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Amazon Plans iPad Competitor (and 2 New Kindles)
destinyland writes "Some time in the next 10 weeks, Amazon will release a new Android tablet device, which will compete directly with Apple's iPad, according to the Wall Street Journal. Amazon hopes to leverage the digital content they've already made available online — digital video, music, and ebooks, as well as their new app store for Android devices. The device will ship without a built-in camera, prompting one tablet watcher to report that 'it feels like Amazon is trying to strip it down and bring it in at the lowest cost possible.' Amazon will also release two new versions of the Kindle — one with a touch screen, and one at a lower price." Now if only they'd make it a proper e-reader by including a Pixel Qi (or similar) daylight-readable screen, I'd be sold.
Going to be bombarded with users asking how to do things or to trouble shoot it, so have to learn ANOTHER set.
WTF? Do you learn all the controls for their other devices too? "Oh yeah, you need to set spin cycle three to get jeans dry in your washing machine, now I just need to help Bob with his SatNav before I'll have a chance to look at your motorboat".
It's an Android tablet, so it'll probably be as easy to use as other Android tablets, phones etc. Do you find Android devices complicated to use?
Doubt it. Samsung had to push out the release of their Galaxy Tab 10.1 because Apple's iPad 2 had better specs and they were able to sell it at a lower price.
I wouldn't expect these devices to drop too much in price. The most this competition will do is cause tablet makers to produce lower end tablets.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Huh? Make what a proper ereader? The Kindle? The kindle eInk is easily readable in broad daylight. It's useless in the dark.Or are you talking about the tablet? Your syntax is unclear. Please rephrase.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
They're generally easy to use, until someone has a problem and you have to find where different settings are that may be causing the issue, or if it's a problem with a specific app that doesn't want to play nice.
Real job will be next year when I'm done with my degree, hence the last part in the signature.
Do you find Android devices complicated to use?
Yes, when customizations by the manufacturer or carrier overcomplicate the UI. It's also complicated to find apps for entry-level Android-powered devices whose manufacturers don't pay Google for Android Market access.
If they are not company owned why are you doing this?
If they are company owned this sounds like something helpdesk grunts can handle.
No EPUB, no sd card slot... no sale.
The Kindle?
Black and white. Is there a Kindle model with a daylight-readable screen useful for, say, children's picture books or other material that relies on color?
No ti didn't. I mean is was out, but no one wanted a tablet' until the iPad. well, the VAST majority of people.
They are not really comparable. one is a device designed for a specific task, the other is a multipurpose portable computer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What about the Newton? What about those brick thick tablets in the 90s/early 2000s that you could draw on?
I have a Kindle and an iPad. I read books on both. The Kindle experience is, imho, far better. The Kindle is great, but the Kindle is not a general purpose tablet. The iPad is. It's absolutely fair to say that the iPad started the current tablet craze.
Am I the only one who doesn't want a touchscreen kindle? I do not want to see my finger prints all over the screen while I try to read a book.
Bozo will not have the ability to push his whims down my throat. I paid for it. It is MINE.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
There's a lot of BS in Computer Science already we don't need any more.
Another new tablet? Probably with a completely different UI than all the others. Going to be bombarded with users asking how to do things or to trouble shoot it, so have to learn ANOTHER set. Already sick of tablets and their non-standardization.
no doubt there are more to come it will be at least a year (if we are lucky) if not longer before some type of standardization is used among all tablets
No ti didn't. I mean is was out, but no one wanted a tablet' until the iPad. well, the VAST majority of people.
They are not really comparable. one is a device designed for a specific task, the other is a multipurpose portable computer.
I have trouble calling the iPad a computer. Can you save files on its harddrive? Not directly. Can you word process on it? Not really. Can you edit pictures on it? Not very effectively. Can you program/create things on it? Not that I've ever seen.
Can you explain to me how it's a portable computer instead of an oversized phone? When would I need an iPad that I wouldn't be able to use a netbook?
Already sick of tablets and their non-standardization.
Standardization is for insects.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
cheaper then the iPad to get all those people who want tables but the iPad is out of their price range.
I may be dense, but why would anyone want an iPad for a table?
