So if you are a person that is concerned with security on your electronic devices, I do NOT recommend the Kindle for you.
Kyle got me a Kindle for Mother’s day a few years ago because I had complained about missing my Palm Zire. My Palm kept me on track with all of the household tasks, and since it’s death I have struggled with being on top of everything and remembering when it’s time to do things. He thought that maybe I could use the Kindle to keep me on track instead. For a long time I used the Kindle without putting any kind of password on it. I downloaded some calendar apps, and some task manager apps, and some free games and free books. As soon as the kids saw the games they started taking the Kindle and hiding with it to play them. This became troublesome. They even bought a couple of things through my Amazon account, which caught me by surprise when I saw the email order confirmation. After this episode Kyle helped me make sure that I had one click purchasing and in app purchasing turned off, so that any purchase made from the Kindle would require me to log in to my Amazon account. None of the kids would admit to having the Kindle, and they wouldn’t return it when I noticed it missing and asked for it, so eventually Kyle put a password on it for me. This seemed to deter them for a little while, but then they started trying to guess the password, to get into it anyway. Well here is where the real problems began. On other devices, such as the iPad, or the Nook, if you enter the wrong password five or six times, it locks the device and tells you to try again after 5-10 minutes or so. If you KEEP putting in the wrong password, it locks it for even longer. The Kindle doesn’t do that. Entering the wrong password five or six times you will be given the option to reset the Kindle to factory default settings. In the hands of kids who don’t know how to read, or that just don’t know what that message means, this is not a good option. In short, my children wiped out my Kindle multiple times. I was able to recover my books, and apps, because they were stored in a cloud on my Amazon account, but all information stored IN the apps, was lost forever. Every event in the calendar, every task, I had a good years worth of information in a medical tracker app….all of it GONE. Kyle called Amazon customer service to complain about this feature and find out if there was any other way to get my information back, but there isn’t. So Kyle and I did some further testing. I got all my apps and books back on, and I added a few things to the task list, then we used the cable to back up the Kindle to my computer. Then we wiped the Kindle again, re-downloaded the file from my computer and checked the task list. Nothing had transferred, so it’s pointless to try to back up the device like that. So we ended up just taking the password off. The kids went back to taking it to play games, but at least they couldn’t buy stuff, or so we thought. Somehow, even with one click purchasing and in-app purchasing turned off, Tyra was able to purchase four videos for the Kindle! This is the last straw. Kyle called Amazon and complained about it and they ended up refunding my card and removing those videos from the Kindle, and we have decided to remove the apps and games from the device, turn off the wifi, and make it an electronic library for home school uses. As for a device for me, we are going to give the Google Nexus a try.
