Amazon Now Sending Snail-Mail Reminders to Update Your Kindle
Amazon really Really, REALLY, REALLY want you to update your Kindle.
Kindle owners at MobileRead and the eBook Evangelist blog are reporting that they’ve gotten notices in the mail from Amazon with nagging reminders asking them to update their older Kindles.
Last month Amazon started sending out email notices notifying Kindle owners of a small but critical firmware update which replaced certain security certificates.
This update makes it possible for the Kindle (including the older models like the 2007-era $399 original Kindle) to continue to communicate with Amazon over 3G and Wifi after Amazon changes its security on 22 March, and that makes it so important that Amazon is sending not only email notices but also post cards.
I got the email, but I have yet to receive a post card. I’m told that they read:
Dear Kindle Owner,
We’ve been trying to contact you via email and other methods to let you know that one or more of your Kindle e-readers requires a critical update.
To avoid interruption to your reading, please update your device(s) by March 22, 2016.
For step-by-step instructions on how to update your Kindle and to find out which devices require this update, please visit www.amazon.com/ku2016 .
We apologize for any inconvenience,
The Kindle Team
Not all Kindle owners have gotten an email, much less a post card. Amazon appears to only be sending the notices to Kindle owners that regularly disable the connectivity on their device.
But some are getting snail-mail from Amazon (image via eBook Evangelist):
Did you get the email? What about the post card?
Judging by the spike in traffic over the past couple weeks, a lot of owners of older Kindles are getting the notices. Many have expressed frustration or confusion with the update process.
"My K2 can still access the web but I keep seeing the “Basic Web is unable to make a secure connection at this time.” error message. Just assumed this was Amazon blocking my access," one wrote. "However, I just looked up the version of the Kindle OS I should be running to discover that I am not running the latest. I have 2.5.6 when I should be running 2.5.8." That user reported that even after installing the update, they still had issues.
Have you encountered any problems?
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