Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/amazon-kindle-tablet/

by ssclafani • 15 years ago

302 191 15 years ago

sodiumjoe• 15 years ago

In certain ways, this "post-PC" era that Apple's brought us into with the iPad seems like a step backward. We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. These tablets just keep getting more and more optimized for that.

I suppose it's somewhat natural, given the way the market works, but it seems our tools for consumption are advancing at a significantly greater rate than our tools for production.

I guess the opposing side is the Web. Amazon seems to be shaping up to be solidly on the side of the centralized authority-type cathedral builders, while the Web and Web technologies are more bazaar-like. It seems more and more like Google is the only powerful singular force whose incentives align with the Web instead of with more centralized production hubs.

ugh14• 15 years ago

Whut?

I just happily browsed the web, listened to podcasts, checked my RSS feeds and flicked through my Twitter stream for six hours during a train ride on my iPad. All tasks for which the iPad – or more general the tablet form factor – is ideal.

I think your argument is incoherent.

abstractbill• 15 years ago

All the things you just listed are forms of consumption, not production.

The argument seems coherent enough to me. I'm not entirely convinced about the "centralized authority" part, but the "tools for consumption advancing faster than tools for production" seems true (and inevitable).

rryan3• 15 years ago

You seem to have misunderstood. joebadmo was saying that the post-PC era seems to be more about content consumption than content production. You responded in the negative by saying you spent 6 hours consuming content, which doesn't make much sense because that would be anecdotal evidence in favor of joebadmo's argument.

joebadmo19• 15 years ago

You just listed four activites that are consumptive in nature. What was the last thing you produced on your iPad? Not just that, but even the way you use it is not the optimized-for case, I think. Apple wants to optimize you buying music, movies, books, etc. through iTunes and iBooks. Amazon is continuing this trend. Yes, the post-PC devices will continue to allow you to participate in the Web, necessarily, but they will privilege consumption over production, and centralized broadcast models over decentralized peer-to-peer ones. Because that's where the money is.

In contrast, the native Web on PCs is more read-write by nature. And Web technologies are making production increasingly easier.

peterbraden• 15 years ago

I think your reply exemplifies his argument - you used an ipod to 'consume' media for si hours, rather than creating, which older computers may have been better suited for.

beaumartinez• 15 years ago

> our tools for consumption are advancing at a significantly greater rate than our tools for production

Our tools for production have advanced as far as they can—what major changes have the desktop and laptop PC had over the last five years?

chc5• 15 years ago

There are countless times over the past several thousand years when you could have said that, but our tools for production have managed to get a bit better since 2000 BC.

zinkem• 15 years ago

Production isn't limited to what you can and can't do with a desktop PC... I think what OP is suggesting is that we should be using computers to help people actively build more stuff, as using them to aid in passive consumption of things others have made.

joebadmo19• 15 years ago

That's part of my point. The R&D is going into optimizing consumption instead of enabling production. I think there's still room for making it easier for people to produce expressive content. I don't think I'm necessarily imaginative enough to think of many, or the best, but I've started to try.[0] I think some people, particularly those working on Web stuff, are also trying. But I think web software is only one vector. Other vectors include: hardware, operating systems, native applications.

[0] http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9325300749/a-different-kind-o...

cageface2• 15 years ago

I think this is a symptom of lack of imagination and not of some kind of conceptual wall. We're still dragging along a lot of old baggage and assumptions.

chc5• 15 years ago

Can you explain how a tablet-form Kindle is more centralized and passive than one with physical keys? I don't follow.

joebadmo19• 15 years ago

Not more than the old kindle, but more than the old model of computing, PCs with dedicated input.

jccodez• 15 years ago

This whole thread is a great discussion. Commenting so I can come back and read the replies. I agree with many points regarding content creation vs. content consumption and the lines drawn between the two. I do believe the tablet is a great consumption device and that is a major function in the consumer market as well as business (even more so for business based on my experience with my software)

sgns6• 15 years ago

Yeah!

What's easily missed too is that the 'free creativity and production for all' ethos on the web – all the good stuff that got us here! - so far largely missed out on financing for most of the traditional cultural sectors. Much of what is most highly valued in our cultures has been woefully underfinanced for our entire lives.

The iPad/app model – positioned between all these previously-existing devices and media/content like books/mags/+ – at least makes a start for a venue, a potentially enormously widely available venue, for content producers where they can be discovered – consumed/networked and get paid for their work by a simply enormous audience.

This is not necessarily at all a boon for central distribution in the sense of the old massmedia institutions!

