Amazon Offers $30 Discount on Kindle Fire!

Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet

Amazon “just took the gloves off,” begins an article at C|Net. Only days after Barnes and Noble discounted their color touchscreen tablets — to just $199 — Amazon announced an even cheaper price for their own Kindle Fire tablets. “Save $30 with a Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire,” Amazon now advertises on the device’s web page. “Each Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire is tested, certified, and repackaged like new…

For a shortcut to the special offer, just point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/169KindleFire (“Comes with the same one-year limited warranty as a brand-new Kindle Fire…” Amazon is reminding potential buyers.) “[T]his deal first went live on Saturday,” C|Net‘s reporter notes, “and I’ve been checking all weekend to make sure they’re still in stock.

“As of this morning, they are.”

C}Net’s reporter doesn’t even own a Kindle Fire tablet, but writes that “for $169 I’m extremely tempted — especially considering that Amazon backs it with a full one-year warranty, same as new Fires…For all intents and purposes, this refurbished Fire should be the same as a new one — just $30 less. Who’s in?”

I’ve been intrigued by the extra capabilities in Amazon’s color, touchscreen tablets, and yes, they’re more appealing now that the price is cheaper. But is the discount just a hint at an even more interesting possibility? Just hours after C|Net‘s article, a reporter at PC magazine asked an even more intriguing question. Was the Kindle Fire tablet just a beta release?

“Last summer, I was one of the first to write in detail about Amazon’s Kindle Fire, expected in the fall of 2011,” writes Tim Bajarin. “My sources on this were impeccable and early on I got a good idea of what Amazon had up its sleeves. However, during my discussion with my sources on this, one interesting tidbit came up that I have not written about until now…” He reports that even while Amazon was building their 7-inch Kindle tablet, they were already thinking about a much larger tablet, and writes that he now believes “that the larger tablet will be its marquee product and the hopeful cornerstone of its tablet strategy.”

He estimates a larger tablet would cost Amazon around $300 to build, which suggests its ultimate price could come in around $299. Besides the obvious popularity of the iPad, he considers other clues that Amazon’s first tablet device was basically just a trial run. (For example, there’s the odd placement for the on-off switch, and the way that the volume controls are currently available only on the screen of the device.) “In no way was Amazon being dishonest with its customers — rather, the opposite,” writes the reporter. “For a low price, Amazon delivered a solid tablet experience… To be truly fair, many people may never want a screen larger than seven inches because of the associated weight and bulk.”

But his article still left me very excited about the possibility of a larger Kindle Fire tablet. “[U]sers must realize that the Kindle Fire is an important stepping stone for Amazon. It has allowed the company to garner key consumer feedback so it can create an even better product that can compete with the iPad and, in the end, deliver an even better user experience for its customers.

“After all, as industry insiders joke, all first-generation products, whether hardware or software, are really ‘beta’ programs disguised as initial launches.”

And remember: you can still buy my newly-released word game for the Kindle, “Throw in the Vowel,” for just $1.99!

Price War on Black Friday — Kindle, Nook, and iPad

New Amazon Kindle gift wrapped

It’s on! Amazon’s Kindle is now engaged in a full-fledged price war on Black Friday with both the iPad and the Nook.

Amazon just slashed the price on their tablet-sized Kindle DX
to just $259, offering a massive 32% discount just before Black Friday. (Point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/BlackFridayDX ) But Amazon started this war in September, by creating a new Kindle that they can sell for just $79. Now Barnes and Noble has announced that on Friday, they’ll release a special, limited-edition touchscreen Nook for just $79. That’ll match the price of Amazon’s cheapest Kindle (which does not have a touchscreen). “The Black Friday edition is the same as the regular $99 unit available in Barnes & Noble bookstores and online, except that the Black Friday edition has a white rim,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

And the Kobo is also slashing the prices on its touchscreen readers, to just $99. “That puts it at the same price as the Kindle Touch…” notes
a technology blogger at TechCrunch,
but it’s still more expensive than Friday’s new sales prices for the Nook. “At the normal price, it really is kind of a difficult choice…” writes the blogger, who’s been a big fan of the Kobo. “But would I recommend it over a $79 Nook? I can’t say I would, because the Nook is a solid device too.”

And meanwhile, the iPad is also joining in the competition. Apple’s promising a “one-day Apple Shopping Event” on their web site, but one Apple blogger also received a flyer with the actual prices, according to C|Net. Apple’s apparently cutting the cost of the Ipad 2 by up to $61 (while the iPod Touch will be discounted by up to $41, and MacBooks and iMacs more than $100 ). It seems like Apple’s really feeling the pressure to compete with the low price of Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire tablets.

Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year in America, and every major shopping site seems to be fighting for a piece of the action. eBay is even creating real-world shopping spots for Black Friday outside major retail destinations in New York, San Francisco, and London, according to the Washington Post. eBay is establishing a “pop-up” presence so customers can buy eBay products while they’re out shopping (by scanning bar codes with their mobile phones!) And as the Washington Post noted, “Amazon opened an online Black Friday deals store on Nov. 1.

“It’s packing the site with offers each day to keep shoppers checking in over the Web, instead of heading to the mall!”

Click here for a 32% discount on the Kindle DX or point your computer’s web browser to tinyurl.com/BlackFridayDX

Click here for all of Amazon’s Kindles (starting at $79!)

Free Magazines for the Kindle Fire

Conde Nast Magazine covers on the Kindle Fire tablet

Amazon’s new tablets just got a little more interesting. Amazon’s announced that if you buy a Kindle Fire tablet before March 1, it’ll include digital versions of 17 different magazines for a free three-month trial!

Amazon didn’t release an official list of all 17 magazines, but they’re clearly visible in a promotional photograph that’s appearing on the Kindle Fire’s web site.

The New Yorker
Wired
Details
Vanity Fair
GQ
Bon Appetit
Architectural Digest
Brides
Glamour
Self
Golf Digest
Self
Allure
Lucky
Teen Vogue

A Conde Nast executive said they were pleased to be “getting our content to an even wider audience,” and it highlights what I think is an overlooked feature of Amazon’s new color tablet. “Kindle Fire Newsstand customers will be able to enjoy their favorite magazines in rich, glossy, full-color,” Amazon explained in a press release, promising magazines not just from Condé Nast, but also major publishers like Hearst and Meredith. And for some magazines, there’s even going to be “interactive editions” with built-in video and audio — including Allure, Self, and Better Homes & Gardens.

It’s a nice perk, though when I’d first heard about the tablets, I’d assumed Amazon would be including a free subscription to their Prime shipping service. (They did, but only for the first month.) It’s important, because a Prime subscription qualifies those owners for lots of free “Instant Videos” on their tablet — along with access to a Kindle “lending library” where a new ebook can be “checked out” for free every month. But that Amazon Prime’s free one-month trial won’t even be available if you’ve already used Amazon’s Prime instant videos over the past year.

