Firmware Update Kindle firmware version 5.16.5

jhowell · 11-15-2023, 07:24 AM

Kindle firmware version 5.16.5 is now available for 10th and 11th generation Kindles and Kindle Scribe.

Scribe release notes:

Quote:

Version 5.16.5 – November 2023

Here's what's new:

View Collections with list layout: In Library, you can now switch to Collections view and select either Grid or List layouts to view your content. These settings can be found by tapping on the view and sort menu icon in the top right of Library.

Multiselect in Notebook Overview: In the Notebook Overview for any notebook, you can tap on "Select" in the top toolbar or long-press on any page to select multiple notebook pages and make bulk actions such as add, delete, move, or share.

Share Current Page in Notebooks: On any notebook page, you can tap on the Share button to "Share current page" or "Share entire notebook".

Searchable PDF of your notebook: When using the Convert to text Share options, a searchable PDF of your notebook is available to search for keywords in your handwritten note when viewing the PDF on your phone or laptop.

hleo12 · 11-15-2023, 08:12 AM

The Collection with List layout is also present in 5.16.4.
I wonder why they would list that there.

JSWolf · 11-15-2023, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hleo12

The Collection with List layout is also present in 5.16.4.
I wonder why they would list that there.

Maybe for those who do not have 5.16.4.

jhowell · 11-15-2023, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hleo12

The Collection with List layout is also present in 5.16.4.
I wonder why they would list that there.

It is possible that the feature was not enabled for everyone in the previous software update.

Each new firmware release contains a few new features that are only visible if remotely enabled by Amazon. They call it Weblab.

JSWolf · 11-15-2023, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhowell

It is possible that the feature was not enabled for everyone in the previous software update.

Each new firmware release contains a few new features that are only visible if remotely enabled by Amazon. They call it Weblab.

And we cal it a pain in the ass.

nathanwj · 11-15-2023, 09:48 AM

Seems like the browser remains unchanged from the last update. Still the same results at html5test.com. Whole system seems a little faster over all, but probably just because it got restarted.

jhowell · 11-15-2023, 10:33 AM

Looking at the Scribe firmware one significant change I see is the ability to reformat the user storage partition to ext4 during a factory reset.

I don't know if this is actually enabled yet but it makes sense for them to do that now that the partition is only accessible via MTP.

nathanwj · 11-15-2023, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhowell

Looking at the Scribe firmware one significant change I see is the ability to reformat the user storage partition to ext4 during a factory reset.

I don't know if this is actually enabled yet but it makes sense for them to do that now that the partition is only accessible via MTP.

Would that have the possibility of changing performance at all?

jhowell · 11-15-2023, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nathanwj

Would that have the possibility of changing performance at all?

I am not sure but I doubt that it would result in a noticeable change.

Kluyg · 11-15-2023, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhowell

Looking at the Scribe firmware one significant change I see is the ability to reformat the user storage partition to ext4 during a factory reset.

I don't know if this is actually enabled yet but it makes sense for them to do that now that the partition is only accessible via MTP.

What apps / techniques do you use to explore the insides of the firmware?

UPDATE: I found https://github.com/NiLuJe/KindleTool

Quoth · 11-15-2023, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nathanwj

Would that have the possibility of changing performance at all?

FAT can actually be pretty fast because there is no security and no journaling. Ext4, NTFS and Apple Filesystem may all sometimes be slower, but are all far more reliable, don't have a low limitation of files in the root and have security.

There might be no difference in performance for the user, or it might be very slightly slower or slightly faster!

FAT32 and exFAT use multiple directory entries for long file names (VFAT extension), so Ext4, NTFS and APFS can sometimes be faster. FAT predates MS-DOS and has been "extended" about 5 times, the most famous being long filenames for Win95 (which was stupid, as NTFS was already nearly 3 years old, released in 1993 on NT3.1).

The only reason FAT is/was used was simplicity and compatibility. NT in theory could address exabytes in 1993, but exFAT was needed to sensibly use more than a 32 G Byte partition with FAT32. Floppies used FAT12.

jhowell · 11-15-2023, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kluyg

What apps / techniques do you use to explore the insides of the firmware?

UPDATE: I found https://github.com/NiLuJe/KindleTool

That's it. Extract a disk image using KindleTool, mount it as a drive, and look for anything new and interesting.

tomsem · 11-15-2023, 02:35 PM

My 'glass half empty' take:

Searchable Notebook PDF is a start, but what I would really like is to have a handwriting recognition service on Scribe that would create an index so you can search and jump directly to the page in question (this would also apply to sticky notes and PR annotations).

You might think they could make all handwriting in exported PDFs searchable (sticky notes, PDF annotations) by default. Even with Notebooks you only get it when you explicitly choose Convert to text.

It turns out that bulk 'move' only applies within a single notebook. Still no way to copy or move pages from one notebook to another one, apart from Lasso copy/cut and paste.

Kluyg · 11-15-2023, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhowell

That's it. Extract a disk image using KindleTool, mount it as a drive, and look for anything new and interesting.

Well that was fun getting it all together on macOS with M1 chip, but I have it all unpacked and mounted now, time to explore

Thanks for steering me in the right direction!

