Kindle Login

I recently bought a Kindle Oasis and – while I’ve enjoyed using it a lot – I figured I should justify the purchase by at least writing a mini-analysis-thing about it.

I’ll keep this one short (after all the only thing I do on this thing is read, I don’t think I can find all that much to complain about). In fact, the only thing that I’ve found that noticeably annoyed me is only an issue if you are paranoid (I am) and lock your Kindle down under a passcode.

When you assign a passcode to your device, every time you lock the screen it will prompt you for a login to return to your book. This is usually a short and easy process since the recessed lock button makes it difficult to accidentally lock the device but, in the event that you accidentally enter your passcode incorrectly, you get a popup in the modal notifying you as such and prompting you to click Forgot Passcode? to trigger the passcode reset process. This popup shifts the entire keypad downwards, throwing off the layout of the modal by an entire key and causes me – as a user – to have to recalibrate in order to reenter my passcode with the refreshed UI.

This problem is exacerbated by a couple of things:

The refresh time on e-readers is very long.
I could potentially have a very long passcode.

Every button press takes a fraction of a second to update and, although you are able to rush through the process, you risk incorrectly entering your code since you are not able to see the updates take place in realtime. Assuming you were extra cautious and had a long passcode, this can quickly become infuriating as you now have to re-enter from scratch.

This is all to say: the login screen for the Kindle Oasis is annoying. But the Oasis isn’t a security deposit box, it’s essentially a book. The ability to edit fonts, the warmth of the backlight, size of the text – these all work perfectly (as in, with no noticeable glitches). While the UI may be clunky and a bit outdated, the Oasis is a massive improvement on a book, which was the whole point when it comes down to it. You can’t fault Amazon for ignoring the passcode screen on something that probably isn’t a target for thievery. You can, however, blame them for the ridiculous amount they charge for a cover for this thing and the fact that you have to pay to remove Lockscreen ads but I’m here to complain about software design, not highway robbery 🙂