So if you’re worried about the cost of those online videos on your new Kindle Fire tablet, you might take a look at the online magazines available in the Kindle Newsstand. Every subscription begins with a free two-week trial, and nearly every major magazine is available. Browsing through the selection today, I also see Consumer Reports, Reader’s Digest, O (the Oprah Magazine), Maxim, Popular Mechanics, Cosmopolitan, The New Republic, and Elle.

And now 17 of those magazines are available for free for the first three months!

Magazine covers on the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet

An Earlier Arrival for Kindle Fire Tablets!

Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet

The wait is almost over. The Kindle Fire tablet “will start arriving on customers’ doorsteps one day early,” according to a new statement released by Amazon. And Amazon also announced that its Kindle Touch will begin shipping out on Tuesday.

“We’re thrilled to be able to ship Kindle Fire to our customers earlier than we expected,” added an Amazon executive. Calling the tablet “a premium product at the non-premium price of only $199,” he noted that the demand has surprised Amazon, and they’re now “building millions more than we planned.”

But there’s a bigger question: whether people will love Amazon’s new color touchscreen tablets the way that they loved the black-and-white Kindles. The stakes are very high, as Amazon acknowledged with a quote from Fortune magazine. “The culmination of 17 years of work, the Kindle Fire is the missing piece of the company’s vast corporate puzzle, bringing into harmony nearly every discordant service the company has built since CEO Jeff Bezos first set up shop in his garage in 1994.”

Of course, the complete article included some caveats. (“It’s not what many expected exactly, but that doesn’t mean it’s not Amazon’s most important product ever,” reads the tagline.) Fortune notes that the Kindle Fire tablet “isn’t a revolutionary device,” but ultimately concludes that it’s most significant feature is the tablet’s integration with Amazon’s “cloud” of downloadable media and other services. “More than any other Kindle before it, the Fire is an initiation into an ecosystem where nearly every service is provided by Amazon.” Saying it’s often “a not-so-subtle initiation,” the article notes how the video library, for example, includes very prominent reminders that many “Instant Videos” are free to Amazon Prime members.

I’ve always seen the Kindle Fire tablets as a device that lets you buy more things from Amazon — not just ebooks, but also movies, music files, and games and other applications. Of course Amazon wants it to be cheap — because they’re assuming they’ll earn even more money when Kindle Fire owners begin shopping heavily in Amazon’s store. So the real question is whether the device can deliver a “compelling experience,” one that actually gets customers excited about making all those new purchases from Amazon. And according to Fortune‘s reporter, at least when reading a color magazine on the Kindle Fire tablet, “photos and other art pop.”

But how does it compare to Apple’s iPad? After testing Amazon’s new Silk web browser, the reporter concluded it’s “a hair quicker, but the difference was negligible.” And the Kindle Fire also seemed to require a
re-charge after 6.5 hours of use, which the reporter calls “acceptable, but not exceptional when compared to the iPad 2’s 10 hours with WiFi on or the Nook Tablet’s touted 11.5 hours with WiFi off.” And remember those ads last year, showing a Kindle being read in bright sunlight while the iPad suffered from a bright glare? With the new Kindle Fire, “just like the iPad, Nook Color, and other tablets, you may have trouble reading outdoors thanks to the device’s color screen…”

Of course, Amazon’s tablet is also $300 cheaper than the iPad, which is the biggest clue to Amazon’s strategy. They want the tablet to be affordable, because they’re not expecting profits just from the sales of the device itself. They’re hoping to earn a lot more when those Kindle Fire tablets finally start arriving — so their owners start shopping! Will Amazon’s strategy work?

In just a few days, they’re going to find out….

Fighting Kindle Fire: Will Apple Release an iPad Mini?

Apple's Steve Jobs and the iPad vs Amazon's Kindle

There’s yet-another rumor about a new tablet device. Apple may launch a price war with Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet — by releasing their own cheaper iPad tablet!

If the rumors are true, Apple would release the device in early 2012. Apparently a financial analyst went straight to the source — the manufacturers of tablet components in China and Taiwan. There, he heard “rumbling” about an “iPad mini,” according to the Apple Insider blog. “The ‘mini’ name doesn’t necessarily refer to the size of the device, he said, but a lower entry-level price.”

“‘We believe this lower priced iPad could be priced in the mid-to-high-$200 range,’ White wrote in a note to investors. ‘We expect this will be followed by a much more powerful, feature rich standard-priced iPad 3 in (the second quarter of 2012).'”

A lower price could boost sales around the world, in both developed and “developing” countries, according to the analyst. But it’s also a clear response to the new tablet from Amazon. The Kindle Fire, priced at just $199 put some real “price pressure” on the iPad (which sells for $499). It’s the newest battleground in a war between Apple and Amazon that’s been going on for the last four year.

In 2007, Steve Jobs was asked about the newly-released Kindle at Apple’s annual “Mac World” conference — and he predicted a rocky reception. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read any more,” Jobs told reporters. “40% of the people in the United States read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top — because people don’t read anymore.”

Of course, at best that was always a “glass half empty” statement. (It also meant that 60 percent of Americans do read more than one book each year.) And according to a more-recent poll, now it’s only 25% of Americans who read one book or less each year, with 75% of Americans now reading more than one. (Plus, there’s apparently another 40% of Americans who every year read at least 11> books.) And the poll found even higher percentages for us people who own a digital reader. Each year a full 62% of us read at least 11 books, while 26% of us are reading more than 20 books!

In any case, the Kindle became an extremely successful product, and when Apple finally unveiled their iPad in 2010, Steve Jobs acknowledged that they’d include the ability to read ebooks. He conceded that Amazon “has done a great job of pioneering this… we’re going to stand on their shoulders for this.” But he still remained cold to the idea of a tablet that was smaller than the iPad — like the 7″ Kindle Fire
tablet which Amazon eventually introduced.

“One naturally thinks that a 7-inch screen offers 70% of the benefits of a 10-inch screen,” Jobs said one year ago in a conference call. “This is far from the truth. The screen measurements are diagonal so a 7-inch screen is only 45% as large as iPad’s 10-inch screen. The screens on these tablets are a bit smaller than the bottom half of the iPad’s display. This size isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion. While one could increase the resolution of the display for some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper so that the user can sand down their fingers to a quarter of their present size.”

It’s fascinating to read Jobs’ remarks in the conference call — just one year before his death — in light of the rumors of an “iPad Mini” that’s coming in January. It may be that it will be just a cheaper version of the iPad (keeping its large 10-inch screen). But if they do make the iPad smaller, they’ll be defying the intense criticism that Jobs laid down just 12 months ago. “Apple has done extensive user testing on touch interfaces over many years and we really understand this stuff. There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a screen before users cannot tap, flick or pinch them,” Jobs had said. “This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps.

“The 7-inch tablets are tweeners – too big to compete with an iPhone and too small to compete with an iPad.”

…our potential competitors are having a tough time coming close to iPad’s pricing – even with their far smaller and far less expensive screens…The proof of this will be in the pricing of our competitors’ products, which will likely offer less for more. These are among the reasons we think the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA – dead on arrival.

