Tag Archives | Amazon.com

Dreaming of the Superkindle

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 18, 2010 at 12:35 am

I’m pleased by the news–inevitable though it was –that Amazon is working on a Kindle app for Android phones. But I’m more intrigued by this Nick Bilton post at NYTimes.com on Amazon’s current hiring spree for its Kindle team. Amazon surely has a strategy in place for the future of its e-reader platform–one which must respond to the arrival of the iPad, even if it responds mostly by studiously ignoring it. It’s going to be fun to watch it unfold.

So What Will Bezos Do? The way I see it, Amazon has four major options.

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Kindle to Hit Target?

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 7, 2010 at 9:38 pm

Of all the many differences between the iPad and Amazon’s Kindle, one of the least-discussed is actually pretty important: You can easily try out an iPad in person before you plunk down your money, but the Kindle is a mail-order product, and therefore one you may need to buy sight unseen. (Maybe you know someone who has one you can try out, and maybe not.) But Engadget says that it looks like the Kindle is coming to Target later this month.

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Your Move, Amazon

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 1, 2010 at 10:58 am

One of the many interesting questions raised by the iPad is this: What’s Amazon gonna do? I hope that it’ll shortly unveil a clever new Kindle of some sort–clever new products are always more interesting than price reductions–but lowering the cost of the current model to $149 also sounds like it would be a rational response…

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E-Reader Companies Ready Their iPad Apps

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 22, 2010 at 5:11 am

Amazon is providing a sneak peek of its Kindle reader for the iPad. The page is titled “Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers Including the iPad,” which sounds like confirmation that other new versions for (mostly) still-to-come devices are also in the works–I’m guessing ones for Windows-based Slate PCs and for Android. And judging from the images on Amazon’s preview page, it looks like the apps may be slicker than the sparse and disappointing Kindle apps that the company has released to date.

Kindle will have company on the iPad: The New York Times is reporting that Barnes & Noble is also working on a reader. Engadget says that the Hearst-backed Skiff platform will “almost certainly” show up as well (an assertion for which its source is…me). And then there’s Apple’s own iBooks.

After the jump, a couple of screenshots of the Kindle app. No word on how quickly it’ll show up after the iPad does on April 3rd, but presumably it’s in Amazon’s interest to give Apple’s bookstore as little of a head start as possible.

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Kindle Arrives on the Mac

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 18, 2010 at 4:10 am

Amazon has released its Kindle for Mac software, letting OS users get at all those e-books in Kindle format. It should be a boon to anyone who has a Kindle, has bought books for it, and wants to read ’em on a Mac–but I’m on the road sans Mac at the moment, so it’ll be a few days until I can try it for myself. If you snag it, let us know what you think.

TUAW says it’s “no-frills,” which is a description I’d apply to all the Amazon and Barnes & Noble e-reader apps I’ve tried for every PC and mobile platform. I’d like to see a company with access to as many books as these two release reader apps that are truly slick and full-featured. Maybe Apple? (You gotta think that it’ll make tomes from its iPad iBooks Store available on Macs and PCs eventually.)

At the moment, my main phone is a Droid, so I also await a Kindle reader the Android…something I also suspect is in the works.

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Amazon Gets to Keep 1-Click

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 10, 2010 at 10:58 am

Amazon’s 1-Click e-commerce patent–everybody’s favorite poster child for overly-broad patents that don’t actually foster innovation–lives. After a four-year investigation, the U.S. Patent Office has concluded that the somewhat more limited version of the 1997 patent which Google Amazon refiled in 2007 is legitimate. When will other shopping sites be allowed to let you place an order with a single click? 2017, when Amazon’s patent expires.

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Five Possible Superkindles. Which One(s) Will Amazon Build?

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 4, 2010 at 11:21 am

So Amazon.com has bought itself a startup with an innovative touch-screen technology. The only logical assumption is that it intends to build a touch-enabled Kindle. You’ve gotta think that it’ll take a while to incorporate the new technology into a future Kindle. And given that the last all-new Kindle shipped nearly a year ago, there are probably at least two future Kindles in the works: a next-generation one and a next-next-generation one.

Trying to figure out where the Kindle is headed was aways interesting food for thought, but it got even more interesting when Apple showed off the iPad last week. The current Kindle and the iPad are a study in contrasts: The Kindle is a monochrome, long-life device, button-driven built almost entirely for reading books; the iPad is a color, short-life, touch-screen Swiss Army Knife.

But the only scenario in which the Kindle is unaffected by the iPad (and possibly iPad-like gizmos from other companies) is one in which the iPad flops almost instantaneously. That seems unlikely. So here are five possible  “Superkindles” (to steal New York Times times reporter Nick Bilton’s term).

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