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Amazon set to reveal Kindle tablet on Wednesday?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Rumors,
Amazon has been working on a new Kindle tablet for quite a while, and it looks like its set to reveal it to the world in just under a week. The Android-powered device is set to take advantage of all of Amazon's services--not just eBooks, but video on demand, music, the store, and all the rest. We're guessing that in addition to a tablet or two, we'll also see an updated e-ink version of the Kindle as well. Of course, we'll let you know what happens when it all goes down this Wednesday at 10:00 am Eastern!
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Amazon Kindle eBooks now available to borrow from over 11,000 libraries
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Internet,
If you've got an Amazon account and use a Kindle (or a Kindle app,) you're gonna wanna go pick up a library card if you don't already have one, and it's now possible to check out Kindle eBooks from over 11,000 library Web sites. All you need is a valid library card, and you are good. eBooks work similar to library books--in other words, they are free to borrow, but they expire after a certain amount of time, and the libraries only have a limited number of each eBook available, so you may have to wait until it's "returned" by another user before you can check out that title. Once you decide what you want to borrow, you download the copies over Wi-Fi or USB.
When you borrow a Kindle public library book, you’ll have access to all the unique features of Kindle books, including real page numbers and Whispersync technology that synchronizes your notes, highlights, and last page read. After a public library book expires, if you check it out again or choose to purchase it from the Kindle store, all of your annotations and bookmarks will be preserved.
Once your expiration date hits, you can just borrow the book again, or purchase it from the Amazon Kindle store, and any notes, highlights, last pages read, etc. will all be saved and synched.
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Amazon’s Kindle Tablet: Details revealed
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Handhelds, Rumors,
MG over at TechCrunch got to spend some time playing with Amazon's upcoming Kindle Tablet, and has reported back with a bunch of impressions that have us excited for what's to come. There are no pictures of the device, as that was a condition of him being able to even experience the new Kindle to begin with, but MG paints a nice picture for us of what we are guessing will be the hottest tablet this holiday season that isn't named "iPad 2." For starters, it's an Android tablet, but Amazon has forked Android and has completely overtaken the UI, so it won't look or feel like the typical Android software. The book reader app is similar to what you'd find on iOS and Android, but this Kindle is more than just books--it brings Amazon's entire ecosystem to your hands. That means you get the books, Amazon Cloud Player for music, Amazon Video on Demand for television and movies, access to the Amazon storefront, etc. It even appears that Amazon will be giving purchasers of the tablet a free subscription to Amazon Prime, which itself costs $79 per year.
Click to continue reading Amazon’s Kindle Tablet: Details revealed
Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader is an Apple-circumventing HTML5 browser app
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Internet, Software,
Amazon on Wednesday unveiled its Kindle Cloud Reader, an HTML5-based reading app accessible via the Web.
The feature is accessible at amazon.com/cloudreader and provides access to e-books through the browser, offline and online, with no downloading or installation required, Amazon said. Cloud Reader will automatically sync with other Kindle apps, allowing you to start reading on the Web and pick up on an iPhone or Kindle, for example. Books that you are reading will automatically be made available for offline use.
At this point, Kindle Cloud Reader works with Safari on the iPad and desktop and Google's Chrome.
Click to continue reading Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader is an Apple-circumventing HTML5 browser app
How Amazon can disrupt the iPad and Android tablet market
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Rumors,
A few weeks back, I wrote a column discussing the tablet that Amazon is rumored to introduce this fall. Since then, I have heard a few more things about this tablet that are quite interesting. In my last column on this topic, I stated that the center of its design would be on reading books. That appears to be true, as multiple sources tell me that it will have the best reading experience of any tablet on the market. But, I am also hearing that Amazon is using pretty low-cost parts and not using any of the major manufacturers that are producing most of the tablets for mainstream competitors. Apparently, the company's key goal is to make the tablet very inexpensive and then use a new business model to own the Android tablet market.
I believe that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos knows that all of the other Android vendors are at a big disadvantage when it comes to competing with Apple. Apple has a two-year lead on them, a great app store and services program, and a soon-to-be-key technology, the iCloud, which will keep all iOS apps and devices in-sync. And it has 250 million users' credit cards and hundreds of retail stores to help people learn about the iPad and buy one on the spot. None of the other tablet vendors can even come close to matching what Apple has to offer, except maybe Amazon. Although Amazon does not have retail stores like Apple does, it does have an Appstore for Android, music and movies for downloading, the Amazon Cloud Drive for storage, and the credit cards of 200+ million users. It also has limited channel partners, like Best Buy, that it could expand as well. But, I hear that while its tablet could marginally compete against Apple, this is not the company Amazon is going after with its tablet offering. It is smarter than that. Rather, I believe Amazon's goal is to be the market leader in Android and be the top seller of tablets with this mobile OS.
