Side Topic: Kindle Fire

I got one of these. Being that I'm an old codger who is content in his ways I'm also the last person in a first world country to buy a tablet of some kind. Not that I haven't tried out other tablets (ipad included), but I just never found something I had a need for.

The Fire? OK, I didn't need it either but it sure is cool. I read. A lot. E-reader seems like a good thing. It isn't too big, the battery lasts forever and the screen is a pleasure to look at.


This is where amazon went right: on the hardware. They also went right on the choice of operating systems... And then proceed to muck it up like so many others by messing with the amazing thing known as Android.

No worries though: this thing seems to be getting a heck of a following. It is being compared poorly to an ipad, which is unfortunate for the ipad which costs somewhere between double and triple the price. That means hackers and modders the world round are busy putting android back on in full.

For example I am typing this from a blogging application I downloaded from the standard android market on a custom keyboard. I will read this post later from Google Currents (of which there is a friendly version of RocketSparrow, just search for that (no space) and select the orange rocketship). All signs point to a cyanogen mod version from ice cream sandwich coming down the tubes.

Summary: don't believe the haters. This thing is amazing and the complaints are between nitpick and disappointed that it isn't stock android. The latter can be fixed.

Oh, and if all you wanted was a very nice reader? That was top notch right out of the box. The factory keyboard software not so much. But the rest was great.