Amazon To Launch Kindle Tablet? 140
Rumors abound that Amazon wants a taste of the tablet market and will unveil a Kindle Tablet later this week. The prevailing thought is Amazon will offer a device that will cost under $300 and will tether closely to its music, movie and digital book content. From the article: "Amazon has brand recognition, a bevy of existing loyal Kindle e-reader owners, and a Web-based e-commerce platform that includes one-click access to buying e-books, movies, digital music downloads, its own Android app store, and streaming media catalog. That adds up to Amazon being uniquely suited to go head-to-head with Apple in the tablet market and become a formidable competitor across the industry."
Possible and likely. (Score:2)
However, I'm guessing it's probably going to be locked down and running Android in it's barest form. Sort of like a locked down Grid10 tablet.
If Amazon sees this as a way to sell digital media, then I think they're looking at a hard sell. Apple's digital media offerings seem to try to buttress their digital media devices, not the other way around.
I wish amazon the best in this though.
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Amazon's competition here is B&N or rather Amazon is introducing a product to compete with B&N's offering. Apple is in a completely different area.
Most likely, Kindle color will be similar to Nook color, which probably means that any locking they do will be easily removed.
Re:Possible and likely. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Possible and likely. (Score:4)
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It's probably a case of them not really caring what you do with their product and wanting to make sure that they get a piece of the market. Plus, I'm sure they want to ensure that there are plenty of devices out there that can read their books. That's not as big of a concern now that epub has some steam behind it.
As it is, you can bet that B&N does make a profit on each Nook sold, even if the profit isn't huge.
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The Nook might have books from other sources in a different list, but the Kindle is makes it impossible to have them period without format shifting.
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The TechCrunch [techcrunch.com] article about the new Kindle.
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Re:Possible and likely. (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon's competition here is B&N or rather Amazon is introducing a product to compete with B&N's offering. Apple is in a completely different area.
Amazon and iTunes are competing on Music and Video downloads. If they're tossing the E-Ink display, they most certainly are competing with Apple.
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Not really, that's sort of like saying that when ASUS brought out the initial netbook model that they were competing with the makers of desktop replacements. They're superficially the sane, but they're completely different market segments.
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More accurately Amazon wants to target Apple's interactive market. Amazon is the content distribution cripple because it could not target interactivity and was only aimed at passive consumption of other people's content. In shifting to interactivity, it gains access to the simple gaming market and even simply MMO's.
The world is slowly but surely shifting from passive content consumption to interactive content consumption. It might take quite some to get to a holo-deck but interactivity is inherently more
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Apple is in a completely different area?
from the summary
"Amazon has brand recognition, a bevy of existing loyal Kindle e-reader owners, and a Web-based e-commerce platform that includes one-click access to buying e-books, movies, digital music downloads, its own Android app store, and streaming media catalog. That adds up to Amazon being uniquely suited to go head-to-head with Apple in the tablet market and become a formidable competitor across the industry."
completley different how? Does B&N have an ap
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Yes they do (for their device anyway). And no it isn't.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/nookcolor-apps/379002750/ [barnesandnoble.com]
Was i really that hard to take 2 seconds to look before jumping to a conclusion?
Your own link says:
Yes, Amazon has been able to trim the cost
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Yes, B&N does have an app store. The Nook Color is essentially a specialized Android tablet. I'd expect Amazon to come out with something similar.
Despite its marriage to iTunes, the iPad is a general purpose device. It's app-centric.
The B&N Nook is book/magazine-centric. It's designed primarily for the consumption of that media.
I'd expect a tablet Kindle to develop along the lines of a media consumption device rather than a general purpose device. At least at first.
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I don't think it's unreal
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I heard they had a custom fork of Android that replaced all the Google services with their own. Their own app store, music service, etc.
As someone who owns a (really) low-end android tablet without the stock market app, I say good for them.
