Amazon Warns Against Installing Latest Kindle App Update for iOS Due to Deleted Book Libraries [Update: Fix Live]

It is annoying

My wife and I both did the update last night (on iPads and iPhones) and it was annoying, but not earth-shattering.

Basically all your e-books in the cloud are still there. But you have to re-download the ones you are reading to your device from the cloud (and other than "enhanced editions" of ebooks with built in videos, it takes no time to do so).

The worst thing is that I keep several "sample" e-books on my device, as I am still considering purchasing them. I lost all of the samples and had to rack my brain to remember those titles and then re-download the samples. Not sure why the cloud won't keep your samples.

Another thing is, the update changed the "friendly" name of your device, so instead of, for example, "Joe's iPad 3", it was called "4th ipad". So I had to go to the Amazon kindle webpage, delete the old reference to my iPad and change "4th ipad to my preferred friendly name. I had to do this for my wife's 2 Apple devices and my 2 Apple devices.

Also, the brightness was turned all the way up and instead of "sepia", it was on white background. So all of the setting you chose were gone.

So yeah, they really messed up on this one.

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robdam1001 said:

Can't the books just be downloaded again?

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Yes, the issue is not even being reported correctly. The books you purchased are still there in the cloud. You just have to re-transfer to your device (which uusually takes little time). But if you open to device view, it shows NOTHING. Which probably freaked people out. Change to "cloud" view and everything is there.

You don't LOSE any books that you purchased.

You do have to re-enter your settings, etc. I don't think I lost the bookmark on the book I was reading at the time.

Apple should always keep the previous version of an app available to revert to in case there's problems with an update.

This would be TRIVIAL to implement. Why the hell don't they?

Also, keeping previous versions of an app available when the app obsoletes a class of devices would be good too. I know of people using iPhone 3G who have lost some apps because they can't install newer versions after their device was wiped.

caesarp said:

You don't LOSE any books that you purchased.

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Correction. You don't lose any books from Amazon that you keep in their cloud.

3.6.2 is out... just updated

zorinlynx said:

Apple should always keep the previous version of an app available to revert to in case there's problems with an update.

This would be TRIVIAL to implement. Why the hell don't they?

Also, keeping previous versions of an app available when the app obsoletes a class of devices would be good too. I know of people using iPhone 3G who have lost some apps because they can't install newer versions after their device was wiped.

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That's a great point and I would also like to see this implemented.

Amazon Ecosystem

iSee said:

This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence in the Amazon ecosystem.

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It shouldn't. I subscribed to their Cloud Player service. Big mistake. Streaming is unreliable - even over a wired internet connection, so the problem isn't bandwidth on MY end - and the iOS app is the biggest piece of junk imaginable.

Amazon just can't write software. I keep thinking their fork of Android represents a serious threat to Google, but the obvious incompetence of their developers makes me wonder if that threat will ever be realized...

Updated

Does 3.6.2 correct the problem?

NUR6 said:

Just checked and it's still available for unsuspecting customers.

Tim Cook or who ever is in charge of iTunes why no preventative action?

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thenbagis said:

3.6.2 is out... just updated

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You sure it isn't the fixed version ?

be careful to check version for 3.6.2

Plutonius said:

You sure it isn't the fixed version ?

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It is 3.6.2. I had to double check since I thought I downloaded it and saw that it was available.

Did Apple pull the update before making the corrected version available?

Plutonius said:

Correction. You don't lose any books from Amazon that you keep in their cloud.

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I don't see any setting to to not have purchased books remain in the cloud (and why would you not)? Also, even if you did (or can) delete from the cloud for some reason, I believe you can go to your "manage your kindle" webpage and re-download that way.

It shows the history of all your purchases and gives you options to send to your devices.

So I think it is not possible to entirely lose your purchased books.

Downloaded 3.6.2 to my iPhone, everything seems to be working fine.

Still haven't updated at all to my iPad since that's the one I actually use for reading.

Good catch

Plutonius said:

You sure it isn't the fixed version ?

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Thxs

I don't always look at the notes but fortunately I did this morning and did not update. Glad to hear that Amazon fixed the issue quickly.

caesarp said:

So I think it is not possible to entirely lose your purchased books.

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Many people do not purchase all their books through Amazon (i.e. Amazon is not aware of all the ebooks I have).