Their manufacturers will learn the painful lessons, that their tablets are too small and increase the size next year, thereby abandoning customers and developers who jumped on the 7-inch bandwagon with an orphan product.

Amazon Remembers Steve Jobs

Amazon front page tribute after death of Steve Jobs

Today Amazon posted a memorial to Steve Jobs on the front page of Amazon.com. It read simply: Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011. When you clicked on the link, it went to Apple.com, which had posted the same words beside a picture of their co-founder.

All across the web today, people are remembering the man who helped change their lives. I sat down to write about Steve Jobs on my desktop computer — and realized that he’d actually helped invent the desktop computer. It’s a legend in Silicon Valley that’s probably worth remembering today. 35 years ago, at the age of 21, he’d teamed up with Steve Wozniak to sell home-built personal computers from Jobs’ garage.

Jobs didn’t design those first computers, but his personality helped launch the personal computer revolution. When he was 29 years old, he’d tried to lure Pepsi’s senior vice president of marketing to Apple. Unfortunately, the VP had already decided against accepting Jobs’ offer before he’d even sat down for their lunch. But he’d changed his mind after hearing a speech from the passionate young visionary. Jobs argued, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

Most people know the highlights of Jobs’ life. (That year was 1983, and the next year Apple would release their legendary Super Bowl commercial arguing that the new Macintosh computers would show people “why 1984 won’t be like [George Orwell’s] 1984.”) But by building Apple into a successful brand, Apple helped legitimize personal computers, proving there’s a market for “consumer technology.” And under Jobs’ leadership, they proved it again two decades later with new mobile products, which ultimately helped to pave the way for Amazon’s Kindle.

Today even my friends who use a PC are still sharing fond and grateful thoughts — along with nearly everybody else — and you can see signs everywhere of an almost global response. The best-selling book today on Amazon is Steve Jobs — a yet-to-be released biography by Walter Isaacson (a former CNN chairman and the managing editor of Time magazine). It’s also the third best-selling ebook in Amazon’s Kindle Store (and, presumably, it will also be available in Apple’s iBookStore.) Today the founder of Facebook even posted a personal statement about Steve. “Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world.” And 355,835 Facebook users clicked the “Like” icon to show they agreed.

In fact all across Facebook, nearly all my friends were posting their own reaction. “I tend to think of him as ‘Uncle Steve’,” wrote a friend of mine who worked at Pixar. “That is what at lot of us called him at Pixar while I was there, because Uncle Steve took care of us. And when I did see him around Pixar, more often than not he was smiling and seemed happy… Good job Uncle Steve.” My friend Tom — a motorcycling enthusiast — shared one of his favorite photos of Jobs riding a motorcycle. “Ride on, Steve,” Tom posted. “You’ll be missed…”

Steve Jobs on a motorcycle

But there’s a forgotten legend about Jobs — the “wilderness” period between 1985 and 1997 when he’d parted ways with Apple to start his own computer company. “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice,” Jobs once said. “And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Job was determined to import the “garage start-up” feel to his new company, Next Computer. “He abandoned conventional corporate structures, instead making a ‘community’ with ‘members’ instead of employees,” remembers Wikipedia. Besides the open floor plans, everyone received exactly the same salary when they started — with regular raises and performance reviews — and “to foster openness, all employees had full access to the payroll.” Everyone at Next was paid a month in advance, and in one building the company even hosted temporary art exhibitions using an in-house curator!

Jobs later said his time outside of Apple was the best thing that happened to him — “The heaviness of being successful…replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” If you ask a geek, they’ll tell you that Next Computer helped to popularize the “object-oriented programming” style of designing software which has since become an industry standard. But in the popular imagination, it’s Jobs’ excited ambition that you think of when you imagine the head of a cutting-edge technology company.

He gave good tradeshow, I told my girlfriend — and of course, Mac enthusiasts fondly remember Jobs’ return to Apple. Much of the technology developed at Next found its way into Apple’s computers, and
Apple’s sales increased as the company introduced a series of new devices like the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone. Just yesterday morning I’d been writing a post about how Apple would respond to Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet. But the truth is, Jobs had been thinking about the answer for at least 15 years.

I believe Steve Jobs recognized that desktop computers were just the “first generation” of devices. If there’s a pattern after his return to Apple, it’s a focus on smaller and smaller devices. Jobs recognized that technology was going mobile, and was already positioning his company for the future. “Don’t you see what’s happening?” argues one technology site. “PC’s are 1990, man! Handheld devices are approaching the processing power of PCs – and everyone has at least one… It’s like Microsoft just cornered the market on Univacs.” And by 2007, Apple was already selling just as much recorded music as the entire chain of Target stores — and more recorded music than Amazon.

Today on Facebook, my friend Joab shared his favorite comment from the technology web site, Slashdot. “Bill Gates put a computer on every desk; Steve Jobs put a computer in every pocket, and in every purse.”
One of the most moving photos I saw today showed a San Francisco memorial service where a mourner held a picture of Steve Jobs…on their iPhone.

Steve Jobs on an iPhone

And my friend Jonathan posted a link to a new memorial in Boston. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me…” reads the inscribed quote from Jobs himself. “Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful…that’s what matters to me.”

Why Amazon Released a New Web-Based Reading App

Kindle Cloud Reader and Safari logo

It seemed like a big announcement. “For over two years, Amazon has been offering a wide selection of free Kindle reading apps that enable customers to ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere’…” Amazon explained in a press release. “Today, Amazon.com announced Kindle Cloud Reader, its latest Kindle reading application that…enables customers to read Kindle books instantly using only their web browser – online or offline – with no downloading or installation required!”

But I discovered a big surprise when I tried to download it — I couldn’t! “Your web browser isn’t supported yet,” read a warning at read.amazon.com. I was using the Firefox web browser, but I got the same message when I tried accessing the page using Internet Explorer. “Download Chrome or Safari below,” Amazon’s web page suggested. And that’s when I realized exactly what Amazon was up to…

Their new application only works with three browsers — Apple’s Safari browser for the iPad, and Apple’s Safari browser for the Mac (and PC), plus the Chrome browser from Google, which works with both Mac and PC systems (and Linux and Chromebook). And as Amazon points out on the web site for their new “cloud reader,” the Safari browser is even built into the iPad’s operating system already!

Logo of browsers supported by Kindle Cloud Reader

It’s a way to sell ebooks directly to iPad owners, instead of having them make their purchases from Apple’s iBookstore. “Kindle Cloud Reader will be available on additional web browsers,” Amazon promised in their announcement today, “including Internet Explorer, Firefox, the BlackBerry PlayBook browser, and other mobile browsers, in the coming months.” But there’s obviously a good reason why Amazon started with the Apple products first.

“Apple wants companies to sell their content through its iTunes system, where it gets a 30 percent cut,” reports an article at ABC News. So new services like the Kindle Cloud Reader let Amazon sell directly to iPad owners. PC World called it an “uprising” against the Apple App Store, and it turns out Amazon’s not the only company using this tactic. “Other developers and publishers, such as The Financial Times, have chosen to abandon (or at least cripple) their iOS apps in order to keep more money from their sales and not split it with Apple.”

