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My experience: I have an iPad1, iPad2, HP Touchpad, and three Archos 5" Android tablets... So not too much of a n00b.
Keyboard: The keyboard doesn’t always work for me.. When I first got it, every time I hit the spacebar, it would automatically go down two lines.. And when I hit the delete button, it would go back one space, then it would stop deleting and just repeat the same letter over and over.. While testing this, the Fire crashed.. and when it reset, the keyboard worked better without these issues.. but I still had a lot of typing mistakes as it would be too sensitive.. (kinda crazy that the Fire crashed in the first hour I opened it while typing up an email)
Video: Playing videos from Amazon Prime was fast and sweet! Amazon made it very easy to watch their videos on the Fire. I have not tested MP4 videos I have made for my iPad yet.. Because of size restrictions, I may not do this.
Home screen: Why can you not change the "last viewed" stuff on the top of the Fire.. this is horrible.. I came to work today and of course everyone wants to play with my new Fire.. so they could all see every single website, book, PDF, movie, etc I had viewed last night.. and now because they played with it, I have all the stuff they viewed there as well now.. There should be some sort of incognito mode.. I know this is a personal tablet, but whether someone is behind me when I am in the home screen or someone picks up my tablet at my apartment.. I don't need them seeing what I have been looking at.
Apps: There are a nice amount of apps available already for the Fire.. BUT.. why can’t I remove the apps that the Fire came with? Also, the PDF viewer that comes with the tablet is no good. I side loaded some PDF magazines into the Fire, and they were unreadable on the screen (all jaggy). I then installed the Adobe PDF viewer from the Amazon Market, and the text is much better.. but zooming in and out on a 7” tablet does not make for smooth reading. And why don’t the PDF thumbnail the first page images? The iPad does this right away… all you see on the Fire is the text name of the PDF written over a white sheet. Lastly, I installed Touchdown for the Fire (as the built in email does not include MS Exchange support).. and it works well..except that the client does NOT sync while it is not open.. What the heck is that??
Web: Loading pages like Gizmodo.com was quick.. but it was another issue reading the site.. scrolling down was very jerky and slow.. I know the page is long, but most tech blogs are.. and that is what I would like to read in the back of a cab.
Misc: I wish there were hardware sound control… It would make playing videos/music easier to control, as well as offering page up/page down control for reading. The Fire is a bit heavy and thick.. but for $200, u can’t complain.. I will probably keep using my iPad for reading websites and PDFs… and using the Fire for books and Amazon prime videos.
If anyone knows how to fix the issues above, please let me know.. I know that there is a root out now for the Fire, but I am hoping that there are faster/smoother solutions.
I was able to side load a .m4v file on the Fire, but it wouldn't play until I renamed it .mp4.
The videos were HQ rips for my iPad so that worked great.
I agree on the last item viewed being on the shelf. Wish there was a way clearing that.
EvanWasHere said:
I wish there were hardware sound control… It would make playing videos/music easier to control
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Click to collapse
On my Nexus I use Mobiplayer and I can control volume by swiping on the screen. I wonder if you load (or sideload) Mobi or a similar video player if you can get this. Anyone know or can anyone check?
Thanks for the review!
the source code will save us!!!
esoh said:
On my Nexus I use Mobiplayer and I can control volume by swiping on the screen. I wonder if you load (or sideload) Mobi or a similar video player if you can get this. Anyone know or can anyone check?
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Click to collapse
Yes I sideloaded Mobiplayer and the soft volume swiping does work for the Fire. So at least for video playback I can live without a hardware key. Btw I need to enable software decoding by default or some files won't play... maybe I needed to install a Mobi codec but I don't know which one works. Maybe someone can point me to the right direction...
Cheers,
W.
Agree with you. I'm facing same problem.
I installed Swiftkey and feel it is much better than the Amazon default keyboard.
You can remove the items from the Carosel. Refer to instructions at http://mazurk.net/KindleFire.htm
It's a fun toy and I'm glad I didn't pay anything for it (won it at an office raffle) but I'm still kind of lost as to what I'm gonna use it for as I have an iPad 2. Still, I'm having a blast trying to mess with it and hopefully gonna get TWRP installed here soon.
I am looking at the epub code for a magazine bought thru B&N (they dont DRM the magazines I buy). I don't recognize and code for ad's. I also don't see any images in the image folder. And yet, the ad's are there.
So where are the Ad's coming from, and how do I get rid of them? They show up when not connected tot he internet, so they have to be stored locally in the epub file, right?
