Kindle Fire anyone?

[dudwell]

I received a Kindle Fire as a Christmas present and I've encountered a few irritations so far. Does any IDNetter have one? What do you make of it?

Please keep any discussion narrowly focused on the UK-purchased Fire and Fire HD because threads in other places tend to befuddle me by extending to other Kindles and other tablets!

[.Griff.]

I had a Kindle Fire HD briefly but swapped it for a Nexus 7. Any specifics questions?

[dudwell]

I think a Nexus 7 might have been my choice had I been buying a tablet myself - but I'm wondering whether I need such a gadget anyway. My problem with the Kindle is that I haven't yet discovered a role for it. Picture quality is good and the sound quality amazing for such a small device.

I don't read many books these days and those I have read come from Gutenberg for free. Unsurprisingly it isn't easily possible to read Gutenberg books on the KF. Lots of free books on Amazon, I'm still trying to find one I want though.

A major irritation is that the "free to print subscribers" Daily Telegraph app for e-readers works for various Kindles but not for the Fire and Fire HD. Unless someone knows different? I've emailed the DT's IT agony uncle Rick Maybury and await a reply.

A minor irritation is that despite installing BBC i-Player and BBC Media Player apps it isn't possible to watch videos on the BBC News website. A message says I have the wrong version of Flash. I've found a description of a way around involving Dolphin but I haven't succeeded yet. Not important actually!

Enough quibbles for now, I'm still learning my way around it. Hoping to encounter another IDNetter KF owner.

[MisterW]

A minor irritation is that despite installing BBC i-Player and BBC Media Player apps it isn't possible to watch videos on the BBC News website. A message says I have the wrong version of Flash.

That's odd, since the latest version of Iplayer/Media Player doesn't use Flash. The whole idea of Media Player was to remove the need for Flash on Android since its no longer supported by Adobe on Android 4.1 up.
Have you tried updating or removing IPlayer/Media Player ?
Aah!, maybe you already had Flash installed since the Kindle is ICS ( Android 4.0 ) and it's checking that...

[Simon]

I think iPlayer / Media Player is different to the video clips on the BBC News website though, isn't it?  I know you can get a BBC News app for the iPhone, so presumably one is available for the KF?  That should work OK.

[MisterW]

You're absolutely right Simon Must read more carefully. The bbc news website will need flash for its videos.
... and you're right again there is an app for it https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bbc.mobile.news.uk&hl=en
Not tried it on my Nexus yet, will head off and try it. 

Edit: it seems to work. First time you select a video it asks what to use to play it. I selected video player and told it to always use that.
Not too clever in portrait mode but landscape is fine.

[pctech]

The BBC news clips are definitely still using Flash (tested in FF 17.1)

Maybe you could write and complain they aren't written in HTML 5?

[Lance]

They must vary the video format based on the device accessing the website as using an iPhone/iPad accessing the full version of the BBC news website allows most (although not all) videos to be played.

[Steve]

I get the impression that newly posted videos are less likely to work than the older ones,whether the mobile version is then a subsequent update.I  might be completely wrong though.