I've installed Amazon's appstore and music service, as well as their regular Kindle app. They all run quite nicely on low-end tablets.
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Well, yeah, but still able to run any Android app, so it may be forked, but that won't affect the end user. It will only ever receive Amazon upgrades (if any) but then again, it'll be a console-type known quantity people can develop for knowing it'll run on all of them.
That is how Android comes for free (Score:2)
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Amazon shouldn't create a lock-down version of Android tablet.
Because you say so?
They need to have strong collaboration with Google to ensure that the future android OS will be compatible with whatever tablet they release.
You do realize that Amazon is trying to compete against Google with this right? That's why they have their own app store and many of their own replacement apps for the standard Android apps.
It's fine if they include all their services on the tablet by default but it would be a bad idea to create a lock-down version of Android.
Do you have any actual reasons other than because you don't want them to do so?
You combine that with Android app-store, I think you would definitely have a real good competitor for iPad
They have their own Android app store which is the whole point of them having their own forked version of Android. They want people buying their apps through them so they get the cut rather than Google.
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You do realize that Amazon is trying to compete against Google with this right?
I don't think Amazon is trying to directly compete against anyone. Rather, they want more devices out there that serve as a gateway to their various stores (books, music, video, apps). I guess Kindle was an economic success in that way, and they are now trying to extend the model further.
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They have their own Android app store, and I would imagine they will want to sell apps from that to Kindle users.
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I don't know. If they're looking to use this thing to sell digital services rather than having their digital services being used to sell their hardware, it's likely they may lock everything down to appease the mighty overlords of content.
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Not if it runs 3.x
We'll have to wait for at least ice cream sandwich then.
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I would be extremely surprised if Amazon Appstore wasn't on it. And that has most (interesting) apps that are in the Market.
Whether it'll have sideloading, though, is an interesting question.
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That's right. No Google Apps for you! /Soup Nazi
Actually, you can get most, if not all, of the google apps (including maps, gmail, search, voice) via GetJar, which itself is a downloadable apk. The only thing you can't get is the market itself. Somewhat surprising, but there you go ...
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My Archos 70IT came without the Google market, but now I am downloading apps from the Market, so... I'm pretty sure that one can get Google Market on the Amazon Kindle if so inclined ;)
Not what I want from Amazon (Score:3)
I hope this whole tablet business will not delay what I really expect from Amazon - a hi-res color e-ink Kindle. Same format but a larger display. And please no touch screen, thank you, I don't want my greasy fingers on the display I read.
Tablets have a long way to go to replace dedicated e-book readers. Until they are easily readable in broad daylight and can last at least couple weeks, there will be a market for Kindle.
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Tablets have a long way to go to replace dedicated e-book readers. Until they are easily readable in broad daylight and can last at least couple weeks, there will be a market for Kindle.
Couldn't agree more. I think much gruff around any ereader boils down to users who don't actually want to read. I've got a kobo, of all things, and it reads the pdfs I send it's way perfectly well.
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I think much gruff around any ereader boils down to users who don't actually want to read.
Is that what you tell yourself? That people who prefer tablets over ereaders are illiterate luddites? I hate ereaders, and love my Android phone and am actively seeking a good Android tablet. And I love to read. I just prefer treeware books over eink books. I would never trade my real books for digital books, and will not stop buying paper books as long as they sell them. Ereaders are a horrible attempt at replacing real books, and I frankly feel those people who prefer ebooks over real ones are the luddi
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And I love to read
Well, at least we have some common ground, however much we otherwise disagree
Ereaders are a horrible attempt at replacing real books
Find me an e-reader, and I'll let you know. According to marketing you're suppose to play artillery games with animated birds, re-purchase and watch movies, listen to music, listen to audiobooks, pretty much ... everything except read... Despite their best attempts, I love reading manuals and datasheets on my ipad. I probably have not printed out a manufacturers datasheet in over a year (think like 200 page tomes from microchip.