It’s easier to offer a web-based alternative when you’re a big retailer with lots of customers who’ve already given you their credit card information. For example, Wal-Mart wanted to offer online movies through a web site named Vudu, but they also discovered taht they weren’t able to send them to the iPad. The movies were being sent in the Flash format, which isn’t supported by Apple’s iPad. So today, like Amazon, Wal-Mart unveiled their own web-based application…for watching movies!

I loaded up Amazon’s cloud reader so I could take a screenshot, and it does look like it offers a nice reading experience.

Screenshot of Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader on Apple's Safari Browser

Amazon claims the book-purchasing capability in their new cloud reader is “To make it easy and seamless to discover new books.” But of course, it also makes it easier to buy those books, which is what Amazon’s really interested in!

When is Amazon Releasing the Kindle 4?

shh - finger to lips - secret rumor

I think I’ve discovered a secret. The source for a big rumor about Amazon’s next Kindle now appears to have changed their story!

It’s something I stumbled across while reviewing all the articles about what Amazon is planning next for the Kindle. Strong rumors suggest that Amazon is planning to release a new iPad-style tablet — but three weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal also reported two additional rumors. Citing people “familiar with Amazon’s thinking,” the Journal reported that Amazon also planned to release two new versions of the Kindle. One of these Kindles would have a touchscreen (like the newest version of the Nook that was recently released by Barnes and Noble). And the Journal also reported that by the end of September, Amazon would release an “improved and cheaper” version of the Kindle.

But strangely, the second claim is no longer appearing in the Journal’s article!

You can still see that original claim being quoted in articles around the web — even though the Journal has now removed it from its site. (For example, this article from PC Magazine quotes the Journal article as saying Amazon would release “an improved and cheaper adaptation of the current Kindle.”) Does this mean Amazon won’t be releasing a cheaper version of the Kindle along with the touch-screen version? My guess is the newspaper’s source later contacted them with a correction, or with updated information — and the Journal quietly edited their original piece to reflect the new information.

I could be wrong about the significance of this change, so consider it a new rumor about an old rumor. But an even more important question is when will Amazon release the next version of the Kindle. And I also have my own theory about that.

It’s easy to see if you check the dates for when Amazon’s released past upgrades to their Kindle. In November of 2007, Amazon released their first Kindle — and then released a newer version just 15 months later (the Kindle 2). That was in February of 2009, and nearly the same amount of time then elapsed before the release of the Kindle 3 in August of 2010. (The total time between the two Kindles was now 18 months.) Of course, Amazon released a slight upgrade in May of 2011 — the cheaper Kindle with Special Offers. But if Amazon sticks to their original pattern, they’ll release “the Kindle 4” within 15 to 18 months from the time that they released the last Kindle. That would mean we’d seen the Kindle 4 between November and February.

But of course, Amazon would want to release their new Kindle before the big pre-Christmas shopping season. (Once an analyst calculated that 47% of the people who owned a Kindle actually received it as a gift!) So to catch the big wave of shoppers, Amazon would almost certainly move up the release date of the Kindle 4 so it’s available for the big “Black Friday” sales that happen on the day after Thanksgiving. The only real question is whether they’d release the Kindle on that crucial November shopping day — or a few weeks earlier, so that shoppers could hear about it first in a big wave of pre-Thanksgiving publicity. And it turns out that my estimate is within eight weeks of what the Wall Street Journal predicted — that the next version of the Kindle would be released before the end of September.

But then again, the Journal also reported — and then apparently retracted — a claim that Amazon would release a new Kindle which was “improved and cheaper”.

Nook vs. Kindle – the Battle Heats Up

Amazon two-screen Kindle Android tablet

Blogger Dave Katz imagines Amazon’s next device


The Nook outsold the Kindle in the first three months of 2011.

That’s according to the research firm IDC — though there’s more to the story. Sales for all digital readers dropped dramatically — by nearly 50% — in the first three months of 2011, according to their analysis, from 6.5 million readers to just 3.3 million. And apparently, it’s normal for sales to drop after the big spike in buying before Christmas.

“IDC analysts blamed the shipment drops on a normal first-quarter seasonality,” notes one article, which also cites “slow economic conditions and supply constraints” as a possible reason for the slow-down in sales. But the research firm is still predicting 16.2 million readers will be shipped in 2011 — 24% more than the year before. “IDC sees the first quarter as an aberration, with e-reader sales picking up during the remainder of the year.”

There’s two things that make this really interesting. First, IDC says the Nook outsold the Kindle partly because they have a color version of their digital reader. And second, they note that tablets with an Android operating system actually increased their share of the tablet market to 34% — more than 8.2% higher than it was just three months earlier. Does this suggest Amazon’s future should be a color, Android tablet? If these statistics are true, Amazon’s facing real pressure to deliver an exciting new product when they release their next device.

It’s an anxious environment — filled with eager anticipating, and the delicious mystery of what Amazon will do — and it’s led to new whispers about how the next Amazon device will look. One blogger heard it will have two different screens, an e-ink screen on one side and a color/LCD screen on the other. “File this one under unsubstantiated rumor,” joked blogger Dave Zatz — and reactions to the idea were mixed, judging by the comments left on his site. “This is awesome!” wrote one reader. ” Essentially, it is a hybrid ereader tablet. Perfect for the Amazon brand.”

“Sounds absurd,” wrote a second reader. “If Amazon’s first tablet is dual screen monstrosity, there won’t be a second Amazon tablet.” And another commenter even dubbed it the Franken-Kindle. “This seems like a bad idea and/or hoax. There is no need for Amazon to mess with a good thing…”

“This is a rumor that you can write off as an impossibility…” read a post at another blog called The Kindle Reader. “I’m sure Amazon played with the concept, but I don’t see how they could plan to release one.” But on that site, another comment offered a theory that was even more interesting. “It may simply be that Amazon is developing a tablet that can in fact drive an e-ink panel and an LCD using the same motherboard, firmware, battery, etc.” Of course, they also proposed a third theory. “It may also be that someone at Amazon (Bezos?) is having a bit of fun off the rumormongers.

“I know I would if I were him.”

Inside Jeff Bezos’s Head: Amazon’s Android Tablet?

Inside the head of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos - what is he thinking

I think I’ve learned a secret about Amazon. On June 7, Amazon held its annual shareholder’s meeting, and I just took a closer look at my notes. They offer a fascinating peek inside the mind of Jeff Bezos. But can they answer the question about what’s in Amazon’s future?

It seemed like the shareholder’s had one question on their mind: is Amazon building an iPad-style tablet? No one asked the question directly, but several seemed to ask it indirectly. For example, one shareholder asked Bezos how Amazon’s online retail business would look in 10 years. And it seemed like Bezos took the bait.

“One thing that I think will change is that we will see way better mobile devices, even than we have today,” he told the crowd. And then he switched to a historical perspective. “If you look back five years — try using the web on a mobile device five years ago. It was an extraordinarily painful experience. “Today it’s still a marginal experience, in many cases,” he said significantly. “If you have a good WiFi connection and a very good, you know, uh, smartphone or tablet, it’s now getting to be a pretty good situation. But with the average phone that people have and the average cellular connection that people have, the mobile browsing experience is still a pretty marginal one.

