Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2016
Fire OS 5 Review
This review is aimed specifically at the major software update we just received, not at the particular Kindle Fire model. I myself use an HDX 8.9 which I love in terms of its hardware, and until the system overhaul that OS 5 brought had loved for its software as well. Since this review will be rather lengthy, you can just read the headings that seam pertinent to you. I will be reviewing this in terms of comparison and contrast with how it has improved or devolved since Fire OS 4.
Topics:
LOCK SCREEN
PULL-DOWN MENU
MAIN USER INTERFACE (UI)
BUILT-IN APPS
BUGS
1. LOCK SCREEN
Pros: The lock screen has added a really nice feature allowing us to directly access the quick pull-down menu with wifi, airplane mode, etc. I will talk about the development of the pull-down menu in the next part of this review. Another nice feature is the ability to directly access the camera app from the lock screen with a swipe from the bottom right corner.
Cons: As is the case with almost all the changes for OS 5, the cons far outweigh the pros. First, the biggest problem with the lock screen is the loss of the direct ability to pause, skip, or go back 30 seconds when listening to an audiobook or to music as we had before. Even with access to the pull-down menu on the unlock screen we are not able to control playback. We must unlock the screen first; and THEN access the pull-down menu to access the playback controls. Ridiculous.
The other major nuisance of the lock screen is the fact that the unlock swipe has been changed from a right-to-left swipe in the middle of the screen (which allows for one-handed operation of a large tablet) to a down-to-up swipe from the middle of the bottom of the screen, forcing two-hand operation to unlock the tablet. To add insult to injury, this time fro the gesture to actual unlock seems to take longer than before.
Finally, I find it obnoxious that Amazon added a quick-swipe into shopping on the lockscreen, as though accessing the Amazon store is as essential as accessing the camera quickly. Seems to me there are many other apps that deserve such a useful piece of lock screen real estate (say, e-mail).
2. PULL-DOWN MENU
Pros: This is one of the aspects of OS 5 that is done pretty well overall. It provides all of the most essential features: Wifi, Airplane Mode, Blue Shade*, Do Not Disturb, Settings, Auto-Rotate toggle, Mayday (help), and Firefly (to catch the name of that song on the radio quickly). Blue Shade is an excellent feature addition which allows us to use the Fire before bedtime without the sleep-preventing overuse of blue light. The blue shade removes the blue light, turning the screen a reddish color, and dimming it, though you can easily adjust the red-yellow balance and brightness to your liking.
Cons: The biggest Con has to do with the implementation of Audiobook playback controls. Music playback controls are largely unchanged. If you play a song, then playback controls are added into the native pull-down menu. However, for audiobooks, the playback controls are added as a white notification below the native pull-down menu. This has two disadvantages. First, the controls are ultra-small requiring super-accurate touches. Second, I have not figured out what triggers its disappearance, but the playback controls seem to randomly disappear from the notification section. The fact that I can even remove them from the notification while the audiobook is still playing is also weird. They should be there permanently unless I actually quit the audiobook app, as they were with OS 4.
Non-Pro-Con: This depends on preference. I like less options; but others like more. If you own a Kindle Fire, like owning an iPad, you understand that you are losing customization choices with the OS. Nevertheless, some might be annoyed that there is no customizability with the actual pull-down menu’s native items, though all of the notifications and priorities can be controlled through the App Settings menu.
3. MAIN USER INTERFACE (UI)
Perhaps, I’m using the wrong wording, but when I say the main UI, I simply refer to how the whole Home Screen, Tabs, animations, etc. have been tweaked (or more accurately, mangled) with OS 5.
Pros:
Probably the best new feature that was added to the interface is the addition of a small box icon next to the home circle and back arrow icons. When the box is tapped you will get a carousel view of all running apps. In fact this view has revealed either a new problem with the OS or perhaps a problem that remained hidden in previous versions since there was no “App Reveal” button. I am including a screenshot of the problem. As you will see, the system seems to run duplicates once apps are opened. I am only including an example that shows two of these (Music and Settings), but the problem persists across all built-in apps. An app exists for Settings as well as menus accessible from Settings—Wi-Fi Settings, E-mail Settings, Parental Controls, etc. Music artists each take up an app tab, the music library requires an App tab, etc. Thus, the system appears to be wasting a lot of resources running so many separate apps. The other possibility is that this is always the case in the OS with the aim of speeding up launches, but the end result is still an extremely cluttered app carousel. We only need one Settings tab, one music tab, etc.
Another possible Pro for some is the ability to change the Home Screen wallpaper. I prefer the simplicity of the original dark gray screen of OS 4 (less distracting when searching for a colorful app that could be lost in the colorful background), but I was easily able to change the wallpaper to a simple gray to suit my needs. Others may like the ability to put their own pictures or scenic backgrounds to more personalize the home page.
