Kindle Fire: Out of the Box

Chapter 1. Get to Know Your Kindle Fire

You’ve opened the box to find your shiny (at least the screen is shiny; the back has a comfortable matte finish) new Kindle Fire and USB power cord. What now? If you’ve already found the included “Quick Start Guide” tucked on the underside of the lid, you’ll know how to press the power button to turn on the device, but not a whole lot more than that.

Note

In case you lost the tiny piece of paper that is the Fire’s included “Quick Start Guide”, you can find all of the same information in Turn On the Fire, which is the only information from that guide that appears in this book.

In this chapter, you’ll take a tour beyond the power button and beautiful, constantly changing images on the opening splash screen (see Figure 1-1) to see what’s on the surface and get a taste of what’s just beneath.

Figure 1-1. Rotating lock screen

Feel Your Way Around the Fire

If you’ve ever held a BlackBerry PlayBook, you’ll find the feel of the Fire quite familiar. In fact, built by the same manufacturer (Quanta), the Fire appears to have used the PlayBook design as its template, so similar are their exterior casings. Both have shiny screens with generous black margins, which connect to the same matte-finish side edges and back (in a single piece). But that’s where the construction similarities end, as the Fire completely changes the connections and buttons on the device’s exterior.

Here’s everything you’ll touch as you feel your way around the Fire, beginning with the top edge (Figure 1-2) and ending on the bottom (Figure 1-3).

Note

Unlike the PlayBook (designed to be used primarily in landscape orientation, with all buttons and connectors on its long edges), the long edges of the Fire (designed to be used primarily in portrait orientation) are completely smooth and bereft of anything to touch.

Figure 1-2. Top edge of the Fire

Speakers

Two speakers are located on the top edge of the Fire.

Figure 1-3. Bottom edge of the Fire

Power button

On the bottom edge of the Fire, next to the USB port, you’ll find the mighty power button. Small and round, it looks a lot like the power button on the BlackBerry PlayBook, but unlike that recessed button that is so difficult to locate and press, the Fire’s power button is raised nicely beyond the casing, making it easy to access.

USB connector

Next to the power button sits the USB connector slot.

Headphone jack

The base of the device feels like a strange place for the headphone jack, but that’s where you’ll find it.

Turn On the Fire

As the only button found anywhere on the device, the power button is forced to perform more tasks than just switching the Fire on and off. Here’s what it does.

On/off

If the tablet is completely turned off (right out of the box, for example), press and hold the power button for a couple seconds to bring the screen to life. That is, doing this will at least begin the bringing-to-life process, as you’ll actually be presented with a lock screen. Tapping the arrow on the “slide to unlock” bar and dragging it to the right will get you to the home screen.

When you’re ready to turn off the Fire, press and hold the power button for a couple seconds to bring up the shut-down screen. To turn off the Fire, just tap “Shut Down.” If you’ve pressed the button by accident, just tap Cancel on the screen to dismiss the shut-down screen and get back to wherever you were.

Note

If you’ve password-protected your Fire, as described in Password-Protect Your Fire, you’ll be prompted for the password immediately after the lock screen. If you have the password, you’ll go straight to the home screen after you enter it. But if your Fire falls into a stranger’s hands, the lock screen is as far as he’ll get.

Sleep/wake

For many of us, the Fire’s generous eight hours of battery life makes it an “always on” device. Even if you’re finished reading for the moment, why turn it off if you’re going to listen to music on it soon? To dim the screen, save power, and protect against unintended taps or swipes, press the power button briefly to put it to sleep. When you’re ready to wake it up again, press the button briefly again to immediately bring up the “slide to unlock” screen without wasting time for it to load.

Note

When using the Fire in portrait orientation, the placement of the power button keeps it away from your hands, but it also means you can’t easily prop it up on a table. Because the power button is not recessed (which is a good thing when you’re trying to find it), you’ll put your Fire to sleep if you briefly rest it on any hard surface, which can be pretty frustrating if you’re in the middle of a good part in your book.