Spoiler:

Code:

% ls -lh ~/ext4_mount/app
total 504
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    65K Oct 31 13:52 APPOTA_MANIFEST
dr-xr-xr-x  6 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 EinkBootActions
dr-xr-xr-x  6 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 KPPMainApp
dr-xr-xr-x  3 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 KPPMainAppCrashRecovery
dr-xr-xr-x  7 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 KPPOOBEMainApp
dr-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:37 bin
dr-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 contextualactionbar
dr-xr-xr-x  3 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 include
dr-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 info
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   1.1K Nov  1 03:41 kpp_app_cmds.json
dr-xr-xr-x  3 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 kux
dr-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel   3.0K Nov  1 04:37 lib
dr-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 registry
dr-xr-xr-x  3 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 standalonenotebook
dr-xr-xr-x  3 root  wheel   1.0K Nov  1 04:14 toolbar
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    41B Nov  1 03:41 version_ARNApplication.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    62B Nov  1 03:41 version_AccessibilitySupportUtils.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    43B Nov  1 03:41 version_EINKMobileWeblab.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    39B Nov  1 03:41 version_EInkBookWizard.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    25B Nov  1 03:41 version_EInkKMS.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    27B Nov  1 03:41 version_EInkKWIS.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    46B Nov  1 03:41 version_EInkKindleCurator.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    48B Nov  1 03:41 version_EInkReadNowService.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    32B Nov  1 03:41 version_EInkReader.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    44B Nov  1 03:41 version_EInkWhisperStore.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    42B Nov  1 03:41 version_EinkBootActions.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    34B Nov  1 03:41 version_Fastmetrics.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    32B Nov  1 03:41 version_IvonaEInkOTAPrebuilts.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    26B Nov  1 03:41 version_JunoArtifacts.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    42B Nov  1 03:41 version_JunoRendererJNI.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    38B Nov  1 03:41 version_JunoStatusBar.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    30B Nov  1 03:41 version_JunoTools.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    32B Nov  1 03:41 version_KFXReader.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    24B Nov  1 03:41 version_KPPJFA.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    33B Nov  1 03:41 version_KPPMainApp.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    58B Nov  1 03:41 version_KPPMainAppCrashRecovery.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    49B Nov  1 03:41 version_KPPMainAppFrontEnd.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    33B Nov  1 03:41 version_KPPOOBEApp.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    49B Nov  1 03:41 version_KPPOOBEAppFrontEnd.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    38B Nov  1 03:41 version_KPPSampleApps.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    68B Nov  1 03:41 version_KindleContentDownloadManager.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    78B Nov  1 03:41 version_KindleFastMetricsSDKJunoArtifacts.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    56B Nov  1 03:41 version_KindleNDKJunoArtifacts.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    60B Nov  1 03:41 version_KindleNativeFileTransfer.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    60B Nov  1 03:41 version_KindleNativeMobileWeblab.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    56B Nov  1 03:41 version_KindleStrokeSampleApps.txt
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    25B Nov  1 03:40 version_eKART.txt

Kluyg · 11-15-2023, 10:55 PM

BTW not announced, but annoying (to me) is this new addition: https://imgur.com/IeOATfj

It's to "zoom out" back to default zoom if you used "pinch to zoom" feature.

11-15-2023, 02:35 PM	#13
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,490 Karma: 26425959 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	My 'glass half empty' take: Searchable Notebook PDF is a start, but what I would really like is to have a handwriting recognition service on Scribe that would create an index so you can search and jump directly to the page in question (this would also apply to sticky notes and PR annotations). You might think they could make all handwriting in exported PDFs searchable (sticky notes, PDF annotations) by default. Even with Notebooks you only get it when you explicitly choose Convert to text. It turns out that bulk 'move' only applies within a single notebook. Still no way to copy or move pages from one notebook to another one, apart from Lasso copy/cut and paste. Last edited by tomsem; 11-15-2023 at 03:05 PM.

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11-15-2023, 08:12 AM	#2
hleo12 Guru Posts: 632 Karma: 5078890 Join Date: Feb 2014 Device: Kobo Glo (deceased), Kindle 4th, Kindle Basic 10th Generation	The Collection with List layout is also present in 5.16.4. I wonder why they would list that there.

11-15-2023, 09:48 AM	#6
nathanwj Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2023 Device: Kindle Scribe	Seems like the browser remains unchanged from the last update. Still the same results at html5test.com. Whole system seems a little faster over all, but probably just because it got restarted.

11-15-2023, 10:33 AM	#7
jhowell Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,508 Karma: 84500001 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Tampa Bay, Florida Device: Kindles	Looking at the Scribe firmware one significant change I see is the ability to reformat the user storage partition to ext4 during a factory reset. I don't know if this is actually enabled yet but it makes sense for them to do that now that the partition is only accessible via MTP.

11-15-2023, 10:55 PM	#15
Kluyg Member Posts: 18 Karma: 200000 Join Date: May 2010 Device: Kindle Scribe, Sony PRS-950	BTW not announced, but annoying (to me) is this new addition: https://imgur.com/IeOATfj It's to "zoom out" back to default zoom if you used "pinch to zoom" feature.

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