Posts tagged Kindle
Amazon’s new Kindle competes with iPad on price, focus
Jul 29th
Amazon’s new Kindle comes in a smaller, darker package and they’re positioning it to compete with Apple’s iPad (which can also read Kindle books) on price ($139 for Wi-Fi $189 for 3G) and a laser-like focus on reading.
- All-New, High-Contrast E-Ink Screen – 50% better contrast than any other e-reader
- Read in Bright Sunlight – No glare
- New and Improved Fonts – New crisper, darker fonts
- New Sleek Design – 21% smaller body while keeping the same 6″ size reading area
- 17% Lighter – Only 8.5 ounces, weighs less than a paperback
- Battery Life of Up to One Month – A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off
- Double the Storage – Up to 3,500 Books
- Built-In Wi-Fi – Shop and download books in less than 60 seconds
- 20% Faster Page Turns – Seamless reading
- Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights
- New WebKit-Based Browser – Browse the web over Wi-Fi (experimental)
Much smarter than simply trying to re-brand it as KindlePad…
[Amazon]
Amazon’s new Kindle competes with iPad on price, focus is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Quick Review: iBooks on iPad
Apr 5th
iBooks on the iPad is the best ebook reading experience I’ve ever had (though to be fair I only have compared it to the Kindle 2nd Gen, Kindle on iPad, Kindle on iPhone, and various ebook readers on webOS and PalmOS).
Although initially I was a little concerned that reading on an LCD for extended periods of time would cause eye strain, reading for a couple of hours last night wasn’t a problem at all. I will have to wait and see if even longer sessions cause problems, but my hunch is that won’t be the case. You can adjust the brightness of the screen, the font size, and even the font type right from inside the app as you’re reading to ensure that you’re not squinting into some insanely bright screen.
You can search an entire book, look up words in the dictionary, jump to chapters, and so on. Bookmarking seems to only work on specific words, not on pages, but once you figure that out you’re set to go. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to enter notes, only to highlight text in one of five colors. In other words, academics can add the inability to add margin notes to the other reasons to shy away from ebooks for now (the others including the fact that you can’t trade or sell ebooks and, of course, DRM).
The iBooks Store is in-app and ties into your iTunes account, so you won’t need to remember a different password to use it. Book selection seems to be slightly worse than what you can find in Amazon’s Kindle store – but this early it’s not completely fair to judge on selection. As with iTunes, there are plenty of top-charts like the NYT bestseller list, categories, and the ability to download samples of books to see if it’s something you’d really like to read. One nice bit – iBooks uses the ePub standard, so it has the entire Gutenberg Project library
If you were thinking of buying a Kindle, don’t.
Video and gallery after the break!
Quick Review: iBooks on iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Quick Review: Kindle on iPad
Apr 4th
Kindle on iPad is, well, not as good as Kindle on a Kindle or iBooks. That’s going to be the bottom line for a lot of people. It works in both portrait and landscape – though curiously I can’t find a way to get a two-column book view in landscape. You can do most of the traditional ebook things: change the font size, adjust brightness, jump to any point in the book, have your place saved, etc. On Kindle you can also bookmark pages and add your own notes – all of which get synced up to Amazon’s cloud so you can see them on other Kindle devices like your iPhone, a Kindle, etc.
Instead of an in-app store, Amazon sends you to Safari to browse and search for Kindle book – which I don’t find especially annoying because the iPad’s web browser is so good. Amazon has a slightly better selection of books than Apple does too, though in both cases I often find myself stymied when trying to find a particular book.
With both Kindle and iBooks my basic feeling is that they’re good for light reading, but the difficulty of entering and exporting notes means that while I’ll use them for entertainment, I won’t use them for ’serious’ work.
Hopefully Amazon will update this app to support two-column landscape mode soon.
Video and gallery after the break!
Quick Review: Kindle on iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Kindle 2.0 universal binary update with iPad support is live!
Apr 3rd
If you’ve got the iPhone or iPod touch version of Amazon’s Kindle App [Free - iTunes link] check your updates because the new Kindle 2.0, universal binary version with iPad support is now live in the App Store!
Boasting 450,000 books (for US customers, international availability varies), and Whispersync convenience between Kindle device, iPhone, iPod touch, and now iPad, Apple doesn’t seem to have a problem with duplicating iBooks functionality.
