My Kindle Fire Read online

  Latest Additions Playlist

  When you view completed downloads, you’re actually looking at an automatic playlist called Latest Additions. This playlist is also available on the Playlists screen.

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  Canceling Downloads

  You can cancel pending downloads. Any tracks that have already downloaded remain on your device.

  1. While viewing active downloads, tap and hold the item that’s currently downloading.

  2. Tap Cancel Download.

  Searching for Music

  I own a lot of music, and there are times when I need to search my music to find a particular song. You can just scroll through your song list on the Kindle Fire, but if you have thousands of songs, it’s often easier to search for what you want to hear.

  Your Kindle Fire can search music that’s on your device as well as your music that’s in the cloud.

  Searching Your Music Collection

  You can search for music on your device or your music that’s in your Cloud Drive. (Before you can search for music on your device, you’ll obviously need to download or sideload music to your device.)

  You can search for playlists, artists, albums, or songs based on what you are currently viewing. For example, if you are looking at artists that are on your device and you start a search, your Kindle Fire will search for artists that match what you enter as your search.

  1. Tap Device to search your Device or Cloud to search your Cloud Drive.

  2. Tap Playlists, Artists, Albums, or Songs depending on what you want to search for.

  3. Tap the Search icon.

  4. Enter your search term in the Search box. Results appear as you type.

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  Shortcut to Searching the Music Store

  If no matches are found for your search, you’ll see a search icon where search results would normally appear. If you tap this search icon, your Kindle Fire will search the Music Store for the text you entered.

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  Playing Music

  Your Kindle Fire can play music you’ve downloaded to the device, but it can also stream music from your Cloud Drive without requiring that you download the music to the device.

  When you stream music, it requires a Wi-Fi connection because the music plays directly off of your Cloud Drive.

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  Music Controls in Quick Settings

  If you tap Quick Settings (the icon next to the battery indicator) while music is playing, you see playback controls and the title and artist of the song that’s currently playing. This is an easy way to control playback from any screen on the Kindle Fire.

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  Listening to Music

  You can play music either through the stereo speakers built into the Kindle Fire or through headphones or an external speaker system. After you begin playing music, you can do other tasks on your Kindle Fire, such as reading books or magazines, and the music continues playing.

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  Streaming Music

  The speed of your Wi-Fi network can vary. In order to avoid any delays in playback while streaming music, your Kindle Fire automatically buffers (loads) several tracks ahead for better performance.

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  1. Locate the song or songs that you want to hear.

  2. Tap on a song to play the song and display the Now Playing screen.

  3. Tap or drag the location slider to move to a particular point in the song. As you drag it, an indicator displays your position in the song.

  4. Tap Previous to move to the previous song.

  5. Tap Next to move to the next song.

  6. Tap or drag the Volume slider to adjust the volume of playback.

  7. Tap the left side of the Volume slider to instantly mute the audio.

  8. Tap the right side of the Volume slider to instantly change to full volume.

  9. Tap Shuffle to play the songs in the Now Playing queue randomly. Tap it again to turn off shuffle playback. (I cover the Now Playing queue in the next section.)

  10. Tap Repeat to repeat all of the songs in the Now Playing queue. Tap Repeat again to repeat only the currently playing song. A numeral 1 displays on the Repeat icon. (Tap it again to turn off repeat playback.)

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  Tap and Hold for More Options

  While viewing the Now Playing screen, tap and hold the album art for a menu of other ways you can interact with your music, including the option to download tracks so that you can listen when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi.

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  Playback Settings

  From the Settings screen you can use your Kindle Fire’s built-in equalizer to adjust how your music sounds. You can also choose to display music playback controls immediately after you unlock your Kindle File.

  1. From any screen within your Music library, tap the Menu icon.

  2. Tap Settings.

  3. Tap Lock-screen Controls to enable the display of playback controls immediately upon unlocking your Kindle Fire.

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  Lock-screen Controls

  The wording on the Kindle Fire implies that Lock-screen Controls enable the display of playback controls on the lock screen. In fact, the playback controls only display after you unlock your Kindle Fire.

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  4. Tap Enable Equalizer Modes to enable the Equalizer Mode drop-down.

  5. Tap Equalizer Mode to change equalizer settings.

  6. Tap an equalizer setting to change the equalizer mode.

  Using the Now Playing Queue

  The Now Playing queue is kind of like a temporary playlist that you can use to queue up a series of tracks. There are a few ways that you can view the Now Playing queue. All assume that there are songs in the Now Playing queue.

  Viewing from Quick Settings

  You can view the Now Playing queue from Quick Settings while viewing almost any screen on the Kindle Fire.

  1. Tap Quick Settings.

  2. Tap the track and artist name.

  Viewing from Library or Store

  You can quickly access the Now Playing queue while you’re viewing your Music library or the Amazon music store.

  1. From the Home screen, tap Music.

  2. Tap the track and artist name for the song that’s currently playing.

  Viewing from Music Menu

  The menu in the Music library offers a choice to view the Now Playing queue.

  1. From a screen in the Music library, tap the Menu icon.

  2. Tap Now Playing.

  Viewing All Tracks in Now Playing

  The default view of Now Playing displays the song that’s currently playing along with album art and playback controls. You can view all of the tracks in the Now Playing queue from this view.

  1. Tap the track list icon to display all tracks.

  2. Tap the album art icon to return to the previous view.

  Adding Songs to Now Playing

  You can add one or more songs to the Now Playing queue. Songs are added to the end of the queue, so songs that you added first play first. Of course, if you are playing in shuffle mode, songs play in a random order.

