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Amazon Disables 3G Web Browsing For New 3G Kindle Touch
destinyland writes "Amazon's going to disable 3G web browsing on their upcoming 'Kindle Touch 3G' — even though it was a prominent feature of the last generation of Kindles. Amazon will still allow web browsing on the Kindle Touch 3G using a local Wi-Fi connection, but it's one of many unsettling details emerging from Amazon's announcement last week. Apparently Amazon's cloud will now also include a list of personal documents that you're mailing to your Kindle. And the on-screen keyboard for Amazon's bargain $79 Kindles won't be a touchscreen keyboard, so users will have to nudge the controller repeatedly to gradually navigate from one key to the next."
I'm unsure how anyone could have imagined that the on-screen keyboard for the $79 model would be touch. Every bit of info. I've seen from Amazon comparing the models makes it incredibly clear that it doesn't have a touch screen. The models that do, surprisingly enough, have touch in the name (except for the fire but I don't think anyone is confused about what's going on there.)
The 3g limitations on the touch are a bit disappointing, but I can't imagine too many people will be impacted greatly. Using the browser on an e-ink kindle is not something anyone would really be looking to do if they had other options. The only time I'm really seeing 3g browsing as something desirable is when I'm traveling and data on my phone is prohibitively expensive. If I'm not data roaming, I can just use my phone as wi-fi hot spot for the kindle, but if I want to be on the web I'll be doing it on my phone. I doubt the majority of kindle users are also international travelers who use it as a way to get cheap data access for the web.
When I got my first Kindle I got on the web quickly, just to do it. I don't think I've done it again since. I do have a friend who was traveling in Austria and got into a bind. His wife was able to get on the web with her kindle, as they were driving, and find a place to stay in the next town ahead. I think they were data roaming so that's why they didn't just use a phone.
I like the idea that emailed docs will get stored by Amazon especially if they get stored as part of my archive and they are available to all my registered kindles. Right now my family reads a lot of stuff that on our kindles that I don't get from Amazon. So I have to email it to each one, and I have to have the machine available that has the original documents. If I could email the doc once, then have it available to all kindles any time I want - that would be sweet.
I'm getting a couple of the $79 Kindles as soon as I can. Probably next time I'm in the states. That's the cost of a tank of gas for my car for a great ebook reader.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Because the Amazon Book Store is still available over 3G.
http://xkcd.com/548/
(see mouse-over text)
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In the field of pixel-addressable e-ink screened devices, $80 is very aggressive pricing. It would appear that they have chosen to go with the "make it cheaper" option, (which advances in technology generally provide as an alternative to "make it better"), for this particular kindle.
Only the sales figures will say for sure whether it was a good idea; but encheapening the hell out of the lowest-end dedicated conduit to your gigantic electronic store doesn't seem like an obviously crazy strategy...
I've used touch-screen page turning and I also use the K3 bezel-button page turning systems, I know when it comes to reading a book the bezel mounted side buttons are a lot nicer than having to constantly move your finger and tap the screen just to turn the page.
Sure, when it comes to typing out stuff the non-touch is a bit of a PITA, but I spend more time reading books than trying to type out things.
The $79 kindle is a great development, strips away the bits that a lot of people use infrequently, drops the price, size and weight - all good.
The Kindle Touch still has touch. This article complains that the Kindle that does not include a touch screen, can not handle touch input.
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The Kindle Touch 3G has both touch and 3G (you just can't use it for web surfing anymore; that's why the browser was always under "experimental"). The Kindle (no Touch, no 3G) doesn't. Wow, big surprise.
Its hard to imagine how anyone could be unsettled by a set of (completely obvious) changes to a consumer device.
Drama much?
- Obviously web browsing over 3G was going to be disabled. Amazon has *always* said it was experimental, and *obviously* they were going to remove it when they annouced free 3G access around the world.