It also says you can shop the Kindle store, though whether that means you can do it within the app, like iBookstore, or if you still have to go to the Amazon.com website first… we’ll find out tomorrow.
If you’re a Kindle Books lover, let us know how you enjoy reading them on your iPad!
Kindle 2.0 universal binary update with iPad support is live! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Amazon, Barnes & Noble Readying Book Stores for iPad
Mar 22nd
Confirming that it won’t just be Apple’s iBookstore (and your own free ePubs) on the iPad, the New York Times today mentions that both Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both working on book stores of their own. While both market their own hardware devices, the Kindle and the Nook respectively, the iPad is expected to throw a huge spotlight on eBooks in general, and they want to benefit:
The Kindle app for the iPad, which Amazon demonstrated to a reporter last week, allows readers to slowly turn pages with their fingers. It also presents two new ways for people to view their entire e-book collection, including one view where large images of book covers are set against a backdrop of a silhouetted figure reading under a tree. The sun’s position in that image varies with the time of day.
At the offices of Barnes & Noble’s digital unit in New York, 14 developers have occupied a windowless room since January, completely redesigning the company’s iPhone app for the iPad, according to Douglas Gottlieb, its vice president of digital products. The developers hunch over Macs around a big table, and printouts and notecards are taped up on the walls.
The new app will let users flip through books quickly with finger swipes and customize fonts in multiple colors and sizes. Mr. Gottlieb said the company was talking to publishers about adding multimedia to digital books.
Neither company received one of those secret, early-access iPad units for testing, so while they may be simulator-ready for the April 3 launch, they may not want to release until they’ve had a chance to run their apps on the real hardware. Comic reader app Panefly, for example, thinks a bad day 1 experience with an app that worked fine in the lab but poorly on the actual iPad could “kill the train before it leaves the station”.
As to whether or not Apple will approve competing bookstores for the iPad App Store, TiPb’s always felt that the best indicator was Steve Jobs announcing iBooks as a separate, downloadable app rather than a built-in like iTunes Store. While this may have also reflected iBooks US-only availability, and there’s never any way to tell for sure what Apple will do until they do it, at the end of the day they want to move hardware and letting existing Kindle (and Nook) owners bring over their books is a great way to lower the barrier of iPad entry.
Right now, both the Kindle for iPhone [Free- iTunes link] and Barnes & Noble eReader for iPhone [Free - iTunes link] frequire a clunky web-based work around for purchasing books, however, and it would be nice to see that process actually integrated into the apps — like iBooks and the iBookstore.
So, given the choice, what will you be buying and reading your eBooks with — Amazon Kindle for iPad, Barnes & Noble eBook Reader for iPad, or Apple’s iBooks?
[NYT via AppleInsider]
Amazon, Barnes & Noble Readying Book Stores for iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Former Microsoft ClearType Lead: iPad will Kill Kindle, TabletPC
Feb 14th
Windows Weekly co-host Paul Thurrott, who was initially nonplussed about Apple’s iPad but is slightly warming to the device, has linked to a blog post from Bill Hill, former head of ClearType at Microsoft, who offers:
I predict it will be a huge success. It will cause the same kind of mayhem among TabletPC and eBook manufacturers that the iPod and iPhone did in their respective market categories.
Hill cites the great look, but says more importantly Apple understands the transition from “computing devices” to “consumer devices”, while the Kindle was merely a “transitional device” while TabletPC were basically laptop PC’s with tablet functionality grafted on.
The only doubts he has is in Apple’s “clone” of his Microsoft ClearType, which he claims blurs at small sizes and on lower-pitch screens like the iPad’s 132ppi. It might make sustained reading less enjoyable. All around he seems bullish, however, running Windows on a MacBook Pro, and now using an iPhone as well:
last week I dropped my Windows Mobile phone in the water. It was DOA when brought back to the surface. So now I need a new phone. No way am I buying a Windows Mobile replacement. I really grew to hate that phone. I’ve checked out the new Google phones, and I don’t like them much either. No, I want a great customer experience – so I’ll go with Apple.
I’m not an Apple Fanboy. But you have to give credit where it’s due. From being browbeaten into a mere 2-3% PC market share several years ago, Apple has parlayed its expertise in “consumer computing” into astounding success. I expect the iPad to continue that success.