  1. Tap and hold a song in your music library and tap Add Song to Now Playing.

  2. Tap and hold an album and tap Add Album to Now Playing.

  3. Tap and hold an artist and tap Add Artist to Now Playing.

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  Adding Tracks Multiple Times

  You can add tracks to the Now Playing queue multiple times. However, you are limited to adding 2,000 tracks to the Now Playing queue.

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  Removing Songs from the Now Playing Queue

  You can remove one or more individual songs from the Now Playing queue.

  1. From the Now Playing screen, tap the track list icon.

  2. Tap and hold the song you want to remove.

  3. Tap Remove from Now Playing to remove the song.

  Clearing the Now Playing Queue

  You can clear all tracks from the Now Playing queue.

>   1. From the Now Playing screen, tap the Menu icon.

  2. Tap Clear Queue.

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  Another Way to Clear the Queue

  You can also clear the Now Playing queue by tapping and holding on a song in the track list and tapping Clear Now Playing Queue.

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  Managing Playlists

  Playlists enable you to create a list of tracks that you want to play. You can create playlists on your device or in the cloud. If you create a playlist in the cloud, that playlist can be accessed from your computer or another device that can access your Cloud Drive.

  Creating a Playlist

  You create playlists on your device by first tapping the Device tab. If you tap the Cloud tab first, your playlist will be created on your Cloud Drive. Playlists that you create on your device can only contain songs that are on your device. Playlists that you create on your Cloud Drive can contain any of your music that is on your Cloud Drive.

  1. From your Music library, tap Playlists.

  2. Tap Cloud to create a playlist from tracks in your Cloud Drive or Device to create a playlist from tracks on your device.

  3. Tap Create New Playlist.

  4. Enter a name for your playlist.

  5. Tap Save.

  6. Add songs to your playlist by tapping the + sign next to the song.

  7. Enter a song, album, or artist name to search for tracks.

  8. Tap Done when finished adding songs.

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  Cannot Move Device Playlist to the Cloud

  When you create a playlist on your device, that playlist can only contain songs that are on your device. You cannot move a playlist created on your device to the cloud.

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  Editing a Playlist

  After you’ve created a playlist and added your initial songs, you can add or remove songs by editing the playlist.

  1. From the Playlists screen, tap your playlist.

  2. Tap Edit.

  3. Tap the minus sign to remove a song from the playlist.

  4. Tap and hold the dots at the left edge of a song and drag it to a new position in the playlist to reorder songs.

  5. Tap Add to add new songs using the same interface you used when creating the playlist.

  Adding Artists or Albums to a Playlist

  Instead of adding songs one track at a time, you can add all songs by a particular artist or all songs in a particular album in one step.

  1. Browse to the artist or album that you want to add to a playlist.

  2. Tap and hold the artist or album.

  3. Tap Add Album/Artist to Playlist.

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  Adding Songs to Recent Playlist

  If you’ve recently created a playlist, you see a menu item that enables you to add the album or artist to that specific playlist.

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  4. Tap the playlist to which you want to add the album or artist or tap Create New Playlist to create a new playlist.

  5. If creating a new playlist, enter a name for the playlist.

  6. Tap Save to save the new playlist.

  Playing a Playlist

  Playlists that are on your Kindle Fire can be played only on your Kindle Fire. When you create playlists in the cloud you can play them on your Kindle Fire or other devices that can access your Cloud Drive.

  1. From your Music library, tap Playlists.

  2. Tap Cloud to see playlists on your Cloud Drive or Device to see playlists on your Kindle Fire.

  3. Tap the playlist you want to play.

  4. Tap a song in the playlist to start playing from that song.

  Downloading a Playlist

  You can’t play playlists that you create in your Cloud Drive unless you have an active Internet connection. If you want to play the playlist when you aren’t connected, you need to download the playlist to your device.

  1. From the Playlists screen, tap Cloud.

  2. Tap the playlist that you want to download.

  3. Tap the download icon to download the playlist to your device.

  4. Tap Yes in the Download Playlist confirmation.

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  Downloaded Playlist

  Downloaded playlists appear on the Device tab in the Playlists screen. Both the playlist and all songs in the playlist are downloaded.

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  Renaming a Playlist

  If you decide to change the name of a playlist, you can rename it from the Playlists screen.

  1. From the Playlists screen, tap and hold the playlist that you want to rename.

  2. Tap Rename Playlist.

  3. Enter a new name for your playlist.

  4. Tap Save.

  Deleting a Cloud Playlist

  When you no longer want to keep a playlist, you can delete it. Deleting a playlist doesn’t affect the tracks that you added to the playlist. It only removes the playlist.

  When you delete a cloud playlist, it deletes that playlist from all devices that access your Cloud Drive.

  1. From the Playlists screen, tap Cloud.

  2. Tap and hold the playlist you want to delete.

  3. Tap Delete Playlist from Cloud Drive.

  4. Tap Yes to confirm the deletion.

  Removing a Device Playlist

  You can also remove device playlists. If you originally downloaded the playlist from the cloud, removing it from your device does not affect the copy that’s in the cloud.

  1. From the Playlists screen, tap Device.

  2. Tap and hold the playlist you want to remove from your device.

  3. Tap Remove Playlist from Device.

  4. Tap Yes to confirm the removal.

  Buying New Music

  You can purchase new music from Amazon’s Music Store on your Kindle Fire. You can choose whether music that you purchase is only added automatically to your Cloud Drive or added to your Cloud Drive and then downloaded to your device.

  Navigating the Music Store

  The Music store is accessible from your Music library.

  1. From any screen in your Music library, tap Store to go to the Music store.

  2. Scroll through featured songs and albums.

  3. Tap a category to see more music.