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Amazon’s Special Offers in the Kindle Fire HD variants has brought upon a great deal of angry customers. This makes sense as they are a bit intrusive, but it seems what upsets users more is uncertainty. Amazon representatives said that there would be an option to opt-out of these ads, and later other representatives said it would not be possible. So will we be able to or not?
Tech Crunch is now reporting that opting out of these pesky ads will, indeed, be an option. This will cost customers $15, and it will get rid of lock-screen and bottom-page ads for life.
“We know from our Kindle reader line that customers love our special offers and very few people choose to opt out. We’re happy to offer customers the choice.”
Sadly, we are still a bit wary about believing this, since multiple Amazon has been informing many sites that opting out of said advertisements will simply not be possible. And Tech Crunch isn’t clear about the origin of this information, which they claim to be an announcement.
But who knows, maybe Amazon simply had a change of heart. Let’s hope this one is true! Also, don’t forget to check out our hands-on video. That little tab is not shabby at all for that price!
Update: Engadget confirms
So it seems the guys at Engadget have also received word on the matter and users will, indeed, be able to opt-out of Special Offers by paying a one-time $15 fee. This will come as a relief to many of you, and it is great Amazon is at least giving us an option. Even though many of you don’t mind them.
“I wanted to let you know that with Kindle Fire HD there will be a special offers opt-out option for $15. We know from our Kindle reader line that customers love our special offers and very few people choose to opt out. We’re happy to offer customers the choice.”
[Via: Tech Crunch, Engadget]
For a supposedly smart company , you’d think the last thing they’d want to do was spoil enthusiasm at launch
The ads never bothered me on my kindle, and hey it saves a few bucks. I’d take them over air push spamming the notification bar any day
How about the opposite? I want a Kindle HD full of ads, only ads, permanently ads, as many ads as Amazon wants to cram into it. But the price must to be reduced. Like $10 the tablet. If Amazon is OK then I would buy two.
And then wait until it gets rooted to get rid of the ads. You sir, are pure evil ;)
Oh Amazon, if you are reading this, please don’t believe what this man is saying. Please be assured that I LOVE your ads. The only purpose I will buy the Kindle HD at $10 is only to read your ads. I like your ads so much I dream about them at night. But I am too poor to buy the device. Actually I want 3, one for us and 2 to eacj of our kids. I am sure they deserve to read your ads. I am ready to pay you 3x$10 for 3 Kindle HD.
Nice try.
It doesnt matter which way Amazon goes the devs over at XDA will allow you to remove all ads sooner or later by allowing you to install a new rom
I think it does matter.
If there is an official way to remove the ads, I think that will make it easier to “cheat” and remove the ads from an official Amazon build without paying and without resorting to a “custom ROM”. Root may or may not be required, impossible to say at this point.
In any case, most people buying these will not be rooting or ROMing, so that alone makes it matter.
I wonder if you’ll be able to pay and remove ads after purchase…
I see everyone saying this and there is a good chance, based on previous amazon tabs, that getting root and custom ROMs on it will be easy. However, there is also another very likely chance amazon didn’t like what happened with the previous tabs and will decide to lock the boooader, write protect all important partitions, and force signature checking for basically everything. That’s not to say the really smart devs can’t get around that but take Motorola as an example, if they really want to they can make it virtually impossible to permenantly unlock these security measures.
Google; the number one online ad company, doesnt even do this. What makes amazon think they can?
The ads on the older Kindle touch are no big deal. Who cares if you see and on a lock SCREEN?
You don’t want it fine but all of the people declaring their hate are getting plain silly. The ads are totally unobtrusive and sometimes are pretty good like $3 off mp3 albums.
I don’t own any Kindle devices but as a frequent Amazon customer I think I would come across some deals I would be really glad I saw.
That’s because they are all 8 gig nexus 7 owners who want to compensate for their lack of size. OK I kid, I kid.
This is a very poor business model there’s no way I want to buy a 200 dollar product and then have to turn around 15 dollars more just to turn off adds. Someone’s gotta find a way around this.
There is, it’s called not buying it.