- Obviously a device without a touch screen and nothing but arrow keys was going to be a pain in the ass to use. I can count on my hands the number of times in four years I've used the keyboard on my Kindle. The target audience for it will never miss it.
The submitter is a moron if those were so much as a surprise, much less "unsettling".
It worked great for the iPhone.
I bought the Wifi only Kindle
I did not want 3G, I have better devices to browse on already
I did not want a colour screen, I wanted one that was easy to read
I did not want a touchscreen, it makes the device too expensive and attracts fingerprints that make it hard to read (see above)
I bought the Kindle e-book reader as an e-book reader, if I had wanted a laptop, Tablet, Mobile phone, portable gaming console, movie device etc .. that is not as good at reading books on .. there are plenty out there that are much much better ...
Amazon seem to have lost the point of an e-book reader, that it is easier to read books on it than a conventional screen and the battery life is measured in months, all the new devices seem to be multimedia, network connected tablets ....there are better ones out there already?
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
The 3G model will still be able to download books for free, internationally. It just won't have free international web browsing any more. I thought the free web browsing was an insanely good deal for anyone who needed it (I don't need it since my phone's data bill is paid by work). I'm not surprised they're taking that feature away, it must cost them a whole lot of money if a lot of users are generating roaming charges.
Anyway, I've ordered my mum one of the new low-end Kindles. I'd be happy to give her my keyboard version if she wants the keyboard, since I didn't even want a keyboard on mine in the first place. There is no need for it. Whether I'm using my actual Kindle, or the Kindle app on my tablet or phone, I never need to type anything. Most people with a Kindle will already have a much better device for general browsing to hand, and simply selecting the links (or browsing to words to see the dictionary definition - my favourite feature of Kindle by far) with the directional controller will work fine anyway.
which is totally what she said
It's likely they shoved out a hobbled $80 model with the expectation that most people will buy the next one up but they can still claim the lower price point.
If you want a touchscreen keyboard, they'll sell you a model with one for not a lot of additional money. Amazon's made it perfectly clear that there is no keyboard with their dirt-cheap $79 device. The device holds enough reading to last for years, so what do you need the keyboard for? This model is designed so you buy your books with a computer and then retrieve them on the device the next time you have a wi-fi connection. (Or, if you are the bestseller-reading type, you don't need a keyboard to buy books, the four-way controller will be just fine for scrolling down the list and hitting "buy".) If you don't like that, there are plenty of Kindle models to buy that will take care of you.
This is the first step towards working out a way for content providers (and ultimately users) to pay for bandwidth on a stream or d/l basis. All the major ISPs know, as streaming video and digital d/ls become more popular, demand for bandwidth will go up. They don't want to merely become a commodity provider of bandwidth, especially since as demand goes up they will need to spend on infrastructure to keep up with demand. As a result, they are looking for ways to get a cut of the dollars flowing one their bandwidth in the form of content.
Amazon, with it's own device and content, is a logical place to start with the "pay to deliver" model. Amazon knows what content is accessed, and can pay a cut to their service provider. If they let people browse the web and access other services, they have no way to know what was sent, or charge, for the bandwidth used. By cutting it off they avoid that issue. Their move to cloud-based browser enhance meant forwards that model as well - it lets them see what is accessed and charge the provider for the bandwidth. If the provider doesn't agree, then the service will not be available.
This has implications beyond Amazon - as Apple moves more and more to online delivery of everything, ISPs will want a cut. That's why you see bandwidth caps starting to creep in - it's a way to put the structure in place to force the content providers hand.
If they can't get money from the content providers, look for them to get it from users via tiered pricing or overage charges.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
As others have said, that the non-touch Kindle doesn't have a touch-based keyboard is a tad on the obvious side.
As for the 3G browser, this discussion is the first time I've heard it was available at all. When I got my Kindle, Amazon made it very clear and obvious that the browser was only supported over WiFi. It made sense to me that the free 3G connection was contingent upon the fact that very little bandwidth is used downloading books and checking the Kindle bookstore periodically. It just doesn't make sense that the 3G providers would allow a very low one-time fee for effectively unlimited data usage. If Amazon did open up 3G browsing, then I suspect they only did it because no one uses it. That might be different with the Kindle Touch, I suppose.