“That is going to change.”

Maybe he was just talking generally about the progress of handheld devices, since he also predicted that “we’re going to continue to have pervasive wireless bandwidth that’s going to continue to increase. And the form factors of the phones — the displays, the battery life — smart phones are going to get smarter. They’re going to get better. They’re going to be unbelievably good as web browsing devices.” And then he hit on Amazon’s real stake in the creation of better mobile devices. “That is a huge tailwind for Amazon in our retail business, and so we’re very excited about that.”

But sure enough, next he stopped talking about smartphones and started talking about tablets — while still focusing on its impact on Amazon’s retail business. “I feel the same way about tablets. Most of our customers shop with us from laptops or desktop computers. But people have a different posture with tablets — like, lean back on their sofa. And people leaning back on their sofa, buying things from Amazon, is another tailwind for our business. I’m very excited about that.”

There was a similar moment when another shareholder asked a question about Yahoo’s new “cloud” service (where digital music and video are stored online for access through multiple devices). Maybe that’s all Bezos was talking about — but I wondered if he was thinking about the possibility of playing music and video on Amazon tablet devices. Bezos said that “integrating those consumer experiences, those digital media experiences, into the cloud is something that will be very helpful — for consumers.” Whether it’s consumer-facing or developer-facing, “these are big markets that can support lots of winners,” Bezos said. “And so as has been our practice from the very beginning, we will stay heads-down, focus on the customer experience, and…expect that there will be other winners as well.”

I could be seeing what I want to see in everything that Jeff Bezos said — but Amazon’s other shareholders seemed curious too. The next question raised some of the same issues in more general terms, asking simply “Should we think of you as a technology company, an infrastructure company, an e-commerce company?”

Yes,” Bezos replied. And of course, if you’re reading between the lines, it’s easy to see the same pattern in his answer.

“In the last six years, as we’ve built Amazon Web services, we’ve also become a company that provides technology. Now we sell technology, which really we hadn’t done. We’d been users of our own proprietary technology, and now we’re on both sides of that.

“And I like both sides of that….”

New Magazines for your Kindle

National Geographic magazine subscription on a Kindle screenshot

I’ve been surprised how many new magazines have suddenly come out with Kindle editions. This spring I noticed the arrival of National Geographic magazine, which you can read on your Kindle for just $1.99 a month. And it’s one of several new magazines sporting a new feature — the ability to read the magazine with color images using a Kindle app on an Android tablet or smartphone!

It’s a sign that Amazon may be striking deals to make color magazine content available for the (still-rumored) release of a color tablet-sized device.

There’s several other magazines in the Kindle store which are now also listed as available on Android devices. Science News — delivered every two weeks — has lavish color images (along with tantalizing tidbits of news). Smithsonian Magazine — delivered monthly — is published by the famous Washington D.C.-based museum, and supplements its exhibits by covering “the arts, environment, sciences and popular culture” (according to its description at Amazon.com). All three of these magazines are available for around $2.00 — and you don’t even have to sign up for a subscription. Each one offers a 14-day free trial — but you can also purchase a single issue.

It’s easy to forget about magazine subscriptions when you’re busy reading e-books on your Kindle. But here’s a list of some of the new and interesting magazines that are now available on the Kindle.

E-books are rocking the publishing industry, so they’re a constant presence in Publisher’s Weekly. (The magazine describes itself as “the definitive professional resource covering every aspect of book publishing and book selling.”) It’s a must-read for people in the industry, and for more than 100 years the magazine has compiled an annual list of the best-selling books. It was a bellwether moment when this year, for the first time ever, Publisher’s Weekly began including e-books in theri calculations. A monthly subscription on your Kindle costs $19.99 — though of course, it’s delivered ever week.

Some good magazines about politics are now available on the Kindle. For conservatives, there’s National Review. (I still remember when editor William F. Buckley hosted a talk show on PBS.) For more liberal readers, there’s The New Republic. (One reviewer on Amazon.com said they’d been reading the print version for more than 25 years.) Every two weeks new editions of the magazines are delivered to your Kindle. But if you’re a libertarian — or somewhere in between — there’s also Reason magazine (delivered monthly), which promises “a refreshing alternative to right-wing and left-wing opinion magazines by making a principled case for liberty and individual choice.”

If you’re looking for straight news, the Christian Science Monitor actually publishes a weekly magazine. For business and technology news, there’s Fast Company magazine (available each month on the Kindle for just $2.49) and the Harvard Business Review (delivered monthly for $5.99). Of course, a version of The New Yorker has been available on the Kindle for a while, but there’s other magazines offering news that’s even more specialized. For example, there’s 2600 Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly – and on May 15th, a new magazine appeared in the Kindle Store that was devoted solely to teen idol Justin Bieber. (“Just Justin.”)

Just Justin Bieber magazine on a Kindle

Even if you enjoy reading mystery short stories, the Kindle offers two of the best monthly collections — Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. And if you’re an aspiring writing, there’s Poets and Writers Magazine (as well as The New York Review of Books.)

And who knows? Maybe soon you’ll be able to read these magazines on a new Amazon tablet!

Is Amazon Planning a “Mini” Kindle?

New Amazon small Android tablet Kindle Nano or Mini?

Tuesday the Kindle got some new competition! Barnes and Noble announced a new touch-screen version of the Nook. And there’s also a new touch-screen version of the Kobo ereader.

But is Amazon planning their own surprise for the next generation of the Kindle?

Each digital reader is fighting for an early lead against its competition. (Barnes and Noble announced their new Nook today, even though they won’t actually be able to ship them until June 10.) It’s possible that they’re worried Amazon will steal the market by releasing their own touch-screen tablet device soon. But I wonder if Amazon has another idea.

Today a technology analyst described the reactions you’d have if you held the new Nook. First you’d admire it’s form factor, he said. (Besides the power switch on the back, the device’s only button is a shortcut for reaching the home page — plus a “fast forward” page-turning bar.) And I noticed a few other mild improvements, like the ability to look up definitions just by touching a word. (Though the Nook still doesn’t have a text-to-speech feature.) The new Nook is one inch smaller than the Kindle, and it weighs one ounce less. But inevitably, the analyst notes, you’d start comparing it to the larger, full-featured tablets. And eventually you’d begin thinking that the new touch-screen Nook “shouldn’t really cost a lot because it’s basically an oversized drink coaster!”

The analyst’s conclusion? e-ink readers like the Nook and the Kindle will drop below $99 by the end of the year. But one way to do that, I’m thinking, is by making the Kindle smaller! It’s a possibility that’s at least implied by the latest rumors about Amazon’s plans for a tablet-sized device. Besides a full-sized tablet device, there’s also speculation that Amazon might also be working on a powerful but compact 7-inch version!