Cons:
Perhaps the most egregious of the UI problems is the removal of a main tab for Photos and Docs. Some might argue that the Docs tab gets less mainstream use, but Photos is undeniably one of the most frequently used apps for most users. Nevertheless, both Photos and Docs have been removed from the major tabs in the banner across the main screen WHILE KEEPING A TAB CALLED “SHOP”!!! That is to say, in order to push for impulse buying, Amazon has removed the instant accessibility to photos in favor of keeping an entire tab dedicated to shopping.
Another major change with the OS is that instead of accessing tabs within the main screen, each tab has been broken into separate apps. Photos and Docs have been removed from the tabs and exist only as separate apps that we can open from the Home Screen or from the Apps tab. The result is more Home Screen clutter. What is crazy is that all of the apps are stuck on the Home Screen…they can no longer be removed for a neater Home Screen. The only workaround I have found is that I can combine them into their own “Folder” so that instead of taking up 50 App spaces, I can cull them into 1 App Folder space.
While on the topic of the Home Screen, it is also worth noting that we can no longer save our favorite books as an app-like icon to the home screen. For example, I read my Bible every day. Previously this could just be seen immediately on my Home Screen next to my Silk browser app. Now I must go to the inconvenient Recent tab (discussed later).
Regarding the Tabs (Music, Apps, Shop, etc.), these have become less useful. Previously, you were brought directly to your library for the selected tab; now the screen wastes resources animating a movement to a tab which shows you your most recently accessed apps, but you must additionally tap “Library” in order to see all of it, which is exactly the same Library interface we had on OS 4. Thus, two taps are required to do what was previously one tap. This is a small insignificant amount of time; but the digression in usability is the bigger problem. What happens when OS 6 requires three taps, then four?
When Accessing the Apps tab, the results are far more problematic. Seeing only five apps in the Tab section, we almost always have to view the Library, but the apps library has become horrible. The apps are not viewable as icons. Instead they are in a list form with their icon, name, download/cloud status, and a context menu. First of all, this view makes it impossible to see more than 15 apps at a time. Second of all, you can’t tap the App name or icon to open it. Tapping these will bring you to the app information page in the Store! Ridiculous! This makes no sense from a UI perspective. Instead, the only way to open it is by tapping the tiny “Open” button on the right side.
I’m not sure how many felt about the Carousel that previously dominated the Home Screen. I loved it. Instead this has been replaced by a Recent tab. I have two problems with this. One, it now requires two taps instead of one to access the most recently used 5 apps. Two, the apps are organized in a vertical pane instead of a carousel (though I know this is more habit/visual preference than a Con with the system UI). I think that we should either have the option to activate a carousel into the Home Screen or the carousel should be added as a permanent strip between the Tab titles and the apps on the Home Screen. I think this is much more efficient than forcing me to either tap Recent tab, the box/app-reveal icon, or the other associated tab (i.e., Books for my Bible).
This is a small UI problem and easily fixable. Previously, we had sliders for turning things like On or Off (e.g., the Wi-Fi). However, they did not give a visual cue that they needed to be slid. They have changed these sliders to now look like sliders! Excellent, right? The “sliders” are shown as small floating dot inside of an oval that is orange when the dot is on the left to indicate On and gray when the dot is on the right for Off. HOWEVER, a sliding motion does not move this dot! Instead of sliding, we must TAP them. It makes no sense. If a tap is required, the icon should not be shown as a slider, it should be shown as a tap-switch; otherwise the sliding motion we used in OS 4 should be preserved to go with the much better visual slider cue.
4. BUILT-IN APPS
I will only speak about the system Apps I use most frequently, as I cannot comment on Apps that I didn’t really use in OS 4.
Calculator: This app has a huge new problem. They got rid of the “C” and “CE” buttons! Thus, as you tap out “5 + 5” you can see the answer “10” below it on the screen like any normal smartphone calculator. No need to tap “=“ to find the answer. But how do you delete the numbers? No “C” button. You must first tap “=.” The “DEL” (which had only functioned as a backspace) will then change to “CLR” and then a really slow animation erases the answer so that you can begin a new problem. There is in fact space on the calculator to keep both the DEL and CLR buttons visible at the same time without squeezing, shrinking, or removing any other keys.
Clock: The clock changes LOOK nice, but they don’t work nicer. When you want to set an alarm clock, for example, you no longer get a big number keypad where you can tap out the time you want. Instead, you get a tiny little clock-like circle of numbers 1 - 12 to choose the hour to wake. For selecting the minutes, you get the same clock circle for numbers 5 - 60. These numbers are so small and squeezed that it is not easy to tap out the right time on first touch. Worse, if you want a time like 5:22pm you have to do a really difficult tap on :25, then slowly slide your finger until the :22 appears. By the time you lift your finger, you may accidentally change it to :23 or :21 from the movement during the lift of your fingertip. This is an easily fixable problem. If they insist on keeping this interface because it is more attractive then a number pad, then blow up the clock…use more screen real estate. Then add little dots to represent the minutes between the 5-minute increments currently shown.