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Not quite. It's just when I read reviews about the kobo, most were negative, and none accurately portrayed how it handles the pdfs I throw at it.
Like you, I prefer the tree version of books. They're quicker to flip through and I can buy them at local used book stores. But, my kobo/ereader works great for research articles and old, 'freely available' books in pdf form.
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I think much gruff around any ereader boils down to users who don't actually want to read.
Is that what you tell yourself? That people who prefer tablets over ereaders are illiterate luddites?
*laughs* ... I think he was saying "users who don't actually want to read on the device". I'm pretty sure he wasn't implying that people without eink devices are illiterate ...!
Ereaders are a horrible attempt at replacing real books, and I frankly feel those people who prefer ebooks over real ones are the luddites.
Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it. I bought a kindle when I went backpacking round the world for five months, fully expecting to dislike the experience but reasoning that since there was no way I could carry all the paper books I would read in that time, it was a necessary evil. But I absolutely loved reading on it, and now
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I think much gruff around any ereader boils down to users who don't actually want to read.
Is that what you tell yourself? That people who prefer tablets over ereaders are illiterate luddites?
*laughs* ... I think he was saying "users who don't actually want to read on the device". I'm pretty sure he wasn't implying that people without eink devices are illiterate ...!
Thanks for putting taking his words out of my mouth. People, especially on the net, are often too ready and willing to read offensive remarks into anything anyone says. People love a good fight, but that doesn't mean they always hear with their ears and read with their eyes.
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Color e-ink tablet (Score:2)
Dont hold your breath. I doubt we will see one here in the USA until 2013. That said, I'm also hoping for one, but i wont delude my self thinking it will happen soon.
Oh, and i prefer the touch screen since i rarely have to 'type' ( its a reader, not a data entry system ), so the extra real estate sucked up by the keypad is annoying. Its one of the reasons why i eventually 'traded' my kindle Gen1 to a Nook Touch instead of a gen 3 kindle ( that and the nook was rootable )
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I hope this whole tablet business will not delay what I really expect from Amazon - a hi-res color e-ink Kindle.
Nope, that's waiting on the technology. In particular, for an e-reader (as opposed to smart labels etc.) one of the USPs of e-ink is the clear black text for sustained reading. So there's no point going to colour if the trade-off is fuzzy, muddy brown text - which is what you'll inevitably get if you try and make black from cyan,magenta and yellow sub-pixels. There's a reason why conventional printing uses an additional black plate.
The up-and-coming electrowetting displays sound interesting, in that they'
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here here, though I'll take the touchscreen. I played with that recent e-ink Barnes and Noble eReader and it's better than the Kindle 3's wonky buttons and keyboard. with the touch screen they could get rid of the keyboard that I never use.
I used to think the way you do, but I've found - now that I own a Kindle - the buttons work much better for me than a touchscreen does. You can hold it in one hand and still easily advance through pages without having to set your coffee down, for instance.
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You can hold it in one hand and still easily advance through pages without having to set your coffee down, for instance.
That's what I noticed in about the new B&N Simple Reader [barnesandnoble.com]. Its light enough to hold one handed and a simple thumb-tap with the same hand will turn the pages. (It has buttons on the side, but I was using it for 10 minutes before I noticed them.)
Buttons are a point of failure. They are just not necessary any more.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear [wikipedia.org]
Rooted OS coming soon (Score:2)
Someone will release a root kit for it and an appropriate Android install will be available shortly. This is pretty cool I think. I purchased a Nook to read with because I wanted an Android device. I'll buy an inexpensive tablet as well if the feature/value ratio is right for me. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have to offer.
Plus Amazon Prime (Score:1)
Prediction: In 2 years they'll give you a tablet when you subscribe to Amazon Prime.
Matt Wood
Melbourne, FL
$300 is too much (Score:3)
$300 is too much for an e-reader.
