kindle to avoid her “accidentally” buying a bunch of books and depleting the bank account.
You can’t disable it permanently though. It’s really easy to turn it back on.
It’s not a big problem, especially since a parent should be receiving an email notification for every purchase, but it’s just one of those things some people would rather not worry about.
There’s another subtle objection to the Fire my friend has also. Her ten year old has developed a nice reading habit this year of reading for 30 minutes in her bed before going to sleep. She has really taken to reading. It’s nice to see.
The Fire is really set up for media consumption. Even with Prime turned off, all those movies and TV shows are still very visible. She doesn’t want her kid to start watching movies and TV shows or be playing Angry Birds in bed at night instead of reading, and the Fire sort of encourages that by making video and games so visible and easy to get at.
For Xmas my father-in-law bought 3 of my kids Kindle Fires (and the 4th, the 3-year old, gets a Vtech tablet). The boys are old enough to know better, and have their own jobs to fund their own purchases.
However, my daughter turns 9 today, and has as her birthday present a 50 dollar Amazon gift certificate from her grandmother. Would I apply that to my account, and then somehow limit my daughter’s app purchases to 50.00, and have her Fire tied to my account, or is it more appropriate to tie her Fire to her own account and keep that balance there?
If you share an account, she will have access to everything on your account. So if you buy the Kama Sutra, it’s there for your nine year old too. You may be more comfortable creating a new Amazon account for her and applying the gift card to it.
You can make a gmail account for her and then have it forward everything from Amazon to your email account. That way you can keep an eye on purchases.
I got the update last night. I guess it is a little more smooth but I did not notice anything drastic about the update. I might not have dug deep enough though.
These things are flying off the shelves where I work, and meanwhile for the first time ever we aren’t selling out of Ipads. Probably demographically infuenced since this isn’t a high-end retailer, but I’d say Amazon was right on in thinking there would be demand for even a marginal tablet at this price (the other $200 tablet we carry, the Vizio, is also selling out). It has the advantage of being affordable for a lot more adults then the Ipad is and being a “cheap” alternative for parents wanting something for the kids.
Browsing IS solid. I was really expecting something less than adequate. It certainly is on per with my daughter’s iPad 1. It really is smooth and very fast.
Apps- definitely not as good as what I get on my phone…I do miss my DVR app, my Google+ and such- I hope they will be coming at some point but otherwise, Taptalk, Netflix, twitter and all are just fine.
Reading- oh yeah I still prefer my Nook (or Kindle if you have it) e-ink is still far superior for long term reading- but that said, comics and magazines do look great on this thing. I grabbed for free, the first edition of Walking Dead- a page does fit nicely on the screen- it is a bit small for reading without zooming but again, no complaints.
I set up my gmail- took minutes, have not done my other email but I don’t anticipate any issues. My first turn on had the thing registered in seconds and I went right to the upgrade/dl system. Installed fine - but that does mean that I can’t compare a before and after.
Downsides–
The speakers are a bit quite- if I cup my hand by them it helps - or of course, headphones.
Power button- for me it is not so much the placement but the ease of hitting it. I did turn it off a couple of times accidentally - a recessed button would have been much better.
UI- I am not totally taken in by it- I do like the menu on the top-I can quickly go to books, apps, web or whatever. The shelves on the main front UI are …eh. Maybe I will grow into liking it more but for now it is just soso.
So like Huz…for 199.00 you get a great tablet. Now I can sit and update facebook, read QT3, tweet, read the news in the morning over coffee and buy lots of shit. It is worth it. I have absolutely no regrets at all and I was a bit leery but now I am really happy that I have a tablet.
The Web Browsing is a little better but it is still lacking compared to the iPad 1 that I have . It is serviceable but it could still use some improvements but I am not sure how much of it is a Fire issue or an Android issue. As fast as the hardware really is in the thing it still feels sluggish.
The UI is OK at best I’ve had the Book store crash on me a few times for no real reason and I really wish there were a way to add shit to my fucking wishlist. Also I wish there were a way to filter stuff that I don’t have downloaded so the book shelf isn’t so cluttered (that could just be me though). The Kindle App on the Fire is still lagging behind the one on iOS when it comes to page turns but it is better then it was so they are getting there. Also dear fucking god Amazon please let me set the brightness lower.
That being said I actually like my Fire for reading a lot more then with the iPad it is so much easier to hold because it is smaller and you really don’t miss that much space because of how the Kindle App on iOS really doesn’t use all that much screen space.
Here are a few really crappy cell phone pictures.
This one is a side by side shot with the iOS kindle app and the Kindle Fire
This one shows how much white space the iOS app has.
The Kindle iOS app has independent brightness settings and this one shows the lowest possible brightness setting. The Kindle in the picture has the system brightness set to the lowest setting which in a dark room is way too bright.
Oh and the power button is still on the wrong end of the device and it still doesn’t feel natural. I swear the people who designed the hardware were not talking to the software people and the hardware people wanted the button to be at the top.
I was playing with my wife’s new Fire this morning (not software updated) to compare with my Fire (software updated) and the new update noticeably improves performance, at least as far as books go. Page turning was much smoother than with the old software. I also downloaded Speed to show her how she can watch movies and everything worked nicely.
I am holding out for an iPad 3, but my 20 year old daughter got a Fire this morning, and she loves it. She has been watching Netflix movies and downloaded a couple of books and has her gmail and FB set up on it. For her, it is a nice fit in between her Android phone and her laptop PC.
