Kindle gets its first update, now v1.0.4

Oh damn, just when we got our Kindle jailbroken running native apps and unlocked for use on T-Mobile, along comes the 28MB v1.0.4 update. We don't know what it fixes or changes specifically other than "overall improvements to performance" and "new screen savers", but it's first Kindle update we've seen since the device's launch, and it's out now. Let us know if you spot anything out of the ordinary, yeah?

Update: Snap, our update failed out. Like four times. It didn't brick the Kindle but it sure as hell killed all our e-books and now the device says it's got no remaining storage. Thanks! More after the break.

Update 2: Ok, we just got off the phone with Amazon support, they're claiming the update was released too early and isn't the "real" update which is supposedly due out later this week. (The email that notified us of the update did mention it would be available Friday.) We're confirming with Amazon corporate what the hell is going on.

Update 3: Alright, final update: the update IS supposed to be out as of today, but Amazon's page has changed to describe this as more of a rolling process for users over the next few days. (The direct download link is also gone now.) Our update finally took, and we haven't really seen anything much different so far.

[Nick Catalano @ Feb 14th 2008 1:12PM]

T-mobile? CDMA v GSM? ... oh... I see what you did there

[Daniel D @ Feb 14th 2008 1:20PM]

Hi has anyone gotten this Jailbroken yet? Which baseband?

[paragraph @ Feb 14th 2008 1:24PM]

The update allows you to plug a hard copy of a book into the Kindle via USB and upload it...

What do you really want out of the update? Seriously...

[rji @ Feb 15th 2008 11:23AM]

Nice! Can I plug my DVD player to it and upload DVDs?
LOL

[morcheeba @ Feb 14th 2008 1:25PM]

Nice picture. They really should have started the Kindle firmware at v2.0 just to make a point.

[Denver_80203 @ Feb 14th 2008 5:55PM]

I figured v1 would be a cave painting.. maybe that was the beta

[Chris @ Feb 14th 2008 1:27PM]

Does anyone own one of these?

[John T @ Feb 14th 2008 1:29PM]

I just got mine yesterday and it won't connect to the internet. I really don't feel like waiting another few weeks for something I already paid for and it didn't end up working.Anyone else expirenced that, and have any luck solving that problem?

[Cynan @ Feb 14th 2008 1:43PM]

John T,

I got my Kindle on Monday and had the same issue the first day, the web browser wouldn't work, but I could get to the Kindle store, and also get my eBooks downloaded. I emailed tech support and they responded that it was an issue this week. Strangely, after that email, everything started working.

I've read a few forum posts where others had to call Amazon to get the internet part working. Apparently it was due to Sprint not configuring something properly for their Kindle. After that was fixed theirs worked fine.

Good Luck

[Christopher M. @ Feb 14th 2008 3:38PM]

I had to call into customer support, took 15 minutes. The 800 phone number is on the Kindle Support FAQ on the Amazon site.

[Richard @ Feb 14th 2008 1:34PM]

Let me know when it gets .pdf support. :(

[samirss @ Feb 14th 2008 1:49PM]

It does have PDF support, just not native.

[Scott @ Feb 14th 2008 1:52PM]

5 months ago when it came out.

Sure you have to email it to Amazon and transfer it to the Kindle from your computer to do it for free, but PDF blows anyway.

[Richard @ Feb 14th 2008 2:28PM]

Ok, I should have been more specific apparently. Let me know when it has NATIVE .pdf support so I don't have ot convert my work and school files through Amazon.

[Charles Wilkes @ Feb 14th 2008 9:25PM]

Kindle supports .PDF very well now. Just send them one and look at the results. But if you want better control of the appearance on the Kindle, thereis software I found using Google software that would convert a .PDF to an HTML file, which is the preferred intout format for the Kindle.

Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif

[SeditioN VII @ Feb 14th 2008 1:36PM]

Why is this thing such a heap of garbage? Oh, thats right ...People who like to read books, well, read books. And, people who like to read stuff online, well, you guessed it...