This is so weird. I have a specific magazine that I am looking at 5 ways. The Nook Color, Nook PC Application, Sigil, Stanza, and Calibre.
Stanza shows garbage code
Sigil shows fine (no ad's)
Nook application fine (no ad's)
Nook Color fine (WITH ad's)
Calibre shows fine (No ad's)
So my guess is that there is something in the code that the 4 that work are aware of and ignoring, while Stanza gets thrown a loop. Some of the magazines Stanza will show fine (no ad's). Maybe that somethign is the part thats lets the Nook Color show ad's that dont show in any other way?
Did some more looking, trying to understand, and I'm finding more oddities.
Page 1 is the cover
Page 2/3 is an ad
page 4 is the Index/ToC page
page 5 is an ad
page 6 has a list of all staff in a narrow left column, and letters to the editor in the right column.
page 7 is an ad
Out of the list of staff, I chose a unique name and did a full text search for it in the content and code. This very unique name did not show. So this means that the left column on page 6 is an image, right? So I checked every image embedded in the epub, and there is nothing like it there. So where is this vertical andlong likst of staff/editors/contributors coming from? It's not anywhere in the document code, but it shows up when viewing on the Nook Color.
This a magazine that shows gibberish in Stanza, but shows fine (no ad's) in every other reader I used, but shows stuff on the Nook Color that shows nowhere else, including in the code of the magazine.
Okay, last update on this. I am getting nowhere. I am not a programmer, and only have a basic understanding of html and css. Hopefully someone who knows what's up will see this and poke around.
I've put it here...
http://uploading.com/files/72acd35b/NR121911.epub.zip/
...just delete the .zip on the end. I'll probably get into it again in a week or so. I am wondering if there is a hidden layer in here. The embedded image files don't seem to justify the overall size of the document. All those ad's are certainly the reason for it, but I just don't see them
(search tags) For Nook Color, regarding advertisments in epub magazines.
I would figure that the Nook application would be adding in the ads. Then they could always change the frequency / content of the ads (eg; pay to remove ads!). Try seeing if it needs wireless to pull down the add content - disable wireless before launching the reader and see if that helps? (You're asking how to view without ads, right?)
The ad's show in the magazine when disconnected from wifi. If I pull the magazine off the nook and open it with one of the other readers, there is no sign of the ad's, and like I said, the ad's are not (visibly) showing in the epub package.
The only way I see this as possible is when the magazine is downloading, the Nook stores the ad's in the internal Nook structure, then somehow references them in a hidden fashion. Still dont have time to poke, but as soon as I do, I will open up my (rooted) Nook and look carefully through the directory structure.
I have a few questions and they are probably answered here but I'm at work so its very hard tor me to get on my phone.
- is their a way to get android market on a KF even if its not rooted? I really would just like to install apps that are not in the amazon market. A new launcher,etc. Do you have to be rooted to install apps from android?
- What is side loading apps? I keep hearing people talk about this? What is it for?
- is there a way to text people from my KF? If so can anyone tell me a good app?
- how can I change the amazon keyboard to say swiftkey or something?
- any way to play movies on the KF? Could I drop a mkv, avi, divx, etc. movie from my pc onto my kindle? Or could I stream it to my kindle somehow?
- last question to now...is there a way to improve the touch screen response? I have to repeatedly touch icons, links and whatnot. I thought I saw an app that improves the KF screen?
Thanks everyone for the help, its greatly appreciated.
bal1985 said:
I have a few questions and they are probably answered here but I'm at work so its very hard tor me to get on my phone.
1) - is their a way to get android market on a KF even if its not rooted? I really would just like to install apps that are not in the amazon market. A new launcher,etc. Do you have to be rooted to install apps from android?
2) - What is side loading apps? I keep hearing people talk about this? What is it for?
3) - is there a way to text people from my KF? If so can anyone tell me a good app?
4) - how can I change the amazon keyboard to say swiftkey or something?
5) - any way to play movies on the KF? Could I drop a mkv, avi, divx, etc. movie from my pc onto my kindle? Or could I stream it to my kindle somehow?
6) - last question to now...is there a way to improve the touch screen response? I have to repeatedly touch icons, links and whatnot. I thought I saw an app that improves the KF screen?
Thanks everyone for the help, its greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) No. Market needs root to install. Some other launchers work without root, but you now have to side load them. You can add other non-Amazon apps in many cases, but without root, you can't use the Android Market, so you would need to side load them.
