Beyond unveiling a boatload of new Kindle reader and Fire tablet hardware, Amazon finally gets with the program in allowing households (or close approximations) to share their digital media. Not that the current situation has prevented my wife, mom, and I from sharing our Kindle books and Amazon Instant Prime video streaming, Amazon will soon smooth the experience and remove the criminal element by delivering a Family Library:
Never again worry about whose account has the Prime membership or who bought that book you want to read. Family Library links your Amazon account to that of your spouse or partner so you can easily share apps, games, audiobooks, books, and Prime Instant Video content within your household without changing accounts. Family Library lets families share their content across multiple devices, including Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire phone, and Amazon Fire TV, as well as on all of the other most popular devices and platforms with the free Kindle, Audible, and Amazon Instant Video apps. Family Library will be coming soon as part of a free, over-the-air software update.
Further, Amazon one ups the iPad by bringing Profiles to their line of Android-based Fire tablets:
Give everyone a personalized experience—each family member gets his or her own Profile, including individual email, Facebook and Twitter accounts, settings such as display brightness, page in the book, spot in a movie, and game levels, without taking up extra storage on the device for multiple copies of large files like videos and games.
“Beyond unveiling a boatload of new Kindle reader and Fire tablet hardware”
Ugh. The beloved physical page-turn buttons are removed from the basic model.
And I’d been really hoping the Voyage would have a moderately larger screen size. Would’ve ordered one today if that’d been the case.
Yeah, pretty sure my mom will need to keep the prior low-end model around indefinitely given the physical page turn buttons. The touchscreen will drive her batty on many levels (and I do frequently inadvertently turn pages on my 2nd gen Paperwhite). The only way it could work is if the $200 Voyage model lets you disable touchscreen page turns to only use the new pressure sensors on the bezel.
“The only way it could work is if the $200 Voyage model lets you disable touchscreen page turns to only use the new pressure sensors on the bezel.”
Yeah. That’s the only way I’d even consider upgrading from my basic model.
But seriously, what gives with the addiction to 6 inches? Always found it a bit too small.
Not only would I eagerly pay $200 for a 7 or 8 inch model, but I’d almost definitely plunk down $300. (Not to mention that I’d likely replace my current dead-tree / eBook mix of purchases with exclusive eBook purchases on anything without lots of pictures.)
Great! Really love the multi-account linking, have had times when bought a book on wrong account, can’t get it on any of the family devices.
Will be very nice to have multiple user profiles as well; keep spouse, self, and kid’s book lists separate, or when shared, keep current bookmark etc separate. Nice!
Hey Tivo, how about you now?!!!!
multiple people watch different shows…
and also sometimes watch the SAME show, but hard to keep track..
Now with the Roamio being the ONE box in a household, EVERY show is there, can I keep the kids from seeing my grownup TV14+ shows, and me from seeing all the kid (or spouse) shows? We all have different tastes…
and for shows we DO all like in common:
not have my spouse or child, mess up my current spot when they watch separately, a show we all like? Or worse, delete it before *I’ve* finished watching it?
Yes! I’m looking forward to this new feature, as well. It’s been a problem for a good majority of Kindle users, and really, it’s about time that Amazon integrated this feature. Thing is, I love the announcement, I hate the wait for the launch. But, “patience is a virtue,” as they say!