The pixel density is an interesting concern, especially from someone of Hill’s background. The iPhone is 163ppi, the iPod nano 204ppi. Anyone think 132ppi will give them problems?
Former Microsoft ClearType Lead: iPad will Kill Kindle, TabletPC is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog
Comparing Android and Kindle for App Development
Feb 8th
There’s this little bookstore, up around Seattle, called Amazon.com. You might have heard of them. They sell an ebook reader called the Kindle, now in its second generation. Now, the Kindle is turning into a mobile platform, with the introduction of “active content”, complete with an SDK and “app store”. Here’s my take on what they are offering. Note that this is based solely on materials presently available at public URLs, as I have not yet elected to agree to the beta terms and conditions.
From a programming standpoint, the Kindle embeds JavaME, specifically the Personal Basis Profile. Hence, instead of Android widgets, you’re using AWT for containers and drawing and some Kindle-specific widgets, like KButton and KTextField. However, it is still Java from a programming language standpoint, a plus for Android developers looking to dip their toes in the Kindly waters.
The equivalent of an Android activity is the “kindlet”. It is unclear if the Kindle will support any sort of multiprocessing (e.g., playing music while the user reads), but preliminary indications suggest it will not. Notably, you cannot keep your “kindlet” running while the device is idle (screensaver mode) or when the Kindle is mounted as a USB device.
Also, bear in mind that the Kindle is not a touch-screen device. Instead, you use what amounts to a D-pad to navigate. It also has a fairly slow screen refresh rate, courtesy of e-ink technology. The combination of these means fast-twitch games (e.g., first-person shooters) seem unlikely apps for Kindle. Displays are also monochrome, with only a few shades of gray. However, the Kindle does sport a QWERTY keyboard.
The SDK comes with simulators for both sizes of Kindle, supported on Linux, OS X, and Windows. You can also associate up to three real Kindles as test devices — apparently, these are then also eligible for you to use for testing applications.
Once we get out of the realm of programming and into the realm of the “app store”, though, things start to radically depart from the Android model.
It would appear the only way to deliver “active content” to the Kindle is through Amazon.com. This is not surprising, considering it follows the iPhone App Store model and fits with Amazon’s strong preference for you to get your Kindle books through Amazon.com. Also, like the iPhone App Store, Amazon must approve all applications (“We recommend that you test your application on a Kindle before submitting it to us for approval.”). Their current terms notably prevent one from creating a VOIP app, an alternative reader (e.g., for EPUB), or display advertising.
Applications will be protected by Amazon’s DRM system. Since this was broken some time ago for ebooks, it will be interesting to see how long this lasts, and whether people are able to “root” or “jailbreak” their Kindles for use with apps distributed outside Amazon with removed DRM.
Their “active content” pricing rules are…interesting. Developers get a 70/30 split (less a 15-cent delivery fee), much like the Android Market and iPhone App Store. However, your choice of pricing model depends on how much bandwidth you consume. Kindle users get free 3G service (Whispernet), and Amazon clearly does not want to bankroll ridiculous bandwidth charges. Hence, you can only distribute an app for free if it is smaller than 1MB to begin with and uses less than 100KB/user/month. If you want to offer a one-time charge (a la Android Market and iPhone App Store), you can, and you can then have a larger app (10MB for Whispernet, 100MB for USB-based installation), but you still are subject to the 100KB/user/month bandwidth budget. If you want more bandwidth, it appears you have to charge a monthly fee, and it is unclear what bandwidth limits you are subject to under that model.
Perhaps the biggest thing that the Kindle has going for it is the possibility of a “land rush”. Many Kindles have sold, though Amazon has been mum on actual figures. Some estimates peg it at around 1.5 million as of the end of 2009, though many of those were first-generation Kindles that will not support active content. The iPhone app land rush was caused by many more iPhones, and it is unclear how popular “active content” will be among Kindle users. However, the Kindle is popular enough that there may be first-mover opportunities to make some money, if you have an app that is small, has modest bandwidth requirements, fits the display and user input constraints of the device, and might prove popular among Kindle users.
Android already dwarfs Kindle’s market size, and Android would appear to have a far better growth curve. Hence, Android is a better bet overall, if you are not in position to support too many platforms. But, Kindle will still have its share of winners, and since it is Java-based, Android developers may want to check it out.
Might We Suggest…