2) Copying the APK install files via download or via usb or other means.
3) The Kindle Fire is not a phone, there is no radio in the device so no text messaging. You can use things like Google Talk but you need root to install it. There are some web based txt stuff, but that is not really on the device.
4) Need root to do this
5) There are other video players that will do this. Like MX Video player
6) Not really.
6 In particular is starting to get on my nerves. I think its an OS/Kernel issue because tapping stuff elsewhere seems to be ok, but that bar is a headache. Hit back 5x and you see it light up each time.
Also I dont know if its dolphin browser or what but a lot of the times I tap a typing area like google search, after 2-3 letters it just hides the keyboard.
Also I've been having more issues where you click a typable area and start typing, but nothing shows. Keyboard is showing recommended words, but none will actually show on the screen.
Oh, also if you're watching a video on a site, good luck moving the time bar. Sometimes I have to press and hold my finger 2-3 seconds for it to trigger.
Seems to be a little worse since 6.2 imo.
Once the kindle is rooted and the entire market is installed does the kindle act like an android phone? Do you get the android home screen? With cm7 does your tablet act just like phone obviously without gos and so on.
bal1985 said:
Once the kindle is rooted and the entire market is installed does the kindle act like an android phone? Do you get the android home screen? With cm7 does your tablet act just like phone obviously without gos and so on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The market is just an app that you use to get more apps.
It will still look and feel like an out of the box kindle fire.
And last I recall the market wont show up in the standard kindle launcher, so no one would even know it was there.
You have to take additional steps to even utilize it.
CM7 would make it act like an android device. there are tablets with CM7 so it has nothing to do with phones. Gos I assume is gps, and some tablets have that so it isnt phone only.
Hi,
Please refer to the article below. It will give you a deeper understanding of what rooting is and some tweaks you can do to the unit.
http://www.terracode.com/KindleFire/KF_Review_and_Tweaks_P1.html
If you have google voice linked with your Sprint number, you can send and receive texts via Google Voice
I have the Market installed but for some reason there are tons of apps missing for the market. Is their way to fix this?
Apps like Yahoo Fantasy Football to Google Maps or Google Earth are not there.
bal1985 said:
...
- is there a way to text people from my KF? If so can anyone tell me a good app?
...is there a way to improve the touch screen response?...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you can send/receive a limited number of text messages as well as make /receive calls with a free Google Voice account. I have not tested this with the Kindle Fire, so someone else may correct me.
There is an app called TouchScreen Booster that may help you adjust your screen sensitivity.
the following is from an other thread i don't remember (thanks to them !)
additional settings in build.prop:
# Rendering User Interface With GPU
debug.sf.hw=1
# Increase overall touch responsiveness
video.accelerate.hw=1
windowsmgr_max_events_per_sec=150
debug.performance.tuning=1
MAKE BACKUP COPY !!! - CAUTION WITH MODIFYING BUILD.PROP !!!
if your not sure - leave it !
i made this settings and i'm satisfied ...
Go to Kindle Fire browser Google search for "applanet". Under the link will be on the left "familiar interface" I tried that one first and it didn't work. On the right of it is one called "Version". I clicked that one and it directly started downloading an app. Tap the upper left part of the screen where the notifications are and when it is done downloading tap on its notification. It will install. (prior to this you need to go to settings - device and turn on download from unknown sources) install it and it creates an app called Applanet Market. Go to the Amazon market and search for ADW ex. Download that. You may find apps on Applanet that are not in Amazons.Search for any application you want. Like youtube, earth, gmail, whatever. When you're done playing with applanet hit your home key. It will give you a choice of ADW or stock. Check off the default box and choose ADW. Go to menu at bottom and go to ADW settings. Advanced. Set columns to 6 and rows to 6 and return back. At the bottom middle you have the ADW 3 button controller. I opened the app drawer (middle button) and dragged the Kindle Fire launcher to home screen and then long pressed it and dragged it over the area left of the appdrawer button. It will stick here and with it you can get to the stock KF home screen. But whenever you tap home, you will go to ADW. If you ever want to change that, go to settings. Applications. ADW. And at the lower area you can choose to release the default.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
krelvinaz said:
5) There are other video players that will do this. Like MX Video player
QUOTE]
In response to this and OP's earlier question, MX is good. Moboplayer is good too, but I've been having full screen problems with Mobo. On streaming, you can use Dropbox or Sugarsync (I use SS, there is a thread on it in the apps category). For streaming though, I've found that MX doesn't work great and Mobo is better, which is why I use that for streaming, although I still have the full screen issues. If you stream using SS, just make sure that file is encoded in a quality to get a good stream. There is also another thread on how to setup files to do this in apps category as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is applanet back up?