Amazing and insanely moronic that a bug this huge could be present in an update. Over 2GB of books gone. Yes, they can be reclaimed but not all of us have fast enough connections that this is not a multi-hour time suck.

peter.stegemann said:

The biggest flaw in Apples software distribution system: You can't just pull back a new version once it was released. Completely insane.

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True, although Amazon shares blame for what is clearly a sloppy release with a glaring and significant bug.

Boston007 said:

Testing?
Take it from someone who has been in the software industry for over ten years.

SQA(Software Quality Assurance) has been dropped to the bottom level of most organizations. It's mostly offshore now as well.

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I used to work in the software industry and you're absolutely right - the QA has been outsourced or their numbers cut down below the bone so they do not have the resources or time to do as much testing as needed. This always results in "updates" that break things and get customers upset.

In the case of Amazon you can re-download all of your books, but how long will this take? Not to mention you will have lost your place plus bookmarks plus any notes you made. Fortunately for me, I don't use bookmarks or notes and I didn't do the update.

Amazon reports they have fixed the problem, but if you had already updated to the 3.6.1 (the bad one) and run it, you still will have lost all of your stuff.

I'm going to wait a few days or more to make sure nothing else is broken.

If there are any apps you really use a lot it makes sense to update them only when the updates have been out for several days and no one has screamed bloody code.

Beezzy said:

Too late for me


Thank god I mainly stop reading at the end of a chapter. But still. That was a pain the butt to find out.

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same here...Lost ALOT of books. but got'em backed up on Dropbox, so I just gotta transfer 'em over back to kindle...but I did loose my spots in my various e-books....ah well...

Beezzy said:

Every OS has that. Lets be honest here.

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Really? Because I'm pretty sure that if the latest Firefox update horribly breaks something for me, I'm perfectly capable of downgrading to whatever version I want (and, in fact, installing whatever version whenever I want), either from a saved old download or Mozilla's site itself, since they keep everything there.

With iOS alone, there is absolutely nothing you can do. If you add in iTunes on Windows or Mac, you have a bit of control, but it involves manually finding and saving IPA files, which is both cumbersome and completely unsupported.

It would be nice if Apple made the most recent previous version available for this reason, and it would also be nice if they saved (for a period of time during which the developer was willing to support it, at least) old versions of apps when newer ones require a jump in hardware or iOS version. For example, there isn't much you can find for a first-gen iPod touch anymore, but lots of old apps work fine on it--just hope you don't have to do a restore, or you won't be able to find them anymore!

RMo said:

Really? Because I'm pretty sure that if the latest Firefox update horribly breaks something for me, I'm perfectly capable of downgrading to whatever version I want (and, in fact, installing whatever version whenever I want), either from a saved old download or Mozilla's site itself, since they keep everything there.

With iOS alone, there is absolutely nothing you can do. If you add in iTunes on Windows or Mac, you have a bit of control, but it involves manually finding and saving IPA files, which is both cumbersome and completely unsupported.

It would be nice if Apple made the most recent previous version available for this reason, and it would also be nice if they saved (for a period of time during which the developer was willing to support it, at least) old versions of apps when newer ones require a jump in hardware or iOS version. For example, there isn't much you can find for a first-gen iPod touch anymore, but lots of old apps work fine on it--just hope you don't have to do a restore, or you won't be able to find them anymore!

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Thats a web browser not an OS, same thing happens with Android and Win8 Phones when you update an app. Thats what I was referring to.

old-wiz said:

In the case of Amazon you can re-download all of your books, but how long will this take? Not to mention you will have lost your place plus bookmarks plus any notes you made. Fortunately for me, I don't use bookmarks or notes and I didn't do the update.

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Repeat, did not lose notes or bookmarks.

Boston007 said:

Testing?
Take it from someone who has been in the software industry for over ten years.

SQA(Software Quality Assurance) has been dropped to the bottom level of most organizations. It's mostly offshore now as well.

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That... and factor in language barrier, time zone difference with small overlaps and testers that flood bug systems so much with duplicates, bad descriptions, etc that engineers and managers can't really notice real bugs.

Great job getting the fixed rolled out so quickly.

Has anyone verified that the new fix works on iPads and doesn't erase your library?

Well while updating my apps on my iPhone, I saw this notice. Maybe I should change my habit of reading the update notes after I have pressed "Update all"
Although it doesn´t look like anything happened, maybe because I didn´t open the app.

Well it wouldn´t matter either way, as I spend most of my reading time on my Galaxy Tab 7.0 or on my iPad.