Restart

If the Fire freezes and stops responding to your taps, press and hold the power button for 20 seconds to trigger a hard restart.

Home Screen

After awakening your Fire, you’ll arrive at the Home screen (shown in Figure 1-4), your portal to your entire media library, whether already on your device, stored on your Amazon Cloud Drive, or waiting on Amazon’s virtual shelves for you to rent, buy, or borrow. Here’s a rundown of what you’ll find at Home.

Figure 1-4. Home screen

Status bar

Running along the top of the Home screen, the Status bar gives you quick access to a variety of information and settings, shown in Figure 1-5.

Figure 1-5. Settings in the Status bar

Your Fire’s name

After you’ve registered your Fire, as described in Register Your Fire, the name you’ve given it will appear on the far left side of the status bar, just as a friendly reminder of which device you’re using (perhaps of little use if you own only one Fire, but especially helpful if your household has more than one).

Notifications

When you receive email, push notifications from apps, or system messages, you’ll receive an alert next to your Fire’s name in the form of a number (incrementing with the number of notifications you’ve received since you last checked). Tap the number to read your messages.

Clock

When viewing the Home screen, the current time will always appear in the center of the status bar. To quickly display the time in the same position while you’re reading, give the center of the screen a quick tap.

Note

By default, the clock is set to Automatic and will update based on the wireless network it’s currently accessing. To change the time manually (to keep your home time while traveling, for instance), from the Home menu, tap the Quick Settings gear icon (described next), choose More→Date & Time, and turn Automatic to Off. Now you’ll be able to edit the Set Time and Set Date options.

Quick Settings

The gear icon brings up the Quick Settings screen described in Quick Settings.

Wi-Fi

The wifi icon brings up the wireless settings screen described in Wi-Fi.

Battery

The battery indicator on the far right side of the Status bar shows how much battery life is left. Completely filled indicates a full charge, and it empties as the battery drains.

Search

Just below the status bar, right in the center, you’ll see the Search box, as shown in Figure 1-6.

Figure 1-6. Search box

To look for content of any type on your device, just tap in the box. When they on-screen keyboard pops up (see Using the Keyboard for details), type part of the title you’re looking for and press Search. Library search is enabled by default (orange text shows which mode is active), so all results will be from your device, grouped by content library, as shown in Figure 1-7. Search results will whittle down with each character you type.

Figure 1-7. Search content on your device

The Search box is also a handy way to quickly search the Web, without first navigating to the Web browser and going to Google. Just tap the Web tab to switch from the default Library search (the Web tab will appear orange, and Library will turn grey) and type your query. Tapping Search will launch the Web browser with the Google page for your search results.

If you tapped in the Search box by accident, just tap Cancel to return to the Home screen.

Using the Keyboard

Whenever you tap in a field on the Fire that expects text input, the virtual keyboard pops up at the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 1-8, and a blinking cursor will appear in the text box. Typing is as you’d expect: just tap the letter you’re looking for to enter it into the text box. Tap the Shift key (the up arrow on the left side of the keyboard) to switch to capital letters. Tapping the Shift key twice in a row turns on caps lock (tap once more to return to the lowercase keyboard); otherwise, the keyboard returns to lowercase after you type a single capital letter.

Tap the 123!? key to display numbers and symbols. On this screen, the ABC key will occupy the position previously held by 123!?. Tap it to return to typing letters.

If you need a little more room for your fingers to type, move the device into landscape orientation. While the whole screen shifts, the keyboard spreads to fit the width of the new position, giving you more real estate for the keys to breathe. To dismiss the keyboard, press the keyboard symbol on the far right of the bottom row.

Figure 1-8. The virtual keyboard

Content libraries

Right below the Search box, the toolbar that organizes all of your content by media type (Amazon calls these collections content libraries) is perhaps the most intuitive and useful feature of the Fire. From left to right, you’ll see Newsstand (Newsstand), Books (Books), Music (Music), Video (Video), Docs (Docs), Apps (Chapter 5), and Web (Web).