Okay. It was a cheap shot. I'm sorry.
The hell you can't save a file to the iPad.
If you took 5-10 minutes and installed some apps, even free ones, you can do all the things you say you can't do on an iPad.
Just because you don't have the patience or knowledge to do something doesn't mean it can't be done.
You have to install an app to save things to your iPad? Wow I must get me one of those [/sarcasm]
God forbid we have choices when buying a tablet.
I am a v1ral sig. Plse c0py me and h3lp me spread. Thank y0u?
I will only buy one if they stop paying criminal blackmailers, Perhaps others do not want any of their cash being redirected towards protection rackets...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Another new tablet? Probably with a completely different UI than all the others. Going to be bombarded with users asking how to do things or to trouble shoot it, so have to learn ANOTHER set. Already sick of tablets and their non-standardization.
Apple are trying their hardest to get rid of standards, whether its trying to patent parts of HTML 5 or suing anyone with a vaguely similar UI. It's going to be hardly their own fault to not want to give half their profits to Apple via lawyers.
"God forbid we have choices when buying a tablet."
Choices? We have a deluge of devices trying to be based on a single platform while going to far trying to be there own propriety system. The Android market is a confusing mess.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
If you don't have any apps, what are you saving? The pictures you are not editing? The text files you are not writing?
I'm a little concerned about a company that sells electronic media, then on the whim of someone, reaches out and deletes said media from all of its client base. I think I'd wait on any purchase from Amazon...
Along with "Polaroid", they have another "Manufacturer", called "Amazon", to contract assembly with. I can't wait to get the "Aunt Jemima", "Uncle Ben's" or "Cap'n Crunch" kindle.
Gently reply
I'm a little concerned about a company that sells electronic media, then on the whim of someone, reaches out and deletes said media from all of its client base. I think I'd wait on any purchase from Amazon...
It wasn't on a whim. Someone uploaded a copyright file to the Kindle Store that they did not have the right to do so with, thinking it was out of copyright. Technically it is out of copyright were the uploader resides (Canada), and should be out of copyright in the US, but that's another discussion entirely, and I think we'd all be preaching to the choir with that one. At the point they got a legal nastygram about the book, they were required to remove it. Not only that, to protect themselves from being a provider of stolen merchandise -- the closest analogue to what they unwittingly did -- they had to make a good faith effort to resolve the situation. The best way to do this was to send a remote file delete command. Was it an ideal solution? No. Ideally they would have sent an alert to those who bought the item giving them a few days notice, then deleted the item. I get them occasionally when my debit card craps out after I buy something off the Kindle store on the Kindle itself, it looks like a book with the title "There has been a problem with a recent purchase", letting you know you need to look at Amazon's account page for more information. They could have sent a similar one, "Urgent Notice Regarding your recent purchase of 1982" with a warning that the file was in fact, illegal, and they had to get rid of it. I know it's technologically possible -- now, anyway. It might not have been so at that time. I am under the impression that they made a good faith effort to appease the people who purchased the book, I seem to remember them offering free deadtree versions of the book for anyone who complained, but I might be wrong. But you do have to understand that Amazon's current business model is completely dependent on making good faith gestures towards the content resellers. If they pissed off a publisher and they said "welp, no more Kindle sales for us, we're going to do our own thing," then Amazon would be in trouble. This is the same reason Netflix is trying to pass off a huge price hike to it's users. Basically, Hollywood, being the oh so greedy and humble jackasses they are, are trying to push a 1200% license increase onto Netflix for streaming their content -- ultimately, the studios want to make as much as a theater ticket for each and every single person who streams a movie. Netflix can't really fight back, outside of trying to talk some sense into them (good luck with that), so they're just having to adjust and try to not go under before Hollywood gets a clue.
As a quick aside, there was a LOT more whitespace in that before Slashdot got ahold of it. Turning off the new slow-as-molasses ajax nightmare posting system royally breaks things.
every hick and their family members are going to come over to ask questions on everything.
You're a classist buffoon.
The next time you look down your nose at a "hick," bear in mind he's probably thinking, "Thank God I've got a real job that let's me work normal hours and pays enough to raise a family -- not like that rude hipster stuck in retail."