Click to continue reading How Amazon can disrupt the iPad and Android tablet market
How good (or bad) are apps for Android tablets?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Google, Handhelds, Software,
The following is a column sent to us by Skip Ferderber. We though it hit home on a lot of points, and decided to republish it with his permission:
Let’s start with a popular tech-talk premise especially among Apple iPad afficionados: Among the reasons Android tablets come up short is because there are only a handful of apps specifically optimized for them.
If there’s no big bucket of optimized Honeycomb apps, then it’s too soon to get an Android tablet ... not when you can get an iPad with more than 100,000 tablet-optimized apps.
The tech blogosphere (including yours truly) reported early on that only 10 apps were specifically redesigned to take advantage of the Honeycomb operating system, the Android software specifically engineered for a new generation of powerful tablets with heavy-duty processing power and bright high-resolution screens such as the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. A March Wired article reported it had found only 50 Honeycomb-optimized apps.
Well, hold on there, buckaroos.
What happens when non-optimized apps — the same apps you use on your Android smartphone — are run on a Honeycomb tablet? What’s the user experience like? Can you live with it? I decided to find out.
Click to continue reading How good (or bad) are apps for Android tablets?
Amazon tablet should launch before October
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Rumors,
The existence of a tablet computer in the offing from Amazon isn't official yet, but The Wall Street Journal has officially thrown its weight behind the pervasive rumors that the Kindle-maker is planning to release a device to compete head-to-head with Apple's iPad before the year is out.
Amazon is planning a third-quarter release of its first tablet, a 9-inch device running Google's Android mobile operating system, the newspaper reported Wednesday, citing unnamed "people familiar with the matter" who said the Amazon tablet will arrive "before October."
That corroborates several reports from Taiwan-based tech journal DigiTimes, which has cited components supplier sources as saying that Amazon plans to release a tablet currently codenamed Hollywood in September.
Click to continue reading Amazon tablet should launch before October
Amazon Cloud Player now gives unlimited music storage for $20 per month
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Music, Storage,
Amazon said late Wednesday that it will allow customers to store an unlimited amount of music on its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player, provided customers purchase a storage plan.
Amazon also announced a Cloud Player web app for the Apple iPad.
Amazon launched its Cloud Player in March, a companion to the Amazon Cloud Drive. At the time, the service came with up to 5GB of free, online music storage, expandable to 20 GB with the purchase of an MP3 album at the Amazon Music Store.
Additional storage plans start at $20 per year for 20 Gbytes of storage.
To encourage users to subscribe to those premium plans, Amazon is effectively eliminating MP3 files against that tally, allowing users to store 20 Gbytes of photos (or documents, or other content), rather than divvy it up. Amazon also said that users can store all of their MP3 or AAC files that they purchased through Amazon for free, and they won't count against the quota, either. Those files cover new files that a user might purchase as well as older files that a user bought before the new promotion.
Click to continue reading Amazon Cloud Player now gives unlimited music storage for $20 per month
E-readers are beating tablets in US adoption
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds,
The increase in U.S. adults who own e-readers is outpacing the growth of tablet owners, according to a new phone survey by the Pew Internet Project.
Adults who owned ereaders like Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook doubled from 6 percent of the U.S. adult population in November 2010 to 12 percent in May 2011, according to the survey of 2,277 respondents aged 18 and over. The survey was conducted in both English and Spanish.
Over the same period, the share of adults who said they owned a tablet such as Apple's iPad grew as well, but by just 3 percentage points. About 5 percent of respondents in an earlier Pew survey from November of last year said they owned a tablet, while 8 percent said they did in the most recent one, conducted between April 26 and May 22.
Click to continue reading E-readers are beating tablets in US adoption
Feature Breakdown: Apple iCloud, Amazon Cloud Player, Google Music Beta
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Features, Google, Music,
The biggest player in digital music has finally vaporized its content. Starting this fall, you'll be able to store your digital music library on Apple's internet servers. We've already seen Amazon and Google's attempts at a Web-based music service, with the former's Cloud Player and the latter's Google Music Beta, but with iTunes' dominance in digital music, Apple's iCloud could eclipse both of them. Apple's offering differs from those of Amazon and Google in some big ways, though. Here's a rundown of the three services' differences and similarities.
A central difference of Apple's iCloud versus the others is that it's not just for music: It takes over all the former MobileMe's functions—email, contacts, calendar—along with backing up and syncing iOS device photos, app data, and iWork documents. Thus ends the stormy story of the MobileMe service, which even Steve Jobs noted at WWDC was "not our finest hour." This comparison, though will concern itself primarily with the music aspect of iCloud, iTunes in the Cloud. This piece is available as a beta by downloading iTunes 10.3.
A huge difference of iCloud's music capabilities is that you can't play songs from within a Web browser (at least as far as we have seen so far) as you can with both Amazon and Google's offerings. You'll either need an iOS device or iTunes running on a computer. True, this does include Windows PCs running iTunes, but forget any non-Apple tablets or phones. This lack of Web access is just less flexible. Nor can you stream music from its online storage—the music must be fully downloaded to play.
Click to continue reading Feature Breakdown: Apple iCloud, Amazon Cloud Player, Google Music Beta
