David Pogue reports that last night’s software update to the Kindle Fire makes a lot of the maddening software issues less balky:

Sure enough: the home screen “carousel,” a rotating shelf that holds all of your books, magazines and movies, now stops on a dime when you want it to. It takes only one tap to open something instead of several frustrating ones. When you do tap something, it opens faster and more fluidly. Page turns are smoother, especially in magazines.

Dwight Silverman also noticed an improvement:

I dropped [the software update] onto my Kindle Fire review unit and noticed an immediate improvement in the device’s responsiveness.

I don’t have a Kindle Fire, so I can’t say one way or the other if the update is actually as impressive as it sounds. The only other “eye witness” to the Fire’s speed improvements I found was this comment by “00QuantaMeister” on Mashable.

Kindle Fire Software Update