I'd say that Apple having a lock on it – to the extent that Apple IS the central distribution channel, even if Amazon's tablet is just around the corner! – is not as important as that they provide a relatively 'flat' market for distribution – as I perceive them to do right now. To my understanding, they're basically running their stores at break-even.

With Amazon coming into the picture, it's about to become SO interesting – there will be so many different business models: sellers of Gadgets, Content and Ads!

EDIT: typos

OWaz• 15 years ago

If you don't mind would you elaborate on what type of content you meant when you said: "centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume". When I think of content the first thing that comes to mind is stuff like image editing (Photoshop, LR3,Aperture etc) and video editing because those are two realms I spend my free time in. I didn't get what you meant by your statement so that's why I asked.

And just to be clear I do believe that tablets are aimed at content consumption and not so much content creation, and I believe that to be a good thing. Why? Well people don't need a $2000 laptop to surf the web and check email.

joebadmo19• 15 years ago

I was referring to big studios producing expensive movies, tv shows, albums, music videos, book, and magazines.

siglesias2• 15 years ago

Two factors have led to the perception that tablets are "consumption" devices.

1) A tablet is a computer you can hold. Books and magazines have over time become optimized for holding (see size and weight) precisely due to the ergonomics of reading. Thus one would expect that tablets, which can store a vast number of books and magazines, would be "optimized" for such content.

2) Due to (1) it makes sense to trade power for battery life and thus iPad-era tablets use ARM processors. Word processors, music editors, video editors do exist for tablets and each has full privileges to have any interface it wants by assuming the full screen. Over time that software will get more powerful as these low-power processors advance. It can't be argued that iOS itself hinders content creation, but it can be argued that slow processors do. Time will take care of this.

Also I don't see consumption--by which you mean reading--to be a bad thing to do with a computer. Amazon's stated purpose for the Kindle is to enable every book in every language ever printed to be available in under a minute. That's an extraordinary vision if you think about it, and we're getting there very quickly. Hardly a step backwards.

joebadmo19• 15 years ago

You're right that it's certainly a step forward for consumption.

What I meant is that it's a step backward for what I saw as the trend toward a world in which the power to create things is more evenly distributed.

Don't get me wrong, I have a kindle, and I love it. But it's not just optimized for reading, it's optimized for reading content that's distributed through a centrally maintained distribution channel. (And while Amazon is trying to wrest control of that channel from the traditional publishers, it's a transfer of power from one central authority to another.) Which is why I appreciate tools like Readability's 'send to kindle' bookmarklet so much: it lets me read content from the bazaar more easily. But. Even then, I had to jump through hoops and the formatting isn't great. In short, it's not optimized.

Furthermore, while on the web on a PC I can read a blog post and then immediately comment, share, or respond in a blog post of my own, on my kindle I can't do any of that. I have to put my own system in place to even remember to do it later. In other words, the Kindle optimizes my consumption experience at the expense of my production experience in a way that's sort of profound in a way that I acutely feel is a step backward.

nigham2• 15 years ago

A step backward is hardly the way I'd put it. Consumption-related technology as well as production related technologies are improving dramatically; we perceive the pace of consumption technology as being faster because consumption technology is far more applicable, and affects more users, and so it's more on the news. This is not a problem, there have always been more readers than writers, movie watchers than movie producers, software users than software creators.

There isn't too much discussion when there's a new version of Photoshop, or VIM, or Django, or Wordpress, or countless other technologies (e.g. http://www.asciiflow.com/) and platforms that help with content creation. One reason I read HN is that these items usually make it here. It's easier to create content now than at any time in the past.

How many people built software before iOS and Android? A few folks scattered across huge companies that either built consumer products or provided services for those companies. Today, iOS has half a million apps -- somebody produced them. Arguably the 'consumption-only' device that you think has taken us a step backward has given tens of thousands of people incentive to produce something. Amazon's vision is for authors to be able to self-publish without going through the hassle of publishers, giving more incentive for people to produce. Whereas making movies was once a task for multibillion dollar studios, Youtube has enabled something like the Khan Academy to start earning money by producing content.

You cannot have better and better consumption oriented devices in a vacuum. Someone has to produce what the masses are consuming.

estel5• 15 years ago

With respect to app development, which has been incredible in how widespread it's become, it's possible it's just an extension of what the Web started: incredible democratisation of creation.

joebadmo19• 15 years ago

That's an interesting take.

I guess the way it looks to me is that the last dramatic production advancement for lay people was the advent of blogging. The two major advancements after that have been social networking and tablets, which both somewhat degrade production signal.

