David Pogue:
And sure enough. Tuesday evening, Amazon released a free software update for the Kindle Fire that, if you ask me, should be called the Polish Update (that’s “polish” as in car wax, not Warsaw). Its primary purpose is to fix all of those jerky, balky, miscalculated-momentum issues. The update will be automatically delivered to your Kindle Fire.
Sure enough: the home screen “carousel,” a rotating shelf that holds all of your books, magazines and movies, now stops on a dime when you want it to. It takes only one tap to open something instead of several frustrating ones. When you do tap something, it opens faster and more fluidly. Page turns are smoother, especially in magazines.
This is great news for people interested in the Kindle Fire. There are, however, issues that remain.
There are still some things Amazon should fix. For example, magazine reading is still an exercise in frustration; far too often, the row of page-navigation thumbnails still thrusts itself on top of what you’re trying to read. Other problems may not be so simple to fix: for example, the on/off switch is on the bottom edge, where the Kindle’s weight naturally falls when you’re reading.
While I am an iPad user and have no need for a Fire, my experience with the Kindle e-reader leaves me confident that Amazon will meticulously address any remaining software problems. Having owned every model of Kindle, I also believe the Fire will likely follow the same hardware evolution. That is to say that Amazon hardware is initially imperfect and, frankly, pretty shitty. However, further iterations have shown that Amazon listens to their customers and eventually gets it right. If you are ensconced in the Amazon ecosystem, you should be pleased that they are serious about improving the Fire.
Even though the Fire burns at the opposite end of the candle (see what I did there?) than does the iPad, I have a feeling it will be the most successful and longstanding competitor for Apple. Speeds-and-feeds aside, I think the sole reason will be trust. Customers trust Apple. Customers trust Amazon.