Special-purpose e-readers have to be a lot cheaper than comparable phones and tablets, or they're not going to sell.
Ultimately, the phone/tablet market will probably eat the e-reader market. Look what happened to standalone PDAs.
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Ultimately, the phone/tablet market will probably eat the e-reader market. Look what happened to standalone PDAs.
Except that e-readers offer a screen fundamentally different from those on general-purpose tablets.
I mean, I could read e-books on an iPad, but I'd rather stick with en e-ink screen that won't make my eyes hurt after an hour.
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Except that e-readers offer a screen fundamentally different from those on general-purpose tablets.
That's going away. Users seem to prefer fast color displays over slow reflective monochrome ones. There's a color Nook, and this new color Kindle is not an "e-Ink" device.
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Users who don't read for more than an hour at a time perhaps.
Re:$300 is too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Users who don't read for more than an hour at a time perhaps.
Or outdoors.
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That's going away. Users seem to prefer fast color displays over slow reflective monochrome ones.
I dunno -- I see a lot more kindles on my train commute than tablets. And I am yet to see anyone reading a novel on a tablet. Ever. (I've seen people reading PDFs for work a few times, but that's as good as it gets ...)
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Ever? I've read entire novels just on my 4" phone's Kindle app, as well as an Nook color. I do own an e-ink Kindle but haven't used it in almost a year.
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Well, I was talking tablets, not phones, and in Australia we don't have access to the Nook color -- so it's kindles or tablets here, really. I can only comment on what I see, and I've just never seen anyone reading novels on tablets (which are, almost universally, iPads). I keep looking, because I find this completely fascinating and rather unexpected ... but that's the way it is, at least on my train line.
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Hmm...I've yet to see anyone riding trains before...
Then again, I've never lived in a city with trains before...at least none used for passengers on them.
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Ok, but I would rather have one device. I read on the iPad, 2 books last week alone. I enjoy not having to have an external light source, since I read in lots of different places.
Both our views are valid, but lets see which one lasts. I do not see e-readers sticking around beyond the next few years. I can't see most people having both, and choosing to go with the better all round device. I think that is why Amazon and BN have gone the tablet platform, not trusting ereaders to carry them.
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Presently, there's a compelling argument in favor of eInk based readers for reading books (but no other function), but it's a tough sell over an iPad or in addition to an iPad in the general market.
Well, duh. If you're buying a $139 e-ink e-reader you can't really expect it to do the same things as a $500 iPad.
And there have been a number of rumours about Amazon releasing a $99 Kindle for the holiday season, though I've no idea whether they're true.
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I couldn't say why some peoples eyes hurt since that is not my area of expertise but I can tell you that my eyes hurt after reading on my nook color after a couple of hours. I also have a first gen kindle and do not have the same problem with it. I am a software developer and am in front of computer screens all day reading text of monitors without issue.
There's a big difference between reading a book on a monitor and reading bits and pieces of source code; in the former case you start at the beginning and continue reading to the end, in the latter you're moving between sections of code and your eyes aren't just reading non-stop.
Well, unless you get your kicks from reading through 100,000 words of C++ code anyway.
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It wont be a dedicated e-book reader, it will be a generic media delivery device, including books, movies, games, music, magazines and news papers..
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$300 is too much for an e-reader.
Bullshit. Amazon couldn't keep their Kindle v1 and Kindle v2 in stock and those were around $300. When the DX came out, they were SWAMPED with orders. Just because $300 is too expensive for you doesn't mean others can't afford it.
Special-purpose e-readers have to be a lot cheaper than comparable phones and tablets, or they're not going to sell.
Amazon would disagree with you.
Ultimately, the phone/tablet market will probably eat the e-reader market. Look what happened to standalone PDAs.
and yet Amazon still continues to sell Kindle...yet the market is dead, right? *rolls eyes*
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Amazon knows that $300 is too much. The existing Kindle won't go away. Maybe it'll be redesigned, it'll almost certainly get cheaper, but a massmarket-priced gateway to Amazon's store that's proven to sell out as quickly as it can be put in the shelves is a project they won't kill.
Useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
will tether closely to its music, movie and digital book content
Before purchase, I thought I'd use my ipad for that, because that's what marketing said; After purchase, I never do. Its an absolutely killer email reader, a fantastic web browser, great pdf reader (manuals, etc). I play games on it occasionally. Avadon etc. My coworkers have about the same story... repeating the marketers mantra before purchase of consume consume consume media, yet after purchase it's entirely different, electronic paper plus some video games.
There is quite a separation between what the marketing people demand I purchase it for, and what I've seen people actually use it for after purchase. I have a good feeling about it because the actual use turns out to be more valuable than I was expecting.
Amazon might want to watch out; if competitors start marketing toward what tablets are actually used for, they might get left in the dust. Someday I'll want to buy a replacement for my ipad, at that time I'm going to jump at advertisements for "instant on" and "great email reader" and "really awesome webbrowser" and "smooth pdf rendering". I'm going to avoid advertisements about how this is the 50th media format I should buy a full collection of Beetles music on, or how I should re-purchase my complete DVD collection (again) for their new gadget, because that simply didn't work out as an interest for me on my current tablet.
Re:Useful? (Score:4, Insightful)
will tether closely to its music, movie and digital book content
Before purchase, I thought I'd use my ipad for that, because that's what marketing said; After purchase, I never do. Its an absolutely killer email reader, a fantastic web browser, great pdf reader (manuals, etc). I play games on it occasionally. Avadon etc. ... I'm going to avoid advertisements about how this is the 50th media format I should buy a full collection of Beetles music on, or how I should re-purchase my complete DVD collection (again) for their new gadget, because that simply didn't work out as an interest for me on my current tablet.
Isn't that the heart of the problem? Everyone wants to sell media, but they all want to sell it in a proprietary format through proprietary channels so that they can control the media you buy. It's like having to buy paper books printed in such a way that you have to wear special decoding glasses to read—and of course, you can only buy the books from the glasses vendor, because other vendor's books won't be properly decoded. This is stupid, and I'm not switching to e-books until a reasonably wide selection of books is available in an open format from diverse vendors, and there is a selection of e-book readers (or tablet PCs or whatever you want to call them) available that will work with this format. The format itself could be something pretty simple: XHTML with user-customizeable styles, and maybe PNG graphics.
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This is stupid, and I'm not switching to e-books until a reasonably wide selection of books is available in an open format from diverse vendors, and there is a selection of e-book readers (or tablet PCs or whatever you want to call them) available that will work with this format.
We've certainly got that. Torrent sites up the wazoo for all formats and U****t's format of choice for technical non-fiction is the pdf.
Oh, you meant legal providers. Well, this is kinda like music was in about 1999, maybe a little later... A few crappy proprietary formats, and everyone trading free formats on the net. There are some exceptions... Baen knows what they're doing, and as such, is one of few publishers to make money off me.
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Oh, you meant legal providers. Well, this is kinda like music was in about 1999, maybe a little later... A few crappy proprietary formats, and everyone trading free formats on the net.
All books on Smashwords are DRM-free and many books on Amazon are DRM-free. I was actually surprised when I bought a Kindle book recently and discovered it was DRM-infested, so now I do check before buying them.
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All books on Smashwords are DRM-free and many books on Amazon are DRM-free. I was actually surprised when I bought a Kindle book recently and discovered it was DRM-infested, so now I do check before buying them.
Huh? Every book I've purchased from Amazon (mostly literature) has been clad in DRM rubbish. I know this, because I strip them of it before putting them on my kindle ...
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You must be reading the wrong books.
As I said, I check for DRM before buying now, after someone on an earlier Slashdot thread told me how to spot the DRM-infested books.