The observation that an optimized consumption experience gives producers a bigger audience is an interesting one. But I think what I'm objecting to is the further distinction between those classes. The PC and blogging revolutions were profound to me in that they closed the gap between the producers and consumers. Tablets, on the other hand, make the distinction more overt. Same with the Kindle.

You cannot have better and better consumption oriented devices in a vacuum. Someone has to produce what the masses are consuming.

While this is true, my point is about who has the means for production. I would rather see that power distributed than concentrated.

rmc3• 15 years ago

How many people built software before iOS and Android? A few folks scattered across huge companies that either built consumer products or provided services for those companies.

Nonsense. Pre-2008 (iPhone App Store launch) there was loads of software aimed at the residential market. There was also the open source movement, which had created a whole operating system from scratch. Yes, the App Stores have made it much easier to sell software, but to think that all software was made in megacorps is silly. This isn't the 1980s!

swlkr• 15 years ago

I totally agree with this.

blrgeek• 15 years ago

Think of the post-PC tablets as replacing TVs/books/browsers/iPods in time spent consuming content.

Content consumption devices (aka radio, TV, books, mp3 players) have not had a significant advance in decades. The browser was the first new conduit that moved people away from these devices. These people used a PC, but merely as a content consumption device, NOT as a content creation device!

Now tablets - which are mostly hardware for browsers, becoming more so with 'cloud' services - are becoming personal content consumption devices.

As long as there's a browser, it's a window to the world of content - not just the central authority's content.

For so long producers have wanted to have a powerful computing device in every hand. Now that day is closer!

HSO• 15 years ago

I'm growing more and more irritated by the classification of "reading" as "consumption". Consumption is usually defined as a sink of goods (as opposed to "investment" or "production").

Reading per se, however, does not result in anything vanishing from the system. It _can_ mean that but usually the ideas or perspectives contained in the book or article change the ideas or perspectives of the reader. Reading _can_ be pure consumption, for sure, but that describes a specific type of reading.

One could argue that buying a physical copy and tossing it after you're done is the act of consumption. But then the consumption really concerns only the physical medium, not the content.

Am I splitting hairs? I'm not sure, to be honest, but I feel the more people talk about reading as something "for passive users to consume", the more it narrows the industry perspective on what transmitting ideas between people means or could mean.

astine• 15 years ago

"Am I splitting hairs?"

You are, but let me split them further. Any expense can be classified as either a capital expense or a consumptive one. Expenses classified as one can usually, with a few logical contortions, also be classified as the other. For example, food is the classical consumptive expense, but one could also treat it as an investment as food keeps one alive (and healthy hopefully) and allows one to work in the future. I think that the same can be said about reading here. If you buy a book, it's an expense, and if you read it, you've "consumed" it. Sure you can read it again or someone else can read it, but it's still a consumer good.

I think what people mean here is that devices like this and the iPad are not generally geared to the production of works and more to their consumption. What I mean is, while reading a book on the Amazon Kindle might be an investment in your own mind and future, the Kindle doesn't enable one to author his own books. The web however, does enable one to put up his own webpage or blog (if you can figure it out.) I think this is what people are talking about here. It has to do with our place in the economics of the thing.

_debug_• 15 years ago

Apple has not brought us anywhere in particular : people have always been that passive. The iPad's popularity is because of the lack of a keyboard for these 95% of the population. For folks like you and me, it is despite the lack of a keyboard.

Lewisham• 15 years ago

If Amazon are going to maintain an Android fork, I wonder how well Android apps will be able to play with it. It would be a huge disappointment if 2.2+ apps were unavailable (or installing Google Market for that matter).

I can see why Amazon has gone down this path, but I do wonder if it's the right thing, rather than doing everyone's favorite/most hated carrier-specific bolt-ons instead. I also hope that Amazon doesn't give up on color e-ink, because reading on a Kindle is so much nicer.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

The article says there's no Google Market. Only Amazon's.

As for forking, I'm guessing it's not really a fork. It's just got their own UI on top, but they'll continue to get the rest of the updates from Google.

rryan3• 15 years ago

In that sense of a fork, all manufacturers of Android have forked it. I assume if they (or the person who showed it to MG) called it a fork that would be more significant than just a custom UI (which Android is designed to facilitate).

estel5• 15 years ago

If this device has no physical buttons, then it seems likely that it would have to be a true fork.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

From the sounds of it, it does not "Run Android" much more than the Kindle "Runs Linux". Sure, my Kindle has a Linux kernel in there somewhere, but it's almost entirely inconsequential and invisible to me as a user; it's just the core the dev team happened to use.

sdz• 15 years ago

Well, it is Android in the sense that it shares the same API and thus runs Android apps from the Amazon Appstore.

untog• 15 years ago

The Nook actually already does the same thing. No Market, but a vibrant hacker community based around it.

rryan3• 15 years ago

This seems like a misstep to me that will ultimately hurt users and developers.

