Kindle Tips: Solitaire app updated. Some key Kindle Fire apps. Angry Birds Rio Ad-free, $0.00 for limited time again. NYT's Pogue looks at patents filed by Apple and Amazon to make reselling eBooks, music, movies, apps possible.(?)

Updated Solitaire, Mahjong Solitaire, Spider Solitaire app for Kindle Fire


7 Dragons, the popular creator of Kindle E-Reader and Kindle Fire apps has updated their Solitaire app for Kindle Fire -- a combination of several Solitaire games released in just one app, for $1 as a launch sale, as the permanent price will be $4 later.

  What's new in version 2.3.7

  1) Support for Kindle Fire (Original Edition), Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HD 8.9".
  2) HD Graphics for Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9".
  3) Performance Improvements.
  4) New Game - Memory Solitaire! '

In fact, FreeCell Solitaire was added after the launch last year.

  Note: This app won't work on other Android tablets, and is available only for the Kindle Fire.

It's very customizable, has Autosave, unlimited Undo, and hints plus optional background music.  There are 19 levels from "easy" to "very challenging."

  An early glitch with a selector button was fixed in an update last year.

There is a lot of detail on the various games and features at the product page.  7 Dragons is also responsible for the 3 Hidden Objects app, introduced a few days ago and getting good feedback.


Angry Birds Rio - AdFree version, $0.00 for a limited time
If you've never played Angry Birds, this ad-free version of Rio would be a good start.  Most seem to prefer 'Rio' to the original version.

  There's also an 'HD' version but an Oct. update seems to have "broken" it for many, and there's been no update to fix that one.


See also Amazon's page of other must-have apps


Amazon and Apple's filings of patents for USED EBooks and other digital-items
These have been much in the news and the patents have seemed to me to be pre-emptive strikes on the concept.  Blog reader Martin J. sends the NY Times column by David Pogue, yesterday, on Reselling E-Books and the One-Penny Problem, and what the patents have to say about how this could be done.

 It's a head-hurting dilemma, like a very tough app with solutions that mainly lead you to new problems to be solved.

  In looking more closely at the language of the patents (which surprised me in Apple wording such as "different than" rather than "different from"), Pogue finds the patents "incredibly broad" and giving "publisher and bookstore a lot of control..."  including "the right to impose a minimum price" for reselling an e-item, dropped limits over time and limits on "the number of times a digital item can be resold..."

  He decides that "The greatest worry isn’t that authors will go out of business.  It is that the resulting used e-bookstores will be so complex and saddled with restrictions, they’ll be ruined before they even open" - based on the many conflicting interests and ends that he and his Twitter readers detail (though he ends the column on a mildly (wildly?) optimistic note.
  Be sure to read it for the many questions being asked.

  Any comments on this situation?



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