But I’d like to see Amazon release a “Kindle Mini” — about the size of a smartphone, but with a fully-functioning e-ink screen. I say this partly because I’ve already seen Amazon’s Kindle app on a smartphone-sized screen — and it works great! A smaller screen must refresh faster than the larger ones, and that also would extend the device’s battery life. And besides e-books, it could also store music and audio files (creating a nice alternative to an Apple iPod).

And the device could also play audiobooks — available through the Amazon-owned web site Audible.com. One technology blogger is already listing the advantages, noting that an even-smaller Kindle could be carried in a shirt pocket. And he’d like to see something like a “Kindle Nano” — modelled after Apple’s smallest music-playing device — which was actually optimized for audiobooks.

I’d had the same idea, but this blogger is so enthusiastic that he’s issued a plea to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “Jeff, buddy, I know you’re out there. Give us our Kindle Nano.

“Don’t worry, we’ll buy it. You know we will.”

What’s Behind Amazon’s New Hiring Spree?

help_wanted sign

Amazon is suddenly hiring new employees for customer service centers in six different states. Is this yet-another clue that Amazon’s planning to release a tablet-sized computer soon?

Just Wednesday Amazon announced they were building a new customer fulfillment center in Washington — 500,000-square-foot facility creating “several hundred” new full-time jobs. But last week Amazon also tucked six different press releases onto their web site, each one advertising a new hiring campaign at Amazon’s order fulfillment centers in one of six different states. (“Candidates should be highly motivated with drive, ambition and a passion for providing customers a first-class shopping experience.”) The press releases cite new hiring in each of the following regions.

Phoenix, Arizona
Goodyear Arizona
Coffeyville, Kansas
New Castle, Delaware
Fernley, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Kentucky
Pennyslvania

The press releases are identical, except that there’s no mention of any technical support openings in the press release for Kentucky. And in addition, according to the Seattle Times “Amazon is looking for hundreds of additional technology workers for its expanding headquarters complex in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood.

It’s hard to imagine why Amazon suddenly needs so many new employees all across the country — unless they’re anticipating a sudden spike in purchasing. And it seems to me that that “trigger” could be the release of a tablet-sized computing device. Amazon would pre-load the devices with a slick shopping application, and would probably offer ways to connect the devices into their discount shipping program. If Amazon were planning the release of such a device, they’d definitely want to build up their ability to fulfill the extra orders!

And there’s one reason why Amazon would need service centers all across the country. Amazon’s “Prime” shipping program specifically promises free two-day shipping on orders — and a discount on the even speedier one-day shipping. Maybe Amazon anticipates a flood of new tablet owners signing up for the Prime” program, making it even more important to fill orders from a nearby state, ensuring the speedy delivery times while reducing Amazon’s own shipping costs.

Of course, it’s possible that Amazon.com is just expanding beyond its current capability. “Many years ago, Amazon’s requirements reached a point where many of our systems could no longer be served by any commercial solution,” Jeff Bezos revealed Wednesday in a letter to shareholders, because “our key data services store many petabytes of data and handle millions of requests per second.” Maybe he’s learned a lesson — especially since this year Amazon’s sales have been 38% higher than they were for the same period a year ago. But it’s also possible that he’s learned a different lesson from Amazon’s experience with the Kindle.

Namely, the value of selling consumers a really cool device which lets them buy things from Amazon.com.

Win A Free Tablet from Amazon!

New Amazon Android tablet computer contest

With all these rumors about a tablet-sized version of the Kindle, it’s nice to see that Amazon is also thinking about tablets. Monday they announced a special contest where you could win a tablet computer from Motorola (running the Android operating system). “In celebration of the many ways Amazon Prime members take advantage of FREE Two-Day Shipping on millions of items, we’re giving away some popular Prime-eligible items from A to Z,” a promotional announcement explained.

“This week A is for Android…”

To enter the contest, point your web browser to Facebook.com/Amazon to enter (and then click on the Sweepstakes link). The form asks for your e-mail address, name, and phone number — but of course, there’s a small catch. “If you click ‘Allow”’in the Request for Permission window that appears after you click ‘Enter,’ you will be providing ongoing consent to the Amazon.com Sweepstakes/Contest application, which may offer other sweepstakes and contests in addition to this one,” Amazon explains on the page. It’s not as bad as it sounds, since “You may change this consent at any time through your Facebook privacy settings.”

And it turns out that Amazon isn’t going to contact me 26 times, to remind each week about its A to Z contest. (“Come back next week to enter again for your chance to win the next prize,” the sweepstakes page urges when you first enter the contest.) Instead the sweepstakes only goes for eight weeks, with eight different items being given away in alphabetical order. So I don’t mind the extra eight reminders, since apparently it means I could end up with a free Android tablet computer! And during the week of May 16th, the prize is even going to be a free Kindle!

The prizes get even better as the contest winds up in June, with a $797 digital Nikon camera (“P” for photography), and then an X-Box the next week (“V” for video games). And Amazon concludes their alphabetical contest with a “Z” item during the week of June 13th — a $1,000 Amazon gift certificate “for your choice of the ‘zillions’ of things you can find at Amazon.com.” But is this also another hint about Amazon’s plans for the Kindle? It’s not just that they’re trying to get people excited about an Android-powered tablet device. They’re trying even harder to excite people about Amazon’s $79-a-year “Prime” shipping service.

One rumor has it that Amazon plans to lower the price of the Amazon Kindle to anyone willing to pay the Prime program’s yearly fee. And now it looks like Amazon is putting some real muscle into promoting the program. Are they seeing this as a stepping stone to something even bigger? It’s got me wondering if Amazon is planning a big announcement in eight weeks, when their Prime-promoting contest finally ends.

Maybe they’re trying to attention to the Prime shipping program — right before they offer Prime subscribers a new, big discount on Kindles this summer.

More Clues That Amazon is Building a Tablet


It’s the question that won’t go away – but some technology pundits think they see more clues. Just yesterday Amazon updated its “Kindle for Android” app so it works better on the tablet-shaped computers that compete with Apple’s iPad. “The update adds a new integrated shopping experience designed specifically for tablets,” reported PC Magazine, and Amazon has also added a new tablet-shaped layout for newspapers and magazines, “and other upgrades that take advantage of the larger screen.”

Now another article at PC Magazine asks, “Is Amazon preparing to launch an Android tablet?” And they cite the predictions of Peter Rojas, the co-founder of two of the top technology blogs — Gizmodo and Engadget. “It’s something of an open secret that Amazon is working on an Android tablet,” Rojas writes, “and I am 99% certain they are having Samsung build one for them.” He seems like he could have some inside information, especially since Gizmodo is one of the ten most-popular technology blogs on the Kindle, and one of the Kindle’s top 30 best-selling blogs.

Rojas believes Amazon has assembled everything they need to stock a tablet with popular content, including music downloads, video, and now even an app store. And easy shopping could help Amazon subsidize the costs of their new device, making them even cheaper to sell. “Amazon understands what’s at stake,” Rojas believes, adding “they have shown with the Kindle that they can produce a great product and then expertly tie that product into a content platform.” Rojas estimates that Amazons new tablet-sized device would be released as soon as this summer. “They have all the pieces in place, now we wait to see what they do with them.”