If any API incompatibilities emerge (beyond the normal API level that Android uses to distinguish between release APIs) then developers will be forced to fork their own products and maintain 2 separate release channels -- one for the Android market and one for the Kindle market.

Beyond that, Android will continue to fly ahead with each release and the Kindle won't be able to keep up without significant time pulling and merging changes from upstream. I'm not looking forward to continually only having access to last years apps because the Kindle is a year behind the mainline Android release.

Unless Amazon goes through the Android certification process, and keeps their "fork" as a pure UI modification, I'm going to pass on this. It might be bright and shiny on day 1, but on day 365 it could be a different story.

officemonkey3• 15 years ago

You're seeing this as a crippled android tablet. It's not. It's a kindle.

There's a big market out there for people who just want to read a book. They don't want to GPS with Google Maps, they don't want to install Yelp, or Trulia, or GrubHub apps. They just want to read, listen to music, and watch a video when they're on the bus or on the couch.

Amazon has done well by providing focus to the Kindle. Where I commute it's more popular than the iPad. They may someday decide to take Apple head-on with an Android tablet, but it's not gonna be this year.

bradleyland2• 15 years ago

Why the presumption that this must be an "Android tablet"? Amazon is one of the few companies entering the tablet market that isn't a primarily a "computing device" company. They have a computing device product, the Kindle, but it's very focused.

Amazon is an online:

* media retailer * department store retailer * book seller * catalog warehouse (third-party resellers)

They have broad distribution agreements with thousands upon thousands of merchants in all product spaces (including media). No other tablet manufacturer (not even Apple) has the kind of vertical reach that Amazon does.

Amazon is also a pioneer in understanding the way their customers shop for products. Amazon's iOS apps are some of the coolest shopping applications I've used. Scan a bar code of a product at a store, and instantly find out if you can buy it cheaper on Amazon. Usually you can. That's smart. They constantly refine their website to fit customer usage patterns. They know how their customers behave, and they know how to adapt to customer change.

Remember when the iPad came out and geeks everywhere united in sentiment that it would fail. "It doesn't run a full desktop, OS!!! It's doomed to fail!!!" That's a caricature of tech punditry at the time of the iPad launch. Today, the iPad is way out front. All those arguments sound eerily familiar to:

"If any API incompatibilities emerge (beyond the normal API level that Android uses to distinguish between release APIs) then developers will be forced to fork their own products and maintain 2 separate release channels..."

This is all geek speak. Turns out, the market doesn't really care.

Amazon, like Apple, isn't trying to enter a market, they're trying to create one.

I'm not smart enough to know if they'll be successful, but if you look at Amazon as a company, they're an entirely different animal from Apple, Google, or Samsung. I think they have the tools to make it happen, but it will ultimately come down to execution.

cageface2• 15 years ago

It seems like Amazon is gambling here that most users don't really care about apps that much, which jibes with my own intuitions about the android market. If you have a good web browser and email client the rest is unnecessary gravy, at least to a lot of people.

danilocampos• 15 years ago

If they believed that, I'm not sure they would have gone to the trouble of building their own app distribution channel.

I would posit that they believe people care about apps a great deal, and that Amazon would like to be positioned to make some money from that demand, either through a cut of sales or by making their hardware more attractive since it "has apps."

They're the original kings of one-click buying, before Apple even sold apps. They'll make a killing and so will any developers who hitch their wagon to Amazon's strategy.

georgemcbay• 15 years ago

Sounds pretty good to me with the exception of "pre-2.2". No Dalvik JIT? Hopefully that part was a misunderstanding. Having run pre-Froyo and Froyo+ on the same device, the jit engine is a pretty big deal.

markgx• 15 years ago

Amazon could carve out the "sub-iPad" tablet market if their $250 price point holds and they release a usable tablet. Look at what happened with the HP firesale.

jmelloy• 15 years ago

I think it's interesting that everybody is attempting to differentiate on top of the Android kernel, and are forced to build their own skin to compete.

Free Prime memebership (for life?) is interesting. Amazon has a big content catalog, and it makes a hell of a lot more sense for them to go this alone and not be forced to use Google's shit app store.