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk
I'm new to tablets. I'm finding that images don't load on most websites, including Facebook, Netflix, You Tube, Comedy Central, even the App Shop (the screen shots don't load). Instead on most websites there's a little square with a question mark in every spot where an image should be.
This is the case whether I use the browser (large earth button pre-installed on the tablet) or the Apps like Facebook, Netflix and You Tube.
I'm new to all things mobile. Is there something I failed to install or activate to allow these web images to load? Many websites are almost useless without the images. No photos on Facebook... no Movie pictures on Netflix... no You Tube video images on You Tube.
I've tried switching between the option "PC" versus "Mobile" on the settings menu and this doesn't seem to make a difference. I don't really know what these options should do anyway.
This forum has been a lifesaver. Thanks for any expertise you can offer.
When you are in the browser, tap the options box in the top right corner, tap settings, tap advanced, check "load images".
Tap "thanks" if this cures your issue.
Still no images, ideas?
Hi, thanks for the tip about tapping Show Images in the settings menu, but I still get no images in most sites.
Do you? If you go to Amazon or Netflix or Facebook or You Tube from the browser button (or any other way for that matter) do you see the images, i.e. does the website look and function for you the way it's supposed to?
Thanks for coming to my aid, I am a newbie.
Do other computers on your network get images?
My laptop loads web images/pics but not my tablet...
Hi, thanks for asking. My laptop, as well as my husband's netbook, load images/pics on websites just fine, but not my new TPT.
Am I understanding that this is not a common problem? Do other Thinkpad Tablet users see websites just fine?
I get little squares with question marks every place an image should be on most websites...
Thanks for any advice.
ssl123 said:
Do other computers on your network get images?
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Click to collapse
Do you suspect the home firewall?
Yes, I just wanted to make sure there's not something along the network connection that is filtering the traffic. I have seen similar results on desktop web browsers when a utility like Peerblock is running and set to filter HTTP on that PC.
Do you have the flash player installed? Get it from the market. At least some of the blank frames will be filled in.
I was wondering if it was possible to add Movies and TV shows to the Nvidia shield home screen Channels? Or using a different launcher. Like Movies from Tvzion? Thanks
You can add TVzion to the home screen by using an app called "TV app repo". It will essentially make an icon shortcut that works.
If however you are wanting to add movies from within the Tvzion app in a similar way to how google music or video works and displays them on the home screen then it needs to be a supported app by google I think ( I may be wrong) Good luck with it being supported in future if it is some sort of stream......... /cough
You only have to look at how spotify was working in this way and now is not. And seems to be unofficially unsupported in this way now (due to a falling out by both parties about fairness/competition with music apps and their own service i think) You cannot have it on its own row on the homescreen by using the customize homescreen settings anymore it simply is not available just the icon to set it running.
You have to understand that TVzion displays the streams and not google, so getting it to then run TVzion from a button click on the home screen and then any individual stream that may or may not have possibly moved in the meantime also is virtually un-doable in my eyes, unless someone knows of some workaround that achieves a similar thing?
HawthorneDruid said:
You can add TVzion to the home screen by using an app called "TV app repo". It will essentially make an icon shortcut that works.
If however you are wanting to add movies from within the Tvzion app in a similar way to how google music or video works and displays them on the home screen then it needs to be a supported app by google I think ( I may be wrong) Good luck with it being supported in future if it is some sort of stream......... /cough
You only have to look at how spotify was working in this way and now is not. And seems to be unofficially unsupported in this way now (due to a falling out by both parties about fairness/competition with music apps and their own service i think) You cannot have it on its own row on the homescreen by using the customize homescreen settings anymore it simply is not available just the icon to set it running.
You have to understand that TVzion displays the streams and not google, so getting it to then run TVzion from a button click on the home screen and then any individual stream that may or may not have possibly moved in the meantime also is virtually un-doable in my eyes, unless someone knows of some workaround that achieves a similar thing?
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Click to collapse
Thank you for the reply. I actually messaged the DEV of the TV zion app. And he é stated that he will support adding movies to the home screen. He just hasn't updated the app to be compatible with 8.0 and 9.0 Android, as of yet.