If you (*clears throat*) RTFA, you will perhaps agree with me that instead of stating
"Amazon Plans iPad Competitor (and 2 New Kindles)"
it would be more appropriate to say
"Amazon Plans 2 New Kindles (and iPad Competitor)"
Anyway, given a fair price and connectivity, I am game if it;
a) can be read under direct sunlight,
b) has a refresh rate slightly above pathetic, and
c) has a rudimentary operating system that I can mess around with (and am officially allowed to do so).
A sensible set of demands I got there, would you not agree?
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
They have their own app store, music, movies and more. All they have to do is license a mapping app and this could be a major non Google Android device..
http://www.s4biturbo.com/
1982? The little known prequel? ;-)
Kindle isn't a tablet - it's a dedicated e-Reader. It has close to zero similarity to the tablet form factor - it's not a general computing device, it's not touch screen, etc, etc.
Good change of subject. True management material. Deflect the issue and attack!
Simple. You're a techie, perhaps and old techie set in you ways, and you just don't see where computers are going. You're the IBM greybeard that could never imagine a computer in every home because they took up too much space, too much power, and ran specialized programs that no average person could want. Your phone probably is a already a computer with a phone function that does way more than your first computer ever did and better. What it does may not be what you want to do, but you are the minority. I'm sure you didn't listen to Steve Jobs last speech where he said he was trying to get rid of the file system. That there is no file system that can be viewed and manipulated isn't preventing the iPhone or iPad from being a computer, it's a feature that they are working hard to achieve. When it comes down to it, most people don't want to manipulate all 30k of their mp3s into their own folders organized how they want. They just want to load them into a program that does all that for them and play them. If the program in question doesn't work they way they want, they'll get a different program to handle all that for them. The iPad could run some sort of CLI and do all the things that computers used to do, but the consumers don't want that. Face it, the UI is changing. The filesystem and guts of a computer are being hidden from people, but that doesn't mean it's not a computer.
For what you want, there will be special models, developer machines, pet projects for which, 99% of the world could care less about. Not saying I agree with it or like it, but that's how I see it. I was wondering when the iOS would crack and the demand for some sort of file system would force it to appear. However, after listening to Jobs speak, I know it won't. They will just put more effort into making sure all of that is handled in the background till it is not longer an issue.
In car allegory, computers are moving from type that anybody with knowledge could work on and change the oil to the type that do what they are meant to do and when something goes wrong you take it into the shop where they have the tools to read the errors in the chips log and do everything for you. For those hobbiests that really want to work on their own engines and change their own oil, it will be possible with the right tools, special brands, or old models, but those won't matter to the majority of the market.
Personally I would prefer it is Amazon didn't package a number of their books with their DRM'ed proprietary format. I own a Kindle and think it is great for reading regular novels but not so great for technical resources (page refresh a bit to slow, jumping around not the easiest) and recently I purchased a technical book. I went to import it into Calibre and found I couldn't.
I had to boot a Windows machine, install an old copy of the Kindle Reader, unplug the computer from the network to stop it auto updating and run a special script to convert the book to .mobi before I could read the book which I had purchased in my reader of choice :|
As I mentioned, the e-reader side is fine for novels and almost everyone who has seen it comments on how much it looks like real paper. Would be nice if the refresh was quicker and had a better interface for jumping around in a book but as other comments I have seen commented on, touch screen could suck due to the finger prints everywhere on the screen.
The thing is none of that is actually true.
Yes mobile devices are selling like hotcakes, but I don't know a single person who had a computer of some sort(laptop, netbook, desktop, etc) before they bought an iPad and doesn't have one now. I don't even know anyone who put off an upgrade or replacement to one of those devices because they bought an iPad.
People like Jobs keep touting the end of the PC, but as far as I've seen and read there's absolutely no evidence of it happening. Sure PC sales are slowing, but that's because everyone who can currently use one and wants one has one. The few people who don't are too poor to buy an iPad either.
Maybe you're seeing stuff I'm not, but I just don't see any evidence of a decline in PC ownership, a decline in the rate of increase in PC ownership sure, but that was coming with or without the new sort of tablets.
