Amazon Kills Mayday Support for Fire Tablets

Amazon is sunsetting its popular Mayday feature, which let Kindle Fire tablet owners access live tech support by pressing a button on their devices. Now, we’re all going to have to phone or email customer support just like we used to in the olden days.

What Was the Amazon Mayday Button?

The Mayday button was a feature on Amazon Fire devices. This was a literal button which users could press to summon live tech support. Which would be a human being you could see on your tablet offering to help you solve any issue you were having with your device.

Amazon was rightly proud of this innovation, and it was one of the few features to differentiate Amazon Fire tablets from the competition. And users loved the Mayday button, with a reported three-quarters of Fire HDX owners using it in the first year.

Amazon Admits a Rare Fail

Amazon unveiled the Mayday button in 2013, but the company has been quietly shuffling it to one side ever since. Recent products haven’t even included the Mayday feature, meaning the end has been nigh. And now, in June 2018, it’s being killed off completely.

We know thanks to a note on the Amazon Support pages, as spotted by GeekWire. It states that the “Mayday video calling service will be discontinued in June 2018.” Instead, you’ll need to “contact Amazon customer service […] through Phone, Email, and Chat.”

While the Mayday video calling service is no more, Amazon is still offering Mayday Screen Sharing. This means that once you have contacted customer service, you’ll be able to share your screen with Amazon to help them offer technical support for your device.

Alexa Is Taking All Our Jobs

While it’s disappointing to see an innovative feature such as Mayday video calling die, it is understandable. Paying support staff to be on call isn’t cheap. Which is probably why Amazon lets Alexa take care of most of its customer support.

If you have read this far through this article then we would hazard a guess that you own an Amazon Fire tablet. In which case you should make sure to check out our unofficial Amazon Fire tablet manual and these awesome Amazon Fire tablet tips.

Read the full article: Amazon Kills Mayday Support for Fire Tablets

from MakeUseOf https://ift.tt/2JWUji1
via IFTTT