And PC Magazine suggests another interesting possibility. Last week Amazon released a cheaper, ad-supported version of the Kindle, even though “Amazon doesn’t need to lure people further; the Kindle is Amazon’s best-selling device of all time.” Their reporter suggests this may be the first stage of a plan to attract advertisers for other devices. “If Amazon subsidized a tablet with advertising, it might be able to sell the device at a cheaper, more competitive price.”

“It’s obvious from Amazon’s most recent moves that the company is moving toward Android,” the magazine concludes, “and everything else the company has done lately matches perfectly with a coming launch of a tablet device…. The tablet’s place is ready; now all Amazon needs is an actual product.”

It’s a theory that’s been echoed by others, including the creator of the bookmarking site InstaPaper. But there’s even support for an Amazon tablet within the community of technology experts. Last month, Forrester Research concluded that it was Amazon which had the best chance of competing with Apple’s iPad. (“[W]e see a market that’s ripe for disruption,” wrote analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, adding “by Amazon in particular.”) Surveys showed that 24% of consumers would consider purchasing an Amazon tablet, versus just 18% who said the same thing about Motorola. And 28% even said they’d prefer to buy a tablet-sized computer from Amazon rather than a phone company.

It an idea that seems to make a lot of sense. (If Apple insists on a cut of any e-book sales that happen on an IPad, Amazon could simply start selling their own competing tablet-sized device!) But it’s hard to predict the future, especially with different pundits offering so many exciting what-if scenarios. For example, Monday eWeek tracked down an analyst at Gartner who said he still prefers an even juicier rumor about how the next Kindle will be sold.

“It is more likely that Amazon will make the Kindle free to Amazon Prime subscribers and then make their money selling ebooks!”

Is Amazon building a new tablet-size Kindle?

Amazon iPad-sized tablet computer - Kindle DX

“I bet Amazon is developing their own tablet computer.”

That’s what technology columnist Andy Ihnatko wrote in an insightful new article in the Chicago Sun-Times last week. Amazon had just announced their new app store for smartphones and tablet devices running the Android operating system. Was it the first step towards a color, iPad-style multimedia computing device? “I don’t know that they’re doing this,” Ihnatko wrote. “But I do know that Amazon has all of the required pieces in place and that they…are clearly in the best position to challenge Apple and the iPad.”

And here’s some more possible evidence from within the last week.

  • Yesterday Amazon’s older tablet-sized Kindle DX suddenly went on sale at a 20% discount at Best Buy and Staples. Were they selling off their inventory before introducing a better model?

  • Thursday Amazon added a link in the Kindle’s built-in store for downloading audiobook files. Were they encouraging Kindle owners to explore the Kindle’s audio capabilities?

It’s starting to feel like a not-so-secret secret. “Amazon has been working on a multi-touch color device with Wi-Fi since at least early last year,” reported Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo, “if not earlier. It bought a multi-touch company called Touchco, and merged it with Lab126, the subsidiary that works on Kindles. Then it put out calls LCD specialists. Another name for a multi-touch color screen device? A tablet.” Buchanan also suggests that there’s not much money for Amazon to make selling apps — unless they’re really planning to sell a new device that runs them.

It’s a move which seems to make a lot of business sense. Right now the only real competition to the Kindle is the Nook — an Android-based tablet which offers a back-lit color screen. But just Friday Barnes and Noble confirmed big improvements are coming for the NOOK Color in April, which reportedly include e-mail, an app store, and even support for Flash animation and video. They’ve sold millions of the device in the last six months, according to the business magazine Fast Company. Are they pressuring Amazon to come out with their own color multimedia reader?

Watch closely, and it seems like Amazon is already putting into the place the very things that some pundits are recommending. “If a Kindle tablet had a ‘Recommend this thing I’m looking at right now’ button…that one feature would be a force-multiplier for the commercial impact of the whole platform,” Andy Ihnatko wrote. But of course, just recently Amazon added a “Before you go” feature to the Kindle 3. (“When you reach the end of the book, you can immediately…share a message about the book with your social network,” Amazon explained when they announced the upgrade last month.) If Amazon proves it can generate sales for content, “it wouldn’t take much for Amazon to legitimize itself as the friend to independent producers of books and music and video,” Ihnatko writes. Apple needed its iTunes store before people would buy the iPod, and their app store to sell the iPad. But now Amazon could be offering up some real competition.

Of course, maybe Amazon is just trying to spook Apple — to give them some leverage over Apple’s threat to demand royalties off any sales which happen in the apps run on Apple products. But it’s the question that just won’t go away, and it’s fascinating to read the speculation. “The Kindle engineering team has always had a knack for zeroing in on the critical function of the device and then refusing to get precious about anything that isn’t absolutely necessary to that goal…” Ihnatko points out. “Amazon keeps the Kindle on message. Although Amazon isn’t in the business of technological innovation, they have a proven track record for making inexpensive devices that people instinctively like.”

I’m enjoying the what-if scenarios because they brings out some great analysis, and whatever happens, this conversation is helpful for understanding the world today. And I loved how Ihnatko concluded his 2,800-word masterpiece — the last reason he offered for an iPad-style Kindle. “Amazon can succeed like Apple and maybe exceed Apple’s success in many places because it has the single greatest asset that any tech company can possibly have: It’s run by a crazy billionaire… Listen to me: Jeff Bezos has his own space program. I never tire of saying that. This is clearly not a man who’s intimidated by the scale of a project or the expense.

“If there’s a real chance of success, he’s willing to pour in the money, the focus and the motivation that are necessary for his people make it happen.”

Strong Reactions to Amazon’s New App Store

Amazon Android Store Angry Birds Rio app

Today Amazon opened a new app store for Android smartphones and tablet devices! And it’s also raising questions about whether Amazon is preparing to release their own iPad-sized Kindle that runs the Android operating system.

Amazon “did not respond to requests for comment” when contacted by the Wall Street Journal. But today the newspaper reported that industry observers “widely expect” Amazon to release a multimedia Kindle “that may run on Android.” And whatever they do next, Amazon has just entered into a high-stakes war with the largest players in the entire technology industry — including Apple, Google, and Microsoft. With or without an Android-based Kindle, at least one stock analyst already predicts that Amazon could be “a leader” here, based on how powerful they’ve already become in online shopping.

Amazon “has a key advantage over Google,” the Wall Street Journal reports — “untold millions of paying customers who have already provided critical credit-card information.” And Amazon attacked Google directly in their press release today when they announced the U.S. launch of their app store, the Journal observed. “In a thinly-veiled swipe at Google, Amazon noted that it will test all Android apps before they’re made available to consumers in its app store.” There’s over 150,000 apps in Google’s own store, the Journal notes, which makes it more difficult to test the apps individually, “a policy that came back to bite Google earlier this month when it was forced to remove dozens of malicious apps from its market.”

