After my Kindle Keyboard screen #fail disappointment, I’ve decided to delegate future purchasing power to an iPad mini or Playbook tablet because I don’t want to buy Amazon device readers that simply breakdown for no apparent reason a short period out of warranty.  I’m not in the game of cycling my device purchases that often. 

So next time you think “price”, you better latch on “quality” to that device purchase decision and truly seek out additional legitimate warranty options.  Right now, AppleCare is the best in the business. Hands down.  Don’t even consider one of those crazy Best Buy warranties.  You’ll be sadly disappointed by the fine print or the “wait game” for service repairs. I’ve heard some horror stories.

Onto to business!

Have you experienced this problem?

1. You buy a Kindle ebook from the Amazon Kindle Store - could be online (Amazon.com), through a Kindle device, or via your Amazon Cloud Reader App (especially for iPad/iOS users since the Cloud Reader method skirts Apple’s 30% revenue share take on content sold through Apple’s App ecosystem). 
2. If purchased on an actual Kindle device or a Kindle Cloud Reader app (iPad, iPhone, Android smartphone), the Kindle ebook content is downloaded directly to said device.
3. After this sequence, if you own other devices (physical Kindle, Android tablet, iOS iPad or iPhone) and wish to sync and download that purchased Kindle ebook content to these other devices, you simply tap the download icon (downward pointing arrow on iPad and iPhone Kindle apps).  Essentially, after the initial purchase, the Kindle content sits in the Amazon cloud, available for download or re-download to ANY device — via physical, native or cloud reader app.

Under #3, the download/re-downloaded process should work flawlessly.  Of late though, this has not worked well at all. 

Basically, I see my Kindle ebook content sitting into the cloud after a sync/refresh at the device-level. To validate the purchase (already proven with Amazon receipts mailed to your email address), I’ve also double-checked to see my purchased Kindle ebook content at Amazon.com in the Kindle account settings panel.

Between my iPad and iPhone using the Kindle native apps, the purchased Kindle ebooks keep re-downloading but never get stored locally to the device. As such, the U/X displays a “downward pointing arrow” (indicating cloud download) to “New” (starburst) when there has been a successful download to the local device.  A quick check for this downloaded content in the device tab for content library validates this.  

But when I select and download my next purchased Kindle ebook from Amazon’s cloud platform, this content appears as “New” but my previously downloaded content goes back to cloud status displaying the “downward-facing arrow”.

Pretty messy, huh?

The problem is a recurring one between my iPhone and iPad Kindle native apps and also affects personal docs that I’ve sent to Amazon’s cloud with a unique email address. I’ve already checked local device storage as a possible issue but I am in a “bountiful” state for iPhone and iPad.  Tons of free space available.

I can only speculate that this is a technical matter that is not being addressed because the incident isn’t massive in scale but random with a small base of users affected.  Not sure.

Even further, it’s entirely unclear if there ever was fine print associated with this cloud service roll-out.  All I do know is that recent native app upgrades from Amazon via App Store simply displayed the new cloud feature without any service limitations that I was aware of that the time.  I even checked my Amazon Cloud Drive settings at Amazon.com and I am clear and free with a full 5GB of free storage available to me. 

Either way, I do believe that actual Kindle/Amazon content purchased through Amazon doesn’t count towards Cloud Drive storage in the same way Apple’s iCloud and iTunes Match services work.

• Buy from Apple — free Cloud storage. 
• Put other content in the Cloud (non-Apple), pay for Cloud storage

That said, this has been a massive thorn in my backside for the better part of two weeks. While I could see Amazon imposing some limits for personal documents using Amazon’s cloud infrastructure on a “free” basis, this should not the case for purchased Kindle content and I’m certain Amazon isn’t limiting storage in this manner.

In a nutshell, Amazon’s cloud sync platform isn’t working the way I’ve expected to work of late.

Jeff, please help me.

P.S.:  I’ve emailed Jeff Bezos to three known email addresses so we’ll see if someone from Bezos executive offices will give me a call.

Related articles

• Amazon makes space for new Kindle (gadgetynews.com)
• 8 Things We Think Apple’s iPad Mini Will Need To Be Truly Amazing (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
• clearing out Kindles in prelude to new devices (geekwire.com)
• Amazon Confirms Cloud Player, Its Would-Be iTunes Killer, Now Works On Sonos, More Devices Coming Later This Year (techcrunch.com)
• Apple and Amazon security flaws (sciencetext.com)