The same prediction has been made for years but it's never happened. No one is throwing out their laptop to buy an iPad.
This will come closer to being branded like the Nook than any Android tablet, but with better app support. Amazon has content, and is one of the few companies in position to seriously compete with Apple in that area. They can fork android, build their own ecosystem, put it on their front page and sell millions. I think the writing has been on the wall for several months now.
1982? The little known prequel? ;-)
Yes, but this is the Hollywood version. They're getting Michael Bay to direct. It turns out Big Brother is an alien conspiracy, which they solve via pyrotechnics. In 3D and IMAX, Summer 2012.
Why not? There are plenty of word processing apps available.
Unless you're one of those people for whom 'word processing' == 'Microsoft Word', in which case you can't word process on Linux either.
I'm running iOS 5 betas, and yes, it is true. Wire free activation and cloud backups.
WINE
Yes, directly. Yes, really. Yes, if there's an app for it. Yes, even though you haven't seen it.
Explain to me how a (modern) smartphone isn't a portable computer with cellular voice hardware.
There is no time you'd need an iPad where a netbook wouldn't get the job done. What is your point? You could also lug around your desktop. It gets even more done than a netbook.
You clearly dislike your job, so instead of complaining about it on the internet, why don't you man up and go apply to McDonald's?
Because his vastly inflated sense of entitlement prevents him from doing a lowly job that doesn't utilise his awesome technical knowledge, sharply honed intellect and massive cock to best effect.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The Kindle experience is great for novels. It is not so good for technical books or non-fiction books with illustrations and figures. As for math books -- forget it. A page with equations is either rendered as if it were put into an open blender and splattered across the wall, or as an unreadable image. Ironically, I *can* read those book on my iPod touch using the Amazon Reader. The rendering infrastructure must be better. Also on the touch I can zoom in and out of illustrations and photos, a capability for some reason not implemented in the Android reader software for Amazon of Barnes and Noble.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Ah yes, the ol' "you have no right to complain because there are people worse off than you" argument.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
What point I was trying to make is not that desktop computer will disappear, but that you can't dismiss items like the iPad or iPhone as a computer just because it doesn't act the way you think it should as a computer. It's the sci-fi future and most people are now walking around with a PC in their pocket (instead of strapped to their thigh or forearm as old sci-fi movies and tv series predicted).
Releasing ebooks for the Kindle is somewhat frustrating... The mobipocket format that Amazon has used up until this point is several limited compared to epub (and especially the forthcoming epub3). It has all sorts of bizarre limitations like, on one visible page, you can't have specify multiple left margins (that is margin-left in the css) -- only one will be visible. No right margins. No nested lists. Little typographic control. Beyond weird limitations like that, mobipocket itself is like a bastardized HTML 3.2. One almost expects to see tags at any second. Really, if you have to do any complicated formatting at all, an image is your best option.
Things that matter not at all for novels, but make a big difference technical, academic, etc books.
Beyond that, as you said, there are pretty big differences between an eink kindle, an iPhone kindle reader, and Kindle for the PC.
But, the Kindle is far and away the most popular platform. The publishing company I work for primarily focuses on Kindle because iPad, nook, etc books just don't sell at nearly the same rate.
A picture, an MP3 or a video from the net perhaps. Like I do all the time on my £300 cheaper netbook. I'm sure there's lots of uses for tablets but not one where someone else tells me what I can put on it.
I was thinking about what you said. I'm trying to think of a situation where faceless-corporation A, sells stolen items to client's B's; and both parties had reasonable expectations that the product was sellable. Then faceless-corporation A has to go and retrieve sold items from all clients B's. Nothing comes to mind as a similar example. But what does come to mind is that faceless-corporation A gets fined by the D.O.D., and pays damages to Plaintiff. And when I consider if the book was a bound book, this is like faceless-corporation A breaks into my house, and steals the book. I think this is a slippery slope Amazon stepped on, and it's a problem I don't have the time to spend trying to solve.
Ditch the sig. Listing certs looks unprofessional. Let your posts stand or fall on their content.