Overall, I think they'll have trouble differentiating between them and the iPad and them and the nook Color, and it doesn't seem like they've really brought anything new to the table.

crenshaw3• 15 years ago

Prime membership is a genius move by Amazon. Since getting Prime I buy things at the drop of a hat. I literally think I order about 10x more product from Amazon now than before Prime. The fact they can give this away as a benefit is a double win for them.

fuzzythinker• 15 years ago

No way. It will be a year at best to hook people to it. It will be their "blade" to the tablet "razor".

evilduck• 15 years ago

Probably true. I have Amazon Mom and the free Prime is only good for a year, there's no way they'd give away lifetime free shipping on such a cheap device.

mootothemax• 15 years ago

I've been sorely tempted to pick up a Kindle for the last few months, and had thought it'd make a nice Christmas present. I know - I'm so considerate. Given that the present version has been out for a while, I was wondering if an updated version would be released in time for the Christmas rush.

10 hour battery life, not going to fit in at the beach, nor the less safe parts of the city? Nah, I'll go for the current Kindle instead thanks :)

mattm• 15 years ago

I debated over getting the Kindle for a while but since getting it about 6 weeks ago it is by far my favourite device. I'm reading so much more now (and spending much more on books). I just wish I got it sooner.

estel5• 15 years ago

This doesn't negate releasing an update of the e-ink Kindle; though I don't think this will necessarily happen.

I can definitely see another Kindle pricedrop on the cards for the Holiday season though.

ajg1977• 15 years ago

If there's one thing they need to nail on this device (beyond the Kindle app) it's web browsing.

a $250 7" tablet with a top class browser is a hugely compelling product all by itself.

sandGorgon2• 15 years ago

There have been several white-label 8'' multitouch tablets for a long time.

http://www.androidtabletspcs.com/8-Inch-Android-2-3-Tablet-P...

For example - the tablet above has A8 Cortex, gingerbread and dual-cameras.

shinratdr2• 15 years ago

Not to mention this:

> resolution 800*600(4:3)

Yeah, I think I'll pass. This is the problem with all of those off label Android tablets (and the cheaper brand name ones too, looking at you Viewsonic & Acer) they have runoff parts from production of knockoff phones so they frequently have serious issues, they can be completely unusable depending on how much or how little slack the community picks up, and without exception the screens are absolutely atrocious.

I just picked up an Acer Iconia A100 for $300 and it has the shittiest TFT screen I have seen on a tablet, ever. It's going right back to the store because of it. A tablet comes together. It's not a good screen, a good OS, a good CPU, a good GPU, etc... It's all of those things executed well and working harmoniously.

If it's not, it might as well be a paperweight. If you like screwing around constantly to get things working, inconsistent features and completely random manufacturer support, then grab an off label tablet or a cheap non-Google sanctioned tablet. You want a device that can do more than read e-books, browse the web poorly and play Angry Birds at 75% framerate if you're lucky, then consider waiting a month or two and saving up the money for something that you won't grow to hate.

psychotik• 15 years ago

This could become a potential nightmare for app developers. Assuming they don't break public APIs in their custom fork, developers are still going to need to worry about backward compatibility and not being able to provide advanced features for their apps on Android devices. Couple that with problems with payments/in-app purchases and this is just a nightmare waiting to happen for Android developers.

If the forked-OS stuff is true, this feels like a bad move by Amazon.

bishnu• 15 years ago

Or, It's a nightmare for Amazon's competitors making Honeycomb tablets, the sales of which are so mediocre that if the Kindle Tablet gains any traction at ALL developers will wonder why bother with any other Android tablet?

ipsin• 15 years ago

I'm not interested unless it's:

1) easily flashable with an actual Android ROM (a la Nook/cyanogen)

2) got a 3G data connection, similar to the current 3G kindle

If both are true, it's a really compelling device.

m0nastic• 15 years ago

It sounds like you want a Galaxy Tab 7 for $250.

I'd actually be surprised if Amazon allows it to be reflashed (insofar as you can actually restrict it). That would eliminate their entire point in selling it (their ecosystem of content).

Anti-Ratfish• 15 years ago

Try a different route. How about getting amazon android (what do you call it?) running on a touchpad. Damn knows how you would do it. Would be a lot cheaper than buying the colour kindle though and the touchpad includes a few of those features you want (but probably no software to run them). If the story is correct and colour kindle does look like a playbook then I'd argue that the touchpad looks better too.

mrinterweb• 15 years ago

I heard a lot of rumor that the rumored Amazon tablet would use a Qualcomm Mirasol passive color display technology with a refresh rate capable of running video. I wonder if this rumor is still circulating or confirmed.

scarmig• 15 years ago

Unfortunately, last I heard was that the Mirasol project had in some way been cancelled, though the technology is still actively being improved. It'll be awhile before we get Mirasol =(

drivebyacct22• 15 years ago

Google's applications are not part of Android.