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You must be reading the wrong books.
Well, they're the right books for me ... :) I read mostly literature, but also some non-fiction works. What books are you buying that aren't DRM-encrypted?
As I said, I check for DRM before buying now, after someone on an earlier Slashdot thread told me how to spot the DRM-infested books.
I'm genuinely curious here -- are you only reading books that are already available in the public domain, or are Amazon selling currently published, commercial, copyright works out there without DRM encryption? That's amazing if so, and kudos to Amazon for doing this. I'd love it if Amazon moved away from a DRM model, but I can't realistically see thi
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> This is stupid, and I'm not switching to e-books until a reasonably wide selection of books is
> available in an open format from diverse vendors
So, Kindle and PDFs, then?
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32987/how-to-read-pdf-files-on-your-amazon-kindle-version-3/ [howtogeek.com]
There, that wasn't too difficult, was it?
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No, what is difficult is to read the goddamn PDF.
PDFs are printed page descriptions. An e-reader has very different constraints and logic. An ideal ebook is way closer to simplified HTML than to a PDF.
But still - Whatever you can get in HTML, it's almost trivial to convert to the venerable MOBI format. I have not needed to generate EPUB, although I understand it's a very similar process.
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This is stupid, and I'm not switching to e-books until a reasonably wide selection of books is available in an open format from diverse vendors, and there is a selection of e-book readers (or tablet PCs or whatever you want to call them) available that will work with this format. The format itself could be something pretty simple: XHTML with user-customizeable styles, and maybe PNG graphics.
Relax. The DRM of most (all?) major ebook publishers is easily breakable, and because of backwards compatibility with older devices they're locked into these breakable DRM models forever, more or less.
I pay for all my ebooks. I also strip the DRM off all of my ebooks (and occasionally correct the terrible formatting that the publisher's used.) And from there, I can convert them into any format I like. (epub is generally accepted as the default open format and essentially what you just described (zipped
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I find the idea of ebooks abhorrent. I will become a last adopter, when not using them will cause problems for my life. At that point I believe the format wars will be over. I'll let other people pay for the development of those things.
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Yes and the marketing got you to pay $250 more because you fell for it, the things you DO do can be done quite well on the nook for $250 less then what you paid
Nah I already had a little handheld that was too small and a netbook that was too big and takes 2 minutes to boot... The ipad screen is about twice the size of the original nook screen. It was an intentional decision to select a device "about the size of a book". Not a postcard, not a really big postage stamp, not a floor tile sized laptop/netbook.
I have not been keeping up with the market, no need for me. It might be that "nook" is like "eee" was, and now refers to a generic family of products, and ther
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It is about half as responsive and nice to use, like basically all the android tablets up to date.
Tiny things like 100-300 ms lag in the UI, shuttery picture browsing, inconsistent web behavior etc dont matter to the hardcore 'geeks' but the market is showing that the fit and finish matter in the end.
Other than that the nook is actually a fairly nice android tablet. Cheap and as usable as any of em.
any rumours on the next Amazon e-ink device? (Score:2)
I don't care about another iPad clone. Any rumours on the next e-ink device? E-ink are doing some moderately interesting things with a colour filter in front of the display, so I guess it's possible they'll adopt that. But no-one's talking about it.
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I also wish this was being talked about more, I am not interested in 10 hour battery life, I'm interested in a 15 day battery life for a tablet - it doesn't require a back-lit LCD 60Hz screen, but an app store would be nice.
I wonder at this point what the best multi-purpose e-ink tablet is?
Multipurpose usually equals fast-screened (Score:2)
What users expect from a device that looks and smells like a tablet is touch-screeny, with animations, with kewl effects, where you can rotate and the screen elegantly redraws itself. And, I'm sorry, you just will not see a fast e-ink screen. It's just a very different thing, with a very different purpose.
