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The new Kindle home screen ditches the top row of buttons in favor of a large search bar and a two-tab design that toggles between the Home screen and your Library.Andrew Cunningham
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The Library view. Things mostly work as they did before, it's only the UI across the top and bottom of the screen that has changed.
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You now access device settings with a smartphone-esque swipe down from the top of the screen, and the new brightness slider is much more responsive than the old one. (Some of these settings will vary based on the Kindle you have; older models won't offer Bluetooth or Dark Mode).Andrew Cunningham
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These menus have gotten a bit smaller throughout the Kindle OS.Andrew Cunningham
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The Kindle browser has lost its "experimental" labeling, though as far as we can tell, it's still exactly the same browser it was before.Andrew Cunningham
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The top navigation when you're reading a book changes, too, getting rid of the old buttons and swapping some text labels for icons.Andrew Cunningham
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While smaller, most menus have the same items in them that they did before.Andrew Cunningham
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Amazon will finally tell you what Kindle you're using in the Device Info screen, which doesn't fix its confusing Kindle naming conventions but does at least make them easier to live with.Andrew Cunningham
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Kindles as far back as the 7th-generation Paperwhite (released in 2015) will be able to grab this update.Andrew Cunningham
Amazon's Kindle e-readers get new software updates regularly, and they're mostly of the nondescript, invisible "performance improvements and bug fixes" variety. But the most recent operating system update (version 5.13.7) is rolling out now, and it refreshes the device's user interface for the first time since 2016 or so. Amazon says that redesigns for the Home and Library screens, which are mostly untouched in the current Kindle update, will be coming "later this year."
The software update that enables the new interface began rolling out in August, but because Kindles only install updates automatically when they're charging and connected to Wi-Fi, it will be a few weeks or months before all supported Kindles will have a chance to grab the update (mine only installed it over this past weekend). To help you navigate the changes, the gallery above gives a brief tour of everything that has changed.
The new update is available on most Kindles released in or after 2015, including the 7th- and 10th-generation Kindle Paperwhite, the 8th-, 9th-, and 10th-generation Kindle Oasis, and the 8th- and 10th-generation standard Kindle. Older "7th-generation" Kindle devices like 2014's Kindle Voyage don't appear to be supported. If your Kindle hasn't installed the update, the link above will give you instructions for installing it manually.
The new update doesn't fix Amazon's confusing Kindle naming scheme, which groups different devices into "generations" that are numbered based roughly on when they were released, not on what generation of product they actually are; the "10th-generation" Paperwhite is actually only the fourth Paperwhite Amazon has released. But you now can head into the Device Info screen and see which Kindle you're using instead of having to guess.
Listing image by Valentina Palladino
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