Putting a skin on Android and not shipping it with Google apps is NOT a fork. Even if you want to consider it one in a technical definition, it's not a significant one. It's as much a fork of Android as CyanogenMod is. (CM does not come with Google Apps, though they can be added after-the-fact).

Adaptive2• 15 years ago

You made the most important comment in this thread.

I really would like to see TC clear this up. Do they really mean fork or, as I suspect and as you state, is this just Android without the google apps baked in?

Market is a bigger question. Without considering manually side loading the apps, I'm assuming that users will be able to install google apps on the device as they are, for the most part, all available via Android Market right now.

Given that Amazon doesn't provide mail, maps or any of the other useful google apps, I'm assuming that users will be able to download them from Android Market, somehow.

trotsky• 15 years ago

It won't have android market access without a hack, just Amazon's market. The lack of a camera (among other things) means it doesn't meet the hardware standards google requires for shipping google apps which includes the market. Not that Amazon would want to anyway, they clearly would like to drive traffic to their store.

drivebyacct22• 15 years ago

I feel slimy making this comment, but "trotsky is completely correct".

Users can't side load Google Apps, because they require the Market. The Market (and it's underlying dependency of Google Talk [yes, it sounds funny, look it up, I wish I were kidding]), requires special installation and components that frankly I can't explain (I don't know how to). But I know enough to tell you that you can't simply download Market.apk and install it.

frou_dh2• 15 years ago

Just the name "CyanogenMod" makes me itch with a sense of fiddlyness completely at odds with why tablets are a welcome break from normal computers.

rshm• 15 years ago

$250 is too much. Ebay/Amazon has similar specs 800MHz/7"/Android 2.2 for $87 and below with a free shipping.

potatolicious• 15 years ago

All of the below products launched, at the time, with poorer spec sheet features/price than their competitors, and then proceeded to annihilate said competitors:

- MacBook/Pro

- iPhone

- BlackBerry

- iPod

- Android

- Wii

When are we as the geek community going to stop worshipping the spec sheet and realize that mainstream consumers can't give two shits about it?

frou_dh2• 15 years ago

Is it remotely possible that an $87 tablet from eBay won't be complete garbage?

srdev• 15 years ago

My wife has one of those $87 Android 2.2 tablets and they're near-unusable. We had to replace the clunky firmware to a real Google Marketplace rather than a Chinese knock-off. Even then, the performance was sub-par. The thing struggled to even perform the most basic UI operations. There is a market for a quality tablet at a $250 price point.

superuser22• 15 years ago

E-ink made the Kindle. Tablets are exciting, but reading a novel on a backlit screen is no fun, and if it were, we'd read on our cell phones, because they're easier to carry around.

This is disappointing. The Kindle 2 (the model I had) did one thing, and one thing phenomenally well. I don't want my kindle to be a Swiss army knife.

starwed• 15 years ago

The article does say that:

>Amazon has been working on a multi-touch screen/e-ink hybrid tablet device.

Presumably it's just much, much easier to develop the backlit tablet than one using e-ink. The technology will be there eventually, but it might take a while... :(

mikecane5• 15 years ago

It could mean either a Pixel Qi or Mirasol screen.

wvenable• 15 years ago

Amazon is more than just books or at least they want to be. E-ink is great for books. But if you want to sell music, movies, and games then you need something like this.

kyleslattery• 15 years ago

I would be surprised if Amazon ditches their existing Kindle. I'm sure this will just be an addition to the product lineup, rather than a replacement.

mikecane5• 15 years ago

Bezos on Charlie Rose:

-They want a purpose-built device where no tradeoffs have been made, where every single design decision as you’re walking down the process has been made to optimize for reading.

-The number one thing that people are doing on their iPad right now if you look at the rankings is playing a game called “Angry Birds” where you throw birds at pigs and the pigs blow up. The number one thing that people are doing on their Kindle right now is reading Stieg Larsson.

moultano• 15 years ago

>but reading a novel on a backlit screen is no fun, and if it were, we'd read on our cell phones, because they're easier to carry around.

Speak for yourself! I do this and love it. I find that the faster page flipping more than makes up for the slightly less readable text. The thing that I think most phone/tablet makers get wrong at the start is not putting it in "night mode" by default. White text on a black background on a phone screen is so much more pleasant (at least for me) that it wouldn't surprise me if bad defaults are a large part of people's aversion to it.

roadnottaken• 15 years ago

It's impossible to read a non-e-ink screen in bright sunlight. I love my iPad, but I'm considering buying a Kindle just so I can read at the beach at my next vacation.

superuser22• 15 years ago

I do most of my reading before bed. Looking at a backlit screen within a few hours of attempting sleep makes it take longer to fall asleep and probably also lowers the quality of sleep.