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"Multipurpose eInk tablet" is an oxymoron with the current limitations of that technology - most notably screen refresh rate, and also color fidelity (last I checked, even the most recent color eInk has something like 16 colors, and does the rest with dithering). If you tried to use a web browser on any of eInk readers out there, you know what I mean.
There are other technologies out there which, in theory, offer all the benefits of eInk (reflective screen with no backlight, very low power consumption) while
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(last I checked, even the most recent color eInk has something like 16 colors, and does the rest with dithering)
Shit, that's only four times as many colors as your newspaper. I don't know about you, but mine frequently fails to line up the color separation, so it looks like smashed assholes. Often I have a hard time even figuring out what the picture is supposed to be. Sixteen colors sounds fantastic. Further, they could potentially do stuff you simply can't do with a computer screen, like implement fluorescent colors, or maybe even a metallic reflective. Three or four more colors added to CMYK ought to give very goo
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I also wish this was being talked about more, I am not interested in 10 hour battery life, I'm interested in a 15 day battery life for a tablet - it doesn't require a back-lit LCD 60Hz screen, but an app store would be nice.
I doubt you'll get that anytime soon. One of the reason why eink devices have such great battery life is that they never power the screen except for when it is refreshed. Reading books, you only refresh the screen when you turn a page, meaning that your battery lasts forever. But if you want to do tablet-y things like surf the web, play games, etc -- things you do with apps, in other words -- you'll be refreshing the screen much more and your battery life will plummet.
An e-ink reader is a one-trick pony;
Color E-ink display or I don't care (Score:2)
My wife loves her Kindle. She uses it a whole lot, and the battery life is incredible and nearly what is advertised (30 days!). I would like one too, but I want color E-ink. I know, it only matters with maybe one of 10 documents I read. (especially considering that I reference out-of-print scans from Google books rather frequently)
Failing color E-ink, I probably will not get a Kindle.
Phil
Future of e-ink (Score:2)
I just hope this does not spell the end of e-ink in favor of LCD. Each has their use, and i refer reading on e-ink any day. ( tho i want color... ).
US Only (Score:2)
My guess is that this will be US only, so it'll be useless outside the US even if you can have someone in the US buy it for you and ship it to you.
Nook Color Clone (Score:2)
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Nice press release. People would have more respect for these kinds of postings if you would include a disclaimer that you're writing on behalf of B&N.
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You're wrong about the Kindle's format support. It supports non-DRM mobi files just fine. And with Calibre, something I'd use with the Nook too, you can convert any non-DRM format to any other non-DRM format. In any event the Kindle certainly is not locked to the walled garden. I read non-DRM books on my Kindle exclusively.
Easy to win the Tablet war at this time: (Score:3)
A) Make it cheaper than all the other tablets. Corner the market by throwing money at it. Make a $150 tablet that is every bit as functional as a netbook, and watch them sell like hot cakes.
B) Make it boot stock Cyanogenmod. Also have it be able to run Linux Mint and also Windows XP. Don't include them by default, but have them runnable out of the box. Easily runnable. None of this rooting crap. Include links to the custom Linux and ReactOS distros right in the opening tutorial. Give it an easily triple boot boot loader.
C) Include a couple of killer apps that don't currently exist. A really good video chat, at least as good as google's video chat, but with no sign in, just any email address would work, and anybody in your contact list is already added to your buddy list. For good measure have it able to connect to skype, google+, and google talk video chat.
D) Give it stylus capability and a great GIMP/airbrush program that really works, really well out of the box.
E) Include an excellent ereader and every text out of copyright downloadable for free in an easy to read format. Also include a great organization to find and download them. Something better than currently exists.
Do these 5 things, and you will beat them all: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, HTC, Samsung, all of them.
Ah, who am I kidding. None of these corporations are smart enough to really go big like this. Fucking chicken shit bean counters the lot of them.
Re: (Score:2)
A) This is critical, but you have to allow some penny pinching if you expect them to achieve it.
