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Amazon Kindle To Get Apps and EA Games
Lanxon writes "Amazon currently encourages publishers and authors to sell their books and magazines digitally, but the upcoming Kindle Development Kit (KDK), which goes into beta next month, says Wired, will allow software developers to create a variety of different applications. Amazon has already confirmed a Zagat guide for restaurant reviews from Hallmark and a selection of word games and puzzles, such as Sudoku, from Sonic Boom. EA Mobile is also set to release games on the Kindle."The kit itself is expected to be available next month.
Can we get on with it already? I have a drawer full of devices.....
music lover since 1969
Voice over IP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way are not allowed. In addition, active content must meet all Amazon technical requirements, not be a generic reader, and not contain malicious code.
So if you want to add support for a file format the Kindle doesn't currently support you're out of luck?
With the refresh rate of the Kindle, and FPS will involve you shooting at the place where the bad guy was 5 seconds before.
People can already SSH into their Kindles. If I were Amazon, I would be worried about this kind of support making jailbreaks more attractive, possibly putting a nail into the coffin of their future ebook sales.
Madden 2011 in black and white? is it 3d accelerated like on the iphone?
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the kindle (and E Ink in general) most efficient as displaying the same thing? Why would I want something with a frame rate killing my kindle battery?
Just my bent $0.02
Wonder if it has anything to do with this?
Phone to make free calls on whispernet.
..at 0.2 FPS
I'm excited about the possibilities, but worried that some developers will port their apps to Kindle because they can, without considering if it's a good match for Kindle. The Kindle really is a content consumption platform, not a content creation platform (you read, not write, on it). I can see a Twitter client working, however, since 140 characters is about the most I'd ever want to type on a Kindle keyboard. I think Amazon is conscious of this, as they are avoiding the term "app" in favor of "active content."
In any case, the Kindle's very slow refresh rate poses UI challenges that haven't really been faced before. I'm interested to see how developers contend with it. Another possible issue is battery life. The Kindle's battery is actually very, very small. The reason it lasts so long is that only page turns draw current, and even then only a small amount of current, and then you have to read a whole page before you draw current again. If you're refreshing every three seconds instead of every two minutes, you're going to see a serious drop in battery life, especially if the apps expect wireless connectivity. My two week Kindle battery could drop to two days easily.
The Kindle for me is still just for reading. While it CAN do email and web browsing and minesweeper, I use my iPhone for all those things. And while my iPhone CAN read my Kindle books, I use my Kindle for that. Reading is so central a part of my life that I'm not willing to sacrifice the quality of the experience on a convergence device- especially one that will start ringing or flash push notifications in the middle of a very suspenseful book.
But really, the whole thing reeks of Apple envy. This and the royalties change tells me that they feel VERY threatened by the Apple tablet.
I haven't got a Kindle, but if I will be able to play my Infocom text adventures on it, then I might consider getting one.
Somebody seems a little threatened by Apple's 'slate' introduction next week...
Isn't the point of the kindle to display static content really well, thus minimizing battery consumption? With games being developed for the Kindle, I can't help but wonder what that does do to the batter life expectancy of the device. On top of that, the Kindle has a monochrome screen - it'd be like shelling out $259 for a game boy all over again.
Add on the other restrictions, such as no VOIP or no generic reader software, and the whole endeavor seems kinda pointless.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
music lover since 1969
E-paper: the ultimate in gaming display technology. What's the refresh rate on those, 1hz?
Having both platforms I 'get around' the buy only from Amazon for the Kindle and only buy from Barnes and Noble for the Nook by the fact that the Kindle reads and displays Txt files, reading some Larry Niven right now for the tenth time on my Kindle via a txt file book. (gotta love the Moties books). I can open up the Calibre software and change txt files to epub files that work on the Nook or visa versa. It's all good, neither one is actually locked down when you have Calibre.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
I can haz Madden 2011??
Or Madden 2012?
No Madden 2013 because the world's ending but hey...
Oh yeah, and I can hope that EA puts out NON-SPORTS games and have that futile hope rubbed in my face.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_kindle#Content_sources
And the Spike VGA award for the Kindle goes toooo NHL 2010!
Seeing as though the Kindle is heavily DRM encumbered, and that EA games are similarly DRM-laden softwares, I guess the target audience for the Kindle would be tolerant of DRM to the extent that EA finds desirable.