Camera: I like how the camera added the ability to tap either a photograph shutter button or a video record button from the same menu without having to switch between Camera and Video mode. This is an excellent end-user consideration to make when adding/changing a feature. Also, I’m not sure if we had HDR previously; if not, I’m glad this was added. At the very least, the camera adds a “HDR recommended” text to the screen during camera mode if you do not have it activated but it might help the shot be better.
E-mail: This has become slightly streamlined, making deletion of messages easier, and making the composing icon more meaningful by changing it to an always-visible pen in the bottom right corner. I like the e-mail client on here and I’m glad they didn’t tweak it too much.
Calendar: I haven’t used the calendar very much in the past or even now. The reason: it is useless when you set a reminder but the reminder does not remind you. I want my calendar reminders to go off with their alarm and turn on my screen just like the alarm clock does. Instead, you won’t see the reminder until you take the time to turn on your Fire and look at your notifications. It works nicely in terms of its Cloud connectedness and its interface (if your requirements are relatively basic), but its inability to wake the device up and actually remind me of events leaves its purposes moot at this point.
5. BUGS
I have encountered several bugs, but cannot remember all of them at the moment. The only one I can remember at the moment happens when you have a Folder of apps on the Home Screen and open that folder, then open an app inside the folder. Once in the app, if you tap the Home circle at the bottom of the screen, it will bring you back to the Home Screen, BUT it will automatically enter the Keyboard mode trying to make you edit the name of the Folder containing the app you just accessed. I will update the bugs as I run into them.
*Music/Audio playbook gets a new notification number near the device name in the top left corner. This may not be a bug in technicality, but it is strange to always tell us we have a new notification when it is simply a running app.
*Pulling the headphones out used to stop audio playback EVERY time. Now, TWICE I have been sitting in my quiet office listening to something (an audiobook once and music the other time), and as I pulled the headphones out the playback did NOT stop. The result was super loud music/speaking all of the sudden filling the whole office. No clue how to make the problem repeat; I can only say that it is something that happens now and did not happen before.
*When user uses Recents tab to play an Audiobook, the audiobook is opened so that the user may press play and listen to the audiobook. If the screen is turned off and then turned back on, after the unlock screen, the user is redirected to the Recents tab instead of remaining inside the open Audiobook app. The Audiobook app should be the first screen seen when unlocking the Fire tablet, just as the Music app is when it is left open before the screen is turned off.
*If the tablet has an audiobook open in the Notifications tab but not playing when it is plugged into wall outlet (using the Amazon charger), the audiobook will disappear from the Notifications tabs in the pull down menu (despite the fact that tapping the Apps square at the bottom of the screen shows that the Audiobook app is still running).
*When making a new collection in Books, the name cannot be the same as the name of a collection in Audiobooks, despite the fact that they are running in separate apps. Example: gave the name “Classics” to a collection in Audiobooks. Then named a collection in Books “Classics” but it was automatically changed to “Classics 2” without the ability to override.
*Also in Collections. When a new collection is created, the preview thumbnail of one collection appears the same on the other collections (even though the books in each collection are different). Must exit the Collections screen and return to see the correct thumbnail. The collection thumbnails still seem to go haywire without a predictable replicability.
CONCLUSION
I am aware of how long this review of OS 5 is, but I hope that bears witness to how much I love Amazon and how much I had loved my Fire HDX 8.9 before this attractive but non-user-friendly OS 5 was automatically downloaded and added to my device. I think that many user’s who read this will notice that they share in my dislike for many of the changes. I am not against change, I am simply against changes that do one or more of the following:
Favor visual attractiveness over user friendliness (animations just to animate)
Replace simplicity with unnecessary complexity (two taps instead of one)
Overlook simple design issues (small buttons on large screens)
I think that Amazon has made all three of these mistakes with the release of OS 5. Moreover, I am really unhappy with how hard Amazon has pushed shopping with the added swipe on the lock screen as well as with favoring a Shop tab over a much more widely used tab like Photos. I feel like I signed up for having the ads on the lock screen when I bought this; I knew, accepted, and sometimes even liked these. It keeps the lock screen from being boring. However, I feel like Amazon is favoring its bank account more than the end user with these choices, and it does not seem very Amazon-like to me.
As a result, I give 4.5 stars for the tablet itself, but 2 stars for OS 5, which makes the 4.5 star tablet work like a 3-star tablet.
Amazon has always been fantastic with customer service; it is why I have remained a customer since its humble beginnings. And I believe in Amazon’s ability to fix these issues. They have always done a great job responding to customer feedback. I really hope that by posting this review across all devices that at least one developer sees it and responds with actions that get me back to loving my Kindle Fire.
Thanks for reading and hope this helps you make an informed decision about the OS ecosystem you may or may not want to enter.
