Skip to main content

Amazon’s Mayday button helps customers propose marriage, defeat Angry Birds

amazon mayday button interesting uses kindle fire
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Last year, Amazon introduced a brand-new way to get excellent customer service for your Kindle Fire HDX tablet. The Mayday feature lets users contact Amazon customer service representatives, 24 hours a day, for any reason. According to a new report issued by Amazon, Kindle Fire HDX owners have been using the feature a lot for some pretty amazing things. After all, sometimes excellent customer service isn’t just about fixing tech issues and bugs.

It turns out that the vast majority of Kindle Fire HDX customers now ask for assistance using the Mayday feature, instead of calling the Amazon customer service line. Mayday is not only quicker, but it’s simply more practical. If you need assistance with your tablet and are terrible at following verbal directions, the Mayday rep can actually draw on the screen to show you what to do, where to click, and so on.

Recommended Videos

“When we set out to invent the Mayday button, we wanted to revolutionize tech support – and we’re happy to report it’s working!” Scott Brown, director, Amazon Customer Service, said in a statement. “Seventy-five percent of customer contacts for Fire HDX now come via the Mayday button. Even as the Mayday button has grown to become the most popular way for customers to ask questions, the team’s been able to beat the response time goal of 15 seconds or less – our average is just 9.75 seconds.”

Of course, Kindle Fire HDX users also enjoy calling Mayday for really random reasons. Amazon says that one user looked to the service for help in defeating a very tough level of Angry Birds. Apparently, the customer had been stuck on the same level for an entire week and just couldn’t take it anymore. Luckily, the Mayday rep was an Angry Birds pro and helped the customer win.

Another user called to request that the rep sing “Happy Birthday” while they gave a Kindle Fire HDX to someone as a present. People also really like asking Mayday’s tech advisers to draw rainbows, unicorns, and other crazy things on their screens. One customer even enlisted a Mayday rep in a marriage proposal.

Over all, Kindle Fire HDX users who have tried Mayday seem very enthusiastic about the service, calling it “sensational” and “terrific.”

Malarie Gokey
Former Digital Trends Contributor
As DT's Mobile Editor, Malarie runs the Mobile and Wearables sections, which cover smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and…
Wacom’s new tablet sees its biggest redesign in over a decade
wacoms new tablet sees biggest redesign in decade wacomintuospro med flairgrip inuse wired closeup markusbledowski

At CES 2025, I had the chance to go behind-the-scenes with Wacom and take a look at the new Intuos Pro tablet. Let me be clear about something upfront: I am no artist. Even my stick figures look like they want to be put out of their misery. Despite my complete inability to hold a pencil correctly, the Intuos Pro demonstrated exactly why this new tablet is so beneficial to users.

The Intuos Pro doesn't have a screen of its own. Instead, this tablet is designed to go with its user anywhere they need and connect to whatever display they happen to use at the time. Depending on an artist's field of work, they might choose to work on specifically-calibrated monitors. That might disqualify a tablet with a built-in screen, but the Intuos Pro isn't picky about the machine it connects with.

Read more
I’ve found a perfect use for the Galaxy Ring, but I can’t recommend it
The Samsung Galaxy Ring on someone's hand.

People seem to have polar reactions to smart rings. Some love them, like Digital Trends' Andy Boxall. Others, like former Digital Trends contributor Joe Maring, found that they simply couldn't abide wearing one all the time. So when I decided to buy the Samsung Galaxy Ring for a number of reasons, I alays knew it would really be an experiment with whether I would take to wearing a ring or not.

The results are in, and I am firmly in the camp of those who don't really get smart rings. For the last few months, my Galaxy Ring has largely found itself relegated to its charging box.

Read more
Why I’m sad this delightful iPhone camera is about to go away
OuttaFocus promotional image.

When Apple replaces the current iPhone SE (2022) with a new version, it seems increasingly likely it’ll mark the end of an era, because the SE as we know it is the only current iPhone still available with a 12-megapixel camera on the back. Once a mainstay of all iPhones, the 12MP camera is about to be completely superseded by the 48MP camera. You may be surprised to hear I’m going to miss it, so let me explain why.
The end is near

Several months after the iPhone SE (2022) came out, Apple released the iPhone 14 series and it put a 12MP camera on the non-Pro models, just as it had done since the iPhone 6S. While you can still buy the iPhone 14 new today, it was the last brand new device to launch with a 12MP camera, and when the iPhone 15 came along all the models received a 48MP main camera. Unlike the iPhone 14, the iPhone SE (2022) has lived on as a current phone since then, and is only now about to be replaced.

Read more