Amazon has always devoted a large portion of their home screen to products and services. They always promote Kindle Unlimited, Amazon Kids+ and a maelstrom of recommended reading. However, they are taking things a little too heavy-handed with the advent of unskippable video ads. Right now they are promoting the Amazon Kindle Scribe on the Kindle app for iOS.
The Kindle Scribe ad is a whopping 1:36 long and thankfully the audio is off by default, but it is subtitled, so you can follow along. If you click the volume on, this ad, in addition to future ads will always automatically start playing with full audio enabled, which can be jarring if you are simply browsing around the home screen, looking for new and notable book titles to buy or download for free if you are a member of Prime Reading.
Remember, on the Amazon app for iOS, you cannot make book purchases, you have to do this on the Amazon website or using another device, such as a Kindle e-reader or Fire Tablet. This is where their subscription systems come into play. If you are a Prime Member, you can download thousands of free books and they are easily found in a few different categories. However, Kindle Unlimited provides the best value with over a million books, comics and manga available.
This is the first time that Amazon has run ads on their Kindle app for tablets or smartphones. An advertisement, is intrusive. What is next, an ad-free subscription to the Kindle app to remove ads?
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
