Amazon Kindle SDK Beta Applications now open

https://kindlepublishing.amazon.com/gp/vendor/kindlepubs/kdk/request-seat

by andymism • 16 years ago

33 18 16 years ago

kindlepublishing.amazon.com

ericd• 16 years ago

Besides reading-related apps, what types of apps is the Kindle more suited to over, say the iPhone/iPad/any other smart phone? From what I've seen, the refresh rate seems to limit its usefulness, such that any non-reading centric app would be at best a poor cousin of apps on those other devices.

Am I missing an elephant in the room?

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

Some of my initial excitement was dampened when I saw the specs. Not that there aren't interesting things to be done, but full-blown multimedia seems unlikely.

waterlesscloud• 16 years ago

You could probably do a MYST-like. Beyond that, probably not a lot of multimedia.

Tichy• 16 years ago

Maybe one could create a really cool reading app.

sliverstorm3• 16 years ago

An example just popped into my head- something like google maps (perhaps even google maps itself) could work extremely well (with the large screen) if you make route finding, zoom, etc, seamless enough you don't need to drag the map around.

(and by seamless what I really meant was 'right on the first try')

andymism2• 16 years ago

One of the things I'll be excited to see (or develop, if I'm fast enough) would be a social note taking app integrated into the reader, shared among a book club for example.

There are plenty of constraints (slow screen refresh, not ideal user interaction) but who knows, some good new ideas might be born to work around them.

MikeCapone• 16 years ago

Got this on Chromium (Mac):

"Your browser is not fully supported"

Zev• 16 years ago

Same here, with Safari 4. Looks like it worked fine after spoofing the user agent though.

davidw• 16 years ago

Since it's J2ME, I signed up to see if I can port Hecl to it. What with the slow screen, an interpreter won't be the limiting factor.

wheels• 16 years ago

Wow, three strikes on first contact. I'm becoming less and less enthused:

  - Your browser is not supported (Safari or Chrome)

Uhm, seriously? We're still doing that? I mean, I get it for IE 6, sort of, but it's not like there was some huge complex app hiding behind there; it was a text form.

  - We'll get back to you

Wait, wasn't that what this was? I needed to to sign up and fill out questions, just like last time, so that I could still not download anything?

  - Space is limited

Amazon might run out of interwebs? "The interenet is not a big truck..."

sliverstorm3• 16 years ago

Well, it's not like they didn't let me in (Chrome). It was just a warning.

The first time was a 'please notify me when the beta is even out'

dude, space is always limited in betas, and not because they don't have enough interwebs.

No offense man, but it sounds like you're getting upset because it's not working flawlessly and just the way you expected right off the bat. It's an early beta from a company that hasn't (to my knowledge) ever even done a release like this before.

andymism2• 16 years ago

I thought the 'browser not supported' message was odd too. I got that message while signing up using my iPhone, but it seemed to work just fine.

GavinB2• 16 years ago

Anyone interested in doing some development work for this platform?

I don't have a specific project yet but would love to make contact with some J2ME hackers. Please e-mail me: gavinobrown at gmail.

asmithmd1• 16 years ago

Here is the Javadocs for the kindle specific stuff: http://kdk-javadocs.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html Nothing too exciting. No sound, no location.

GavinB2• 16 years ago

I didn't realize there was no sound. That's a disappointment.

Mark_B• 16 years ago

I wonder how long the no location will last. After all, hitting Alt-1 show current location in google maps in the browser.

sliverstorm3• 16 years ago

I'm still amazed at the stuff everyone's getting so caught up on. So what if it's not just like every other mobile computing device? Maybe it's time to think about the problem differently. There's a ton of things that can be done without a high refresh rate. Some video games, and videos, are just about the only things that require the high refresh rate, and the Kindle is NOT a game platform.

Groxx• 16 years ago

Still peeved that your program must "not be a generic reader". They'll swing their weight around, or they wouldn't have that language in there.

Amazon Kindle SDK Beta Applications now open

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