Yeah because poor people are well known for a) their disposable income to spend on electronics other than cell phones and b) their desire to read books often enough to have a dedicated device for it. I mean, when you hear that ghetto street slang you think "wow, he must be a well-read sort of fellow".
Do only poor people clip coupons? Do only poor people visit sites like FatWallet to save $$$? Do only poor people wait in line overnight for Black Friday sales?
No, we're not talking about "poor" people, these people have the money to spend they're just looking for a bargain and they didn't see spending $200-$400 to read an ebook when they already have a smartphone with Kindle ebooks. But now that they can buy a Kindle for $79 Amazon is hoping that's the magic price-point to encourage them to finally buy a Kindle and hopefully spend more $$$ on books.
Smart move by Amazon.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Yeah because poor people are well known for a) their disposable income to spend on electronics other than cell phones and b) their desire to read books often enough to have a dedicated device for it. I mean, when you hear that ghetto street slang you think "wow, he must be a well-read sort of fellow".
I'm not in the lowest tax bracket and can attest to the fact that it's more than simply the price-point that is a consideration when it comes to purchasing an ebook reader. I've just ordered my first ebook reader from Amazon and selected the basic model (without adverts). What I considered to be their high prices had put me off looking at them in the past. Plus there was (and still is) the issue that if I buy treeware, I'd expect to receive a digital copy too, so that my original copy does not get ruined and I find I am unable to purchase another copy since the publisher has stopped printing it. Kind of like being able to make MP3s from my own CD collection.
There is something satisfying about selecting a book and settling down to read it, when it comes in a paper version. That being said, the convenience and space factors when travelling make the ebook reader a certain winner. The reduction in price of the Kindle is what tipped the scales for me. There may still be the relatively high prices to pay on new books (compared to the associated costs involved with virtual media), but when one considers the wealth of knowledge available that is not constrained by copyright, the low priced Kindles make for a good purchase.
I'm pretty sure that Amazon gets a bill from AT&T or Sprint for the amount of data used and that Amazon then pays the bill for it. The issue there is that the 3G is paid for via book purchases and if people are using the connection to go elsewhere Amazon isn't being paid for the data that they then have to pay the carrier for.
Amazon seem to have lost the point of an e-book reader,
They just launched three new models of e-ink reader and are continuing to sell the old ones. I think they've got a pretty good grasp on what was working with the original Kindle, they've just decided to try some other things. That they're making a product you don't like, doesn't mean they're directly harming the product you do like.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
They offer exactly what you want: no 3G, e-Ink non-touch screen, battery life measured in months. So they've "lost the point" because they also offer other options for people who have slightly different requirements?
And you classify a wifi-only, e-Ink, non-touch screen device as a "multimedia network connected tablet"? Wow just what are the new Kindles in the parallel universe you must live in?
Actually, I already have it and no, I don't regret it in the slightest. E-ink's come a long way- the updates are not sluggish, and I spend about 1% of the time with the device actually using a menu. If I want a touch device I have an iPad. I don't want another iPad- I want something to read books, and the lighter weight of the $79 model is worth the tradeoff.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
They run a *slight* profit on the content (as reported in their quarterly financial statements), but it might as well be break even. They make the vast, vast majority of their profit on hardware.
Well if you don't like the giving up of privacy there is always paying slightly more for either the nook e-ink or the sony e-ink. You also can use the competing devices to get e-books from the library and epub books that are online for free. You can do the epub for kindle, though it just requires more in-between work on the user. With that in mind you can quite easily get enough free e-books to make up for the price. The other thing to consider is that along with being able to carry around dozens of books with you, it also makes physical storage space in ones living space much easier. So it can be quite nice for someone living in a small apartment that likes to read.