Catching Up to the Times

I have one of the original kindles. It really isn’t that old, but it seems almost prehistoric with its awkward way to turn pages and navigate menus. I actually packed it all up in it’s original box, thinking someday it would be a museum piece.

I got a nook over a year ago. I tend to forget where I put it and the battery always seems to have run down when I want to use it. The pages are easier to turn than on the kindle and it is a lot less awkward to hold, but reading on still isn’t comfortable.

But the times they are changing and more and more people are reading e- versions. So, I noticed there were apps for nook and kindle on my smart phone.

Suddenly it occurred to me that if I had an e-reader app on my phone, I would probably use it far more than the old kindle or the newer nook. I always have my phone with me, so I’d always have reading material.

The rest of my family tends to be fidgeting with their smart phones all of the time. The first thing they do is put their smart phones on the table if we go out to eat. Since there was no conversation going on the other day because they were both immersed in their emails, I decided to join the trend and took out mine. Why not do something useful, I thought. I looked through the apps and when I saw the one for nook, I clicked on it. In no time I’d downloaded it and signed in to my account and as if by magic all the books I’d purchased as nooks appeared on the screen ready to read. I tried reading on it and it was even better than the real nook I had at home.

With my confidence buoyed by my success, I thought about the kindle app. I have more books on my kindle account and due to the awkwardness of my kindle, have stopped using it, but thought it would be great to have those books available on my phone. So, I tried to repeat just what I’d done with the nook app. It seemed to download fine and prompted me to sign into my account. Only it would never let me do it. I ended up going in circles, getting nowhere.

Now what? I looked at my kindle account on my home computer and it showed no phone device connected to it. I considered calling someone at kindle, but I wasn’t even sure what to say. It seems like it has more to do with my phone than kindle and the last time I tried calling somebody about my kindle, I got some a very unpleasant and unhelpful woman in India who was impatient and kept yelling at me. Is that supposed to be customer service?

Who is responsible for the apps on my phone? By now I’d figured there was some defect in it. I considered uninstalling it and trying again, but there was no uninstall button on the downloaded app. At times like that it just seems to much easier just to open a paper book. No battery to die or app to not work.

What I’d like to know is how all these impatient kids who are supposed to be so tied to their electronics deal with the frustration when their devices and apps don’t work right.