B) The critical point is to release open-source drivers. If they work you will get full Cyanogenmod support within 12 hours of release whatever else you do. If you wrote them cleanly and didn't really too much on the Android patches they will also end up in the Linux Kernel and all distros in due course. XP/React is a none-starter; any tablet I buy will be ARM.
C) Hard to argue that Skype/Facetime/Google Talk don'
Re: (Score:2)
- A hybrid e-ink/LCD transflective display.
Nice - when the technology is mature. However, currently e-ink can't refresh fast enough for a tablet-style UI so you'd have to power up the LCD for every interaction. Also, you'd have to stick the LCD in front of the e-Ink without reducing the readability of the e-ink display.
- Swappable batteries (in different sizes).
There's a good reason why tablets and e-readers have non-swappable batteries: making a battery safely swappable adds a lot of bulk for the same amount of battery. You have to build in a battery door, a protective partition so you can
Re: (Score:3)
A) Make it cheaper than all the other tablets. Corner the market by throwing money at it. Make a $150 tablet that is every bit as functional as a netbook, and watch them sell like hot cakes.
Except... so far all the "iPad class" tablets have cost the same as the iPad. Maybe this is because the manufacturers are greedy and want the same margins as Apple, but it does look a little bit like $500 is a realistic price for that much hardware. Of course, Amazon might be able to make it a loss leader against anticipated media sales.
B) Make it boot stock Cyanogenmod. Also have it be able to run Linux Mint and also Windows XP.
ROTFL.
Seriously, that's a complete nerds-eye view of the issue - the bulk of the tablet buying public doesn't give a wet slap about alternate OSs. Also, if the success of
Re:FAIL (Score:4, Insightful)
Like everyone says: There is no *tablet* market, there's an *iPad* market ....
I'm not so sure. There's an "iPad market" because Apple has done a fantastic job of marketing it. The long line of failed android tablets you refer to are still out there being sold, though.
All it'll take is a big enough company to put some serious marketing (and aggressive pricing) into their android tablet. Then you'll start to see more than just iPads in Starbucks. As it stands now, android is capable of doing everything iOS does on the same or lower hardware.\
If there's a company that could do it, it would probably be Amazon. They're big enough, and they have a large catalog of all sorts of media to back up whatever they come up with.
Re: (Score:1)
"is capable of doing everything iOS does on the same or lower hardware"
Sadly not true since most applications aren't native, and JIT optimization or not, aren't quite as fast, let alone faster. iOS is very quick, Apple dislike aside.
Re:FAIL (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazon is in the position of being able to loss-lead their tablet. As the HP tablet experience shows, price it low enough and even a bricklet will sell.
Apple competitors are DOOMED to failure (Score:2)
until they learn that Apple's secret isn't "marketing".
Apple is quite happy for you to continue to rattle away about iSheep and marketing because as long as you do, you will NEVER threaten their market share. So, yeah, have fun with that.
Re: (Score:2)
until they learn that Apple's secret isn't "marketing".
Apple is quite happy for you to continue to rattle away about iSheep and marketing because as long as you do, you will NEVER threaten their market share. So, yeah, have fun with that.
I sense anger in your post. Why is that? There was no anger, nor me bleating on about iSheep, etc. in my initial post.
The fact is, Apple DOES do a great job at marketing. I've not seen anywhere near the amount of marketing for any other tablet currently on the market, and there are a few.
My point was that it's going to take a huge company with lots of cash, as well as other assets (read media to consume and a ready-made market to sell that media) to get anywhere close to the iPad's current position. And
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it is about 'marketing'. However, the people who use that term here aren't using it correctly. They are using it to mean 'advertising' which is one portion of marketing. Their are many other parts such as figuring out what the market wants, how much the market will pay, how to deliver it to the market, and doing so in the time that the market is ready to accept it. Apple has almost always had good advertising but has failed previously in other