“Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, one of the hottest gadgets this holiday season because of its low price, has some parents bristling over the simplicity at which children can order from the retail giant and the inability to stop them without crippling the device,” Mitch Lipka reports for Reuters. “Another concern is over theft or losing the device, which can be then easily be accessed for purchases unless a user sets a password to lock the screen when it’s not in use.”
“What happens is that when you order a Kindle Fire – which differs from the Kindle reader by allowing users to browse the web, play games, video and music – it comes with your Amazon account information preloaded, along with ‘1-Click’ ordering. That means anyone who is holding that device can place an order, whether it’s their account or not. No prompts come up to confirm the purchase or ask for a password,” Lipka reports. “So that means that the itchy fingers of toddlers can click way… And that has some parents who either bought the tablets as holiday presents or already have them in their homes angry.”
Lipka reports, “St. Louis area software engineer Lance Durham says he decided to get a couple of Kindle Fires to give as presents to his children. He was loading some games before wrapping them and realized he couldn’t turn off the single-click ordering, which charges his credit card… So Durham called Amazon and says he was told the ordering from Amazon could not be disabled, and the company suggested he ‘deregister’ the device after every purchase. That, he says, caused the downloaded apps to stop working. He returned the tablets.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ill-conceived rush job. Christmas coal.
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