[Magnulus @ Feb 14th 2008 1:50PM]

Absolutely unbeatable reasoning. Watertight and entirely logical. *cough*

[Chris Weiss @ Feb 14th 2008 9:09PM]

Chris - Yes, and I love it. To me, there's two types of books: Ones I want to keep for a while and consider "keepsakes" that I want in nice bound printed format and will likely read more than once, and "disposables" that I'll read once and toss. Kindle is perfect for the 2nd type and it turns out that if you have a Kindle, you can still actually buy real paper books! Most haters seem to think once you get a Kindle, you have to turn in your paper books.
Richard - the Kindle has PDF support. You have 3 options:
1. Mail your PDF to Amazon to be converted and mailed directly to your device for $.10.
2. Mail your PDF to Amazon to be converted and emailed back and you manually copy it to your device via USB for free.
3. Download the free MobiPocket Reader and convert the PDF locally and upload it to the device via USB (the previous version of MobiPocket Reader recognizes the Kindle natively and will handle the sync for you).
Sedition VII - You _really_ don't get it, and that's OK.

[weg @ Feb 14th 2008 5:30PM]

How good is the PDF support? For instance, is the Kindle (or the Sony Reader) able to display this paper:

http://www.di.ens.fr/~cousot/publications.www/CousotCousot-POPL-77-ACM-p238--252-1977.pdf

If yes, I want one!

[Richard @ Feb 14th 2008 8:49PM]

Thanks for the info! I've never seen the free conversion process before. I'll definitely pick one up once they are in stock!

[Bob @ Feb 14th 2008 2:04PM]

Ever think that the update failed because you were running a jailbroken Kindle? My guess is that this update works fine on proper devices without killing your ebooks.

[Mark @ Feb 14th 2008 2:16PM]

I think he was joking about the jailbreaking part.

[michael @ Feb 14th 2008 4:33PM]

I'm a happy Kindle owner but I would like to see some documentation on just what does 1.04 include? Amazon is clearly not adept at software updates as this is a fairly common process to clue your users in what an update actually includes.

The fact that it is not even a 1.1 release, I am not expecting much.

[Mark @ Feb 14th 2008 2:52PM]

I just downloaded the update and it went through smoothly. I don't notice any major differences, though. But the version # is updated.

[kurt @ Feb 14th 2008 2:54PM]

I just wish they could fill orders within a reasonable period of time.

[Vagelis @ Feb 14th 2008 3:35PM]

NOTE to upgraders:

I updated via USB and SD card as indicated here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200226050
and the update ended bricking my Kindle

It now boots to
"There is a problem with your Kindle. Please call "

Support has no clue yet so please be very careful when doing this.

[Shan @ Feb 14th 2008 3:52PM]

Ryan, that opening line is priceless!! Thanks for the laugh!

[pinchies @ Feb 15th 2008 12:00AM]

+1

[dan @ Feb 14th 2008 6:17PM]

Just updated my Kindle and it went fine. I don't notice much difference, but it seems generally slightly snappier-- especially when web surfing.

[Kyle @ Feb 15th 2008 12:14AM]

This from MobileRead forum

There are new screensavers.

The browser has been updated to cut down on 'excessive lines'.

The 'default search' has changed (she was unable or unwilling to discuss what that meant).

And no, the update does not allow folder creation.

[Chris Weiss @ Feb 16th 2008 12:53PM]

Weg - I tried converting your PDF with both Amazon's free PDF conversion and with MobiReader Desktop. The PDF appears to be composed of large image scans of each page (I cannot select passages with the select-text tool), so the result was the images were imported straight to the converted document (the original document was ~900k, the converted document is ~800k). Unfortunately, when displayed, the images are resized down to 600x800, which makes the text pretty illegible (you can mimic the action on your PC by setting Acrobat Reader to "fit by width" and resizing the Acrobat screen to be 600 pixels wide).
As a comparison, I downloaded the Kindle Users Guide PDF from Amazon's site and converted that with MobiReader and that worked much better.
I took some images of both scans and posted them on my Flickr page: http://flickr.com/photos/stickyc/sets/72157603913346509/