Source: http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/05/19/backlit-readers-co...

blinkingled• 15 years ago

* Google’s Android Market is nowhere to be found. In fact,no Google app is anywhere to be found. This is Android fully forked. My understanding is that the Kindle OS was built on top of some version of Android prior to 2.2.*

MG goes on to say it is smooth and responsive. And I think many Apps are going to be incompatible with anything less than Android 2.2. Given this I would think Amazon will want to have at least 2.2 on there.

Would be kinda sad if they ran 1.6 on it in 2011!

[Edit] May be it is 2.1 - AWS SDK for Android Requires Android 2.1 (API Level 7) or higher. Oh well may be they will keep it up to date!

AndrewClyde• 15 years ago

I think the Kindle-branded tablet will be successful and manage to compete with the iPad.

However, it's not going to win in the way people expect it to; I think it'll bring a lot of people into the post-PC tablet world and introduce a cheap tablet to a lot of people, but it's not going to revolutionize anything major and won't be able to do anything the iPad and/or TouchPad can't do.

d0m• 15 years ago

Any TL;DR with a picture?

andrewpi• 15 years ago

Gizmodo took the description and created a mock-up: http://gizmodo.com/5837061/this-is-amazons-kindle-tablet

Steko2• 15 years ago

Five or Six Things That Occurred In My Brain When I Read This Article:

(1) $250 with free Prime? Buying one for sure, maybe two.

(2) No camera? Ugg. At least a front facing camera for Skype pls, I'll pay extra.

(3) November, meh I was hoping late September.

(4) Eclair fork? That has to be wrong lots of optimizations made in Froyo which has been available for over a year.

(5) Maybe this provided some additional incentive for Google to withhold Honeycomb source?

(6) MG Siegler continues to break character and occasionally commit actual journalism. Would love to see this trend continue.

kemayo• 15 years ago

I'm very interested to hear the details of "free Prime". Depending on the implementation then this might suddenly become a thing I will buy because it makes financial sense, regardless of its technical merit.

mortenjorck• 15 years ago

1 year? Nice perk. 2 years? Effectively sub-$100 tablet. 3 years? Paying for itself.

Tichy• 15 years ago

No camera = dealbreaker for me. At least in theory. In practice, Skype seems very slow on actually supporting video chat anyway :-(

gamble2• 15 years ago

This will have a hard time competing with the iPad internationally, if it really is focused on deep integration with their digital stores. Amazon has been extremely reluctant to roll out their content stores beyond the US. For example, they still haven't expanded their mp3 store to Canada.

xxpor2• 15 years ago

I doubt it's due to reluctance, but licensing issues.

gamble2• 15 years ago

It seems to be standard procedure for Amazon. They carry a far wider selection of products on the American site than any of their international stores. Until the last few years they basically only sold media in Canada.

gfodor• 15 years ago

This is cool and all, but I'd really like Amazon to make a DX with an extra inch of space, so it's the size of a real book, and I can read PDFs on it without squinting.

achompas2• 15 years ago

By far the most interesting quote from Siegler's article:

Overall, the UI of this Kindle felt very responsive. You can flick through the carousel seamlessly. This is something Amazon has apparently been working on quite a bit, I’m told. And they continue to.

If Amazon gets this right, they're a long way towards recreating the iPad UX. In fact, this entire article suggests that the Kindle tablet will be the first widely adopted non-iPad tablet. In addition to the above:

1. The interface sounds great. I am a humongous fan of the Kindle Cloud Reader and iOS interfaces, and I believe they're designed very well. Users can expect a well-designed tablet from Amazon.

2. Users can draw from a central source for their content. Amazon will provide all the movies, music, and books you need--something every other Android tablet has lacked so far. Mainstream users will appreciate the centralized content provision, especially from a company as respected as Amazon.

3. Cutting the Android Market solves a lot of potential issues: no spyware, no OS incompatibilities, no apps with large hardware requirements. Everything in the Amazon Appstore will work on this Kindle (I expect it to be a requirement for admission).

This tablet sounds very...Apple-like. A very closed ecosystem with access to interesting content and a curated app store. I would buy it if I was shopping for a tablet.

enjo• 15 years ago

But we already have that. Why woud you buy it? Is it just that it's cheaper? Are developers going to want to build apps for it?