I am not a customer of either Kindle or EA games.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Maybe you mean HandMark!! :)
Anyone know what language(s) will be used for app development on this device? Assuming it has a very slow CPU, so Java is probably out?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I agree that Amazon is reacting to competition, but I don't think it's mainly from Apple as much as from B&N's nook. The iPhone and the Kindle are starting from opposite ends of the spectrum. The Kindle is a gradual technology improvement (debatable) over a paper book, and is slowly growing in capabilities, whereas the iPhone was a fully-loaded device just begging for apps. The iPhone was overbuilt with graphics capabilities, so lots of people saw the obvious possibilities. Consumers and developers begged and pleaded with Apple to LET them develop for the iPhone, and in typical Apple fashion, they kept everybody locked out for a long time just to heighten the anticipation. (You don't really think Apple didn't plan an SDK from the beginning, do you?) I mean, who looked at a Kindle and thought, "Wow, that would be great for games!" ??? As far as I can tell, nobody. Amazon is mirroring the incremental improvements of the early computers- monochrome, small screens, closed systems gradually improve to more shades of grey, larger screens, and somewhat open platforms. Nobody in the market for portable games (or photos, or video, or web surfing) is going to choose a Kindle over, say, and iPod touch or iPhone. No, Amazon isn't reacting to Apple, but is just trying to stay one very small step ahead of the nook. If the Apple tablet does have e-book support, then the Kindle will only be able to compete on price, battery life, and catalog, but it will remain a niche device.
"Consuming Internet bandwidth since 1991."
One thing that is an absolute pain is that the Kindle has no folder management, and as such, no way to organize the books that are downloaded. Sure, it'll hold 3000 e-books, but try paging through the list. And the startup time is proportional to the length of the list.
Opening up the e-book application interface would go a long way to getting features that Amazon seems disinclined to provide themselves.
I see EA Games maybe releasing Scrabble, but I think the big draw for the development kit will be things like notes applications, calendars, and the like. Hopefully a decent e-mail client, too (although I wonder how much they'll allow with the Internet connection, since they're currently footing the bill for Internet charges on the cell radio).
Let me get this straight. My Kindle doesn't have the functionality to store my library in categories, meaning I have to hack in metatags on all my ebooks using the note-taking feature and search that if I wan't find just my books on Computer Science or Science Fiction, the recent upgrade to my Kindle allows me to view PDF files, but not zoom in on their page content, meaning I still can't read PDF's on it unless I pack a magnifying glass, and I have no way of exporting the personal notes I take on it to a text file or other non-kindle-readable format.
I don't mind these shortcomings, because the whole point of my Kindle is not having to reading books on my cellphone or computer monitor, but now I'm supposed to believe I will soon be getting games on this device currently lacking so many basic features? I'm not drinking this kool aide.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
Do you really think Amazon, or anyone, could put together a SDK (KDK) as a reactionary move for the tablet? I've seen job postings for SDK developers well over a year and a half ago (mid 2008), so it has been planned since pretty much the start (6 months after K1 launched).
I think the Kindle platform is great for reading and will continue to own that realm. Hopefully application developers will realize this and cater to the device, instead of living up the craze of an app store. As for apple fans, please, just please realize that this is a different device, not meant to be a tablet. Stop trying to compare Apples to ap..Amazon, as they are fundamentally different.
There is an e-ink device called PocketBook.
http://www.pocketbookreader.com/PocketBook_360.html
There is version with 5" screen and version with 6" screen.
Just yesterday I have downloaded a Blockout game for my PocketBook.
Yes. THAT Blockout - a 3D version of Tetris.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=sk&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://bookfast.org/category/pocketbook/programs&twu=1
It started with the video game consoles. And that turned me off of video game consoles. (Nintendo was my first corporate enemy, even predating my hatred of Microsoft.)
I thought it was dead, but then Apple came along with their iShit portable devices. That's when I realized the idea never died; I had just kept it out of my life. Now Amazon wants to sell sucky PCs too, where the software market is tightly controlled and the users can't run just whatever they want to.
Fuck 'em. The personal computer revolution is not dead, and you cockroaches are going to be up against the wall some day. Anything your iKindle can do, my generic programmable thing can do better so that's where all my money goes. You don't get a fucking cent.
Apparently the mods didn't get the joke...
The article seems to be pretty light on technical details. I wonder what the API will be like. What language will they use? What kind of application framework will be available? Will they develop their own IDE? How much access does the developer have to the hardware? How does the developer distribute software for testing?
Perhaps all of these questions and more will be answered in the next episode of Soap?
I doubt it is Apple, they don't have book content or a all that desirable of a brick and mortar presence. Barnes & Noble is a content provider, and being a droid, has a development kit and a emulator so it will have apps in no time. Having a small LCD and 802.11 to play with will give it a (IMHO) huge advantage.
I could see the nook e-reader add-on to any game/game system. since it has 802.11 wireless it could easily be a extra screen. This would be very handy for multi-player games, IE select your plays for football without the opponent in the same room seeing your options. Pass it around for any time of strategy/puzzle game. Or just have it giving extra directions or tips.