Obviously all these fun and useful “app”-style programs won’t run on the current-generation Kindles, but Amazon’s new store can sell its apps for all the current smartphones and tablets that run the Android operating system. And “the Amazon Appstore for Android” is already drawing some very positive reviews. Compared to Google’s “Android Market,” Amazon’s store “is much more pleasurable to navigate,” PC World reported, “immediately presenting you with a long list of popular free and paid apps.” They also point out that Amazon’s store has nearly 4,000 apps available on its very first day, and “What Amazon loses in quantity, it gains in quality…this is obvious when you run a search for popular apps like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. Clones, spam apps and irrelevant results abound in the Android Market, but Amazon’s store returns exactly what you’re looking for–and nothing more.”

“Our customers have told us that the sheer number of apps available can make it hard to find apps that are high quality and relevant to them,” Amazon announced today in their press release. And they’ve also added a special new feature called “Test Drive,” which actually lets you preview an app on your PC before downloading it to your phone.

The launch of the Android-phone app store has already provoked Apple into action. Friday Apple even filed a lawsuit against Amazon, trying to force them to stop using the term “app store.” It seems to me Apple is worried that an iPad-sized Kindle — complete with its own app store — could create some unwanted competition. (“We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers,” an Apple spokeswoman told Bloomberg News.) Friday Apple actually filed an official complaint in a federal courthouse in California, citing both “trademark infringement” and unfair trade practices (and requesting both an injunction on the use of the phrase “app store” and a legal award of damages.) Apple claims the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had already approved an application for a trademark on the phrase “app store”.

But the approval of an application isn’t necessarily an approval of the trademark itself. Apple’s trademark application remains in an “opposition period” where other players in the industry — including Microsoft —
now file legal arguments for or against the granting of an official trademark. It looks like it’s going to be a brutal and intense legal struggle. On March 11, Microsoft even complained that Apple was cheating by using a smaller font to cram more words into their 31-page response. (“Under the rules, Apple’s brief cannot exceed 25 pages in its entirety…and must be printed in at least 11-point font…”)

All the legal and economic arguments are really just a distraction from the giddy fun of the launch of a new app store. You can access it at these shorter URLs

amazon.com/apps
amazon.com/appstore

And there seems to be a lot of excitement. This afternoon when I tried to install the Amazon Appstore on my smartphone, I received a “server busy” message for nearly half an hour! Amazon is giving away “Angry Birds Rio,” the newest version of a popular bird-shooting game for smartphones. (“Birds away!” reads Amazon’s description, promising “you’ll unleash an arsenal of angry bird artillery through 60 levels of cage-busting vengeance.”) They’re advertising it as an Amazon appstore exclusive, and it’s already the best-selling item in Amazon’s app store — but it’s not the only free game in the store. In fact, there’s hundreds of free apps in the store today, including free versions of all the following classic games.

Backgammon
Blackjack
Checkers
Chess
Connect 4
Solitaire
FreeCell
Go
Reversi
Sudoku
Word Search
Texas Hold ‘Em,
Tic Tac Toe

There’s even two more free Angry Birds games, plus Guitar Hero 5. (And there’s even a version of Pac-Man.) Of course, there’s non-game applications, like Oprah Mobile, E! Online, and Zagat to Go. But the most interesting feature is Amazon’s promise of very aggressive pricing if you’ll keep visiting their app store. The store’s current tagline?

“Get a great paid app for free every day.”

New Kindle Competition: Sharp’s iPad-like Reader, Galapagos

Sharp Galapagos Reader to compete with the iPad and Kindle

Today Japan’s electronics giant Sharp announced they’ll be releasing two fancy Android-based e-readers in December, to compete with the Kindle and iPad. They’re targetting 1 million in sales for the tablet-sized reading devices in their first year, according to IDG News Service, and they’re calling them Galapagos (after the exotic islands where Charles Darwin studied numerous species). Sharp sees the name as “a symbol of the ‘evolution’ of services” (and devices) “that constantly bring fresh, new experiences to the user.”

It’s an allusion to the fact that (besides updates to its software), the device can periodically refresh its content. Sharp’s press release emphasized its “Automatic Scheduled Delivery Service” for newspapers and magazines, though “The first models have Wi-Fi but don’t come equipped with 3G wireless,” notes IDG. And they also report that while there’s some Android apps pre-installed, “users might not be able to download additional apps.” In fact, a careful study of the press release reveals many shortcomings.

1. Sharp promises a total of just 30,000 newpapers, magazines, and ebooks. (Whereas Amazon’s Kindle Store offers 700,000).

2. Sharp didn’t announce its price.

3. It’s got a standard LCD display, rather than the more comfortable e-ink.

But most importantly, Sharp’s press release promises “a network service and device specifically designed for the Japanese market.” This means that it fully supports Japanese characters, but the device is based on the XMDF document format, according to IDG, “a format developed by Sharp and largely confined to Japan”. I think it’s significant that the device comes pre-installed with a “social network service” for sharing comments and lists of ebooks. Text messaging is extremely popular in Japan, but it’s not necessarily a must-have feature for a digital reader.

There’s two models – one the size of a Kindle, and one the size of an iPad — and the cases come in two colors, red and silver. (Though the larger models are only available in black).

Sharp Galapagos Reader to compete with iPad

But ultimately, I have the same reaction that I did when Apple released the iPad. It just shows that all around the world, people are still very excited about the reader market!

Could Apple's iPad Kill the Kindle?

I’ve heard an interesting rumor about Apples’ “tablet” device — which could be released as soon as next week. One analyst described the possibility of “a bigger iPhone, big enough to read with.” It’ll still have a backlit screen, presumably, so the Kindle still offers a superior reading experience. But Apple’s tablet will further legitimize the Kindle — since more people will now be carrying a Kindle-sized device!

I think this firmly establishes the tablet “category” of devices – and now they’re just getting more sophisticated. The Nook gave digital readers some color on their menus, and Apple’s tablet just brings the color to the entire screen. There’s already a Kindle app for the iPhone, but now Apple’s making it available on a tablet-sized device. The devices are becoming more and more similar — but personally, I’d like to see the evolution go in the opposite direction. Maybe someday we’ll see an iPhone with a Kindle-like screen — one that isn’t backlit, and that uses natural light!

But that’s just the beginning, according to an article in Sunday’s business section. We’ll ultimately be surfing the web on our TVs, and watching TV on our cell phones. It’s all just digital content, and in the next few years every boundary will fall away. I’m looking forward to the day when I can read books on an enormous flat-screen TV
— broadcasting literature into my living room. And it’s pretty mind-boggling if you think about it, since the progression of media
hadn’t changed much over the previous two thousand years.

I mean, it started with pictures that cavemen drew on the walls. Eventually humanity developed text (and of course, text accompanied by pictures). But it took until the 20th century before we’d developed moving pictures. (And within a few decades, that was upgraded into moving pictures with sound.) Now we’ve finally reached the next milestone: live moving pictures with sound — which means we can just look at our friends and loved ones, and even enjoy a real-time conversation.

But out of all these developments, I’m still most excited about the books.

I still want to see literature in my living room…