Hi all. I’ve been using and loving the Kindle app since 2013 and haven’t encountered any major issues, until now. Since updating the app earlier this week, (version 6.9), I’ve had a lot of trouble reading books with VoiceOver. The reading experience isn’t nearly as smooth as it’d been previously, with choppy speech and weird breaks between words and sentences. I thought this might be a font or formatting issue, but I fooled around with the display settings and tried several different books and keep getting the same results. I’m running the latest version of iOS on an iPhone SE. Has anyone else found this problem with the Kindle app or is this just me being nitpicky about how things are read? I haven’t reported this bug too Amazon yet, hopefully it’s something I can fix on my own. Thanks in advance for your help.
Comments
You’re right
I noticed similar. It seems like there are bad line breaks at the edge of the screen instead of word wrapping naturally. I can’t adjust it any way that helps, either. This happened once before, months ago, and they fixed it in the next update. I hope they do again.
Oh good, it’s not just me.
Oh good, it’s not just me. Thanks, and hopefully you’re right about them fixing this promptly. Another poster submitted a bug report explaining the problem, think I will too.
Me too
I’m facing the same problem.
I'm also experiencing this
Tried fiddling around with the view options but it did no good. I can't work out why it is but there is certainly a pause at the end of each line when reading with Voiceover. The Braille display also shows line breaks but i haven't used Braille with the Kindle app often enough to know whether or not this is normal.
no testers?
i wish for a lot of our apps that we now like to use that blind people could be used as testers.
Same issue
I’m having this problem too. I’m guessing they were trying to make it so that VO would detect paragraph breaks rather than treating each page as a single paragraph, and we’ve ended up with a pause at every new line. It’s difficult to listen, to VO reading kindle, books now because it pauses at, unnatural places in the, middle of a sentence.
I sent feedback.
Maybe I should send another one with a link to this page since I'm not the only one feeling frustrated.
The current Kindle app crisis
I reported this issue to Kindle customer service last friday. The person I got wasn't a native English speaker but understood about the pauses after I said some sentences with the same unnatural pauses. He also seemed to know about VoiceOver and passed the feedback along to the Kindle app developer. I really with they'd get at least one blind person to test reading a book before releasing an update. It's one thing when you read for pleasure but I feel for people who have bought books for classes or work.
There's a giant thread of messages on the Vi-phone list all about this issue. Twitter is also evidence of how much we care about our Kindle content. I really didn't think it'd take them this long to send out a fix since it's clearly something which they changed in the last update.
I have well over a thousand Kindle books now and can't just walk away to Apple Books. I'm in this for the long haul. The good news is that whatever is causing these pauses seems to be iOS and possibly VoiceOver-related. I can still read Kindle content without difficulty on my PC using NVDA and the regular Kindle app for Windows.
i using previous release
this is why on my ipad i update apps when i want, not automatically, as the previous update of course, works.
Also Experiencing This Issue and Have Reported It to Amazon
Like so many people I am also experiencing this issue and have sent a detailed bug report to Amazon via the app's feedback option. I received a prompt response, asking that I call them. To be honest I don't have the time to do this in the next few weeks. However, enough people have reported this to them that I am confident that they should have an understanding of the issue and I predict that it will be fixed quickly. It isn't just the reading that is choppy but the earcons you receive when the page flips are different. They're using the same earcons that you hear when you open an app, making the reading experience annoying. Oddly enough, the pauses and longer earcons do not occur when I'm reading a magazine in text view. In that case, the reading is as it was in previous releases. It's only in books that I'm experiencing this.
I'm experiencing this as well
Don't worry, its not just you. I called their accessibility line and reported it. Hopefully it gets fixed soon.
accessibility line
hello how do i contact the accessibility line do they have a uk-based number?
Fixed
There is a new update for Kindle. I just did it, and the problem seems to have been fixed. I only looked at one book, but before today's update, I read it and had the issue. So, try updating the app. Hopefully everyone will have the same results and it will work fine again.
Kindle app fixed
I'm happy to report that the Kindle problem has been resolved. I've tried with over ten books with no strange pauses or other issues.
Yay!
I sent positive feedback about the update and the fix.
Its fixed for me too
Greetings,
I just tested this on my iPhone and it is working well. I do have a quick couple of questions. How are people reading with the app? From what I have found the app will not run in the background with the phone off. Do those who use it find this makes the app difficult to use?
Thanks,
Greg WOcher
RE: Its fixed for me too
Hello Greg. It would be nice if one could read Kindle books with the app closed and the phone screen put to sleep; however, due to the fact that this app is an "active" app, as I like to think of it, i.e., the app actively scrolls pages as you read, you must have the app open in order to use it. All I do is start the book reading and then put the phone down. If I wish to do something else while reding, then I must close the app first because the app claims front and center. You can listen to music if you want to and it will work in the background. However, I have found that it's more distraction than it's worth.
Hopefully this explains the atmosphere a bit better for you.
Happy reading.
the updaje
hi all, i do not see the latest update of the app to fix this issue? is it not in the Uk store?
A while ago, they actually got VO to read each paragraph.
It was totally cool! I bought a Kindle book, opened it right after buying it, and was totally shocked. I actually had paragraphs! And they read beautifully, too, without any weird pauses in the text, except for the brief pause when there’s a page change! The only thing you couldn't do was run your finger down the page and start reading from whatever line you landed on--VO couldn't detect each individual line—you could only start reading from the beginning of paragraphs. I guess you couldn't have it all. Anyhow, I can't remember the version number of this update, so I couldn't tell them in which version it worked, unfortunately. I only got that being ble to read paragraphs behavior a few times, and then it reverted back to what we were seeing before this latest Apple update, meaning that VoiceOver treated each page as one giant paragraph.
Thanks,
Shersey
Kindle fixed and I am in the UK
To the poster who said the update wasn't showing in the UK, it appeared for me on I think it was Saturday here in London. The problem is indeed fixed.