Carousel

If you’ve used the Cover Flow view in Apple’s iTunes, the Fire’s Carousel (Figure 1-9) will feel familiar, though it organizes the content it presents a bit differently. Unlike Cover Flow, which defaults to displaying content alphabetically by name (which you can change to display in order of time, genre, year, rating, or description), the Carousel always displays the most recently accessed item on top, with everything else running behind it in chronological order of most recent use.

Figure 1-9. Carousel

Think of the Carousel like a revolving closet, with the most recently worn item of clothing always returned to the front, whether it’s a pair of pants, a shirt, tie, or whatever. Swiping to the left rotates the Carousel to reveal older items behind the most recent one, and swiping back to the right brings you back to the front.

To keep an item from getting lost in the back of the closet, regardless of how recently you’ve used it, press and hold its icon in the Carousel for a couple seconds and choose “Add to Favorites” (as shown in Figure 1-10) to add it to your Favorites shelf, which lives directly below the Carousel.

Figure 1-10. Add to Favorites

Favorites

By default, your favorites show up on your Favorites shelf in the in order in which you put them there (most recent on the top left and oldest on the bottom right). Your shelves for Favorites extend below the base of your home screen, so tap and flick up anywhere on the screen to see the rest of them.

To rearrange the order, just press an item and drag it where you like, as shown in Figure 1-11. To remove an item from Favorites, just tap and hold and choose “Remove from Favorites,” as shown in Figure 1-12.

Note

You can also add items to your Favorites shelf from any content library, as described in Library.

Figure 1-11. Rearranging Favorites

Figure 1-12. Removing Favorites

Quick Settings

To open the Quick Settings screen, tap the gear icon in the Status bar, shown in Figure 1-5. You’ll be able to change to change the following settings:

Figure 1-13. Settings

Locked/Unlocked

In this setting, “locked” or “unlocked” refers to your screen orientation. If you want the screen to stay in its current orientation, even if you move your Fire into a different position (for example, if you’re reading a book while lying on your side and don’t want the orientation to change from Portrait to Landscape), press Unlocked to toggle the setting to the Locked position. Press Locked to unlock the orientation again.

Volume

The Fire really has two distinct volume settings: master volume and in-app volume. In this Settings screen, “Volume” refers to the device’s master volume (Figure 1-13), which basically determines the loudest any app can get. The slider below the settings buttons adjusts the in-app volume for the Music player.

If you’re playing music, the Settings screen also gives you quick access to the currently playing track. To pause the current song (or to restart your most recently played song), just tap the gear icon in the Status bar and press the Pause or Play button (the double-line Pause symbol is visible while a track is playing, and a Play triangle is displayed otherwise). To jump forward or backward in the track, tap the track timeline next to the Play button. As shown in Figure 1-13, you can also quickly adjust the volume of the Music player with the slider above the track timeline.

Brightness

As you might expect, tapping Brightness brings up a slider just below the Quick Settings bar to adjust the brightness of your screen. Tap and slide to the left to dim; slide to the right to brighten.

Wi-Fi

This screen allows you to access your wireless networking settings. Enable the checkbox next to Wireless Networking (as shown in Figure 1-14,) to turn on Wi-Fi, and uncheck it to turn it off. See Get Connected for details on accessing and managing available wireless networks.

Figure 1-14. Wireless networking

Sync

Tapping Sync updates your content libraries based on any changes made to items in the cloud (see Sync Your Stuff for details). As the dual arrows spin, your Fire is synchronizing the most recently read pages in your Kindle books, music you’ve purchased on your computer but haven’t downloaded to your device yet, and any other purchases or changes you’ve made to your various libraries (as discussed later within the respective sections on each content area).

More

The scope of the most of the settings found under the More tab (shown in Figure 1-15) are beyond the scope of this short guide, but they will be referenced when appropriate.

Figure 1-15. More settings