I think breaking away to complete Android incompatibility is a huge mistake.

achompas2• 15 years ago

It's not just cheaper--it's 50% less than the price of a new iPad. That's a substantial difference.

shinratdr2• 15 years ago

I think waiting for Google to deliver on its promises of the world all while Apple is eating the tablet game for breakfast was, is and continues to be a huge mistake. Gingerbread isn't acceptable, Honeycomb isn't acceptable, and ICS is a ways off.

If anything, breaking Android compatibility and using it like an embedded OS is your only option right now. Google simply either refuses to polish Android for tablets or has too much on their plate right now to do so. Fixing that problem without Google's help will definitely cause compatibility issues. The question is what do people expect from a $250 tablet? I would say "vast app compatibility" is not high up on that list.

AdamGibbins• 15 years ago

I really hope they don't hope to make this a replacement for their eink non-backlit devices. That would be a disaster :(

docgnome• 15 years ago

Agreed. No eink, not interested.

Fjslfj• 15 years ago

Facebook is forking Android in a similar fashion.

systems• 15 years ago

First you think its a revolution, then it calms down to en evolution. From tablets to Notebooks

1. First come tablets

2. Then tablets gets a stand (so you dont have to hold them all the time)

3. Then tablets gets a keyboard (so you can type quickly)

4. Then tablets gets a mouse like device (so you dont have to touch the screen while on the stand)

5. Then they run (your favorite distro of) linux

6. Then they become keyboard-less more portable laptops

7. Then we call them notebooks

kloncks• 15 years ago

A lot of people questioned whether or not there was a market for a CrunchPad, or a cheap entry tablet.

Looks like this will validate that. Now, if only webOS could chime in and make this an interesting battle. That would be special.

tricolon2• 15 years ago

I really don't get the point of a Kindle with a battery life of only 10 hours.

hugh3• 15 years ago

Do you read for more than ten hours at a stretch?

Personally I'd kill for a tablet that could last the eighteen hours door-to-door from SFO to SYD, but hey, ten hours is a good start.

tricolon2• 15 years ago

Only sometimes. Right now, though, my Kindle is very convenient: I only have to charge it every couple weeks or so. Just like my trusty Nokia from 2002.

rospaya• 15 years ago

Wonder if they'll be selling it internationally, like a Kindle. The major difference is that this probably won't have a 3G connection so it should be even simpler.

SwellJoe• 15 years ago

I was momentarily excited...until I read the description of the new Kindle.

I played with a Nook a few weeks ago, and almost bought one. $249 is nearly an impulse purchase price point. But, I already had a netbook, a Kindle, a laptop, a Nexus One (which broke a few days ago, to be replaced by a Sensation), a desktop, and a DS, so I talked myself out of it.

One of the big reasons is because I wouldn't be able to get rid of my existing Kindle. The Kindle has a killer feature, which I can't replicate: International 3G Internet for free. It's a piss poor excuse for a web browser, but when I'm out of the country, I can google "wifi hotspot city-name" and find a place to connect my netbook or laptop and get some work done. This is a miracle for someone that travels as much as I do.

The battery life is also spectacular. Since I travel in a motorhome, and sometimes go days without plugging in, the ability to read books without having to think about charging my ebook reader is awesome.

So, the two really awesome things about the current Kindle that I have, are not present in the Android Kindle. Also, the fact that they've forked Android hard makes me more than a little hesitant to consider it. My new phone is only a slight divergence from standard Android, and I find it annoying as hell...I'll probably be rooting it and putting a more standard Android on it when I have more free time. The notion of a total fork without a standard Market and all the Google apps (Maps is my lifeline when travelling), and possibly without some of the other apps I rely on, is just crazy. It's hard to imagine such a thing not sucking.

In short, it sounds like I'll be better served by a Nook, should I decide to buy a little ebook/tablet. At least it is readily converted to a standard Android device. Or, maybe I'll just wait out the next round of tablets...or, maybe I'll just not buy a tablet. I still have yet to figure out what I'd use one for. They seem to be highly focused consumption devices, and I do enough consumption as it is.

rwmj• 15 years ago

I'm liking (not "loving") my rooted Nook Color with CM7 nightlies. It was, above all, a cheap tablet, and given the limitations of the price it works rather well.

However for the reasons you outlined in your comment, it's not a great e-reader. The Nook is better as a sort of cheap web browser for looking up recipes in the kitchen, looking at Google Maps, and web browsing when my wife is using the main computer.

mikecane5• 15 years ago

Enjoy the 3G while you have it. B&N has dumped it, Sony has dumped it, Kobo never had it. I think the future is WiFi-only for eBook devices.

6ren• 15 years ago

Won't be as successful as the Kindle, because the kindle is exceptionally tailored to its usage of buying and reading books - whereas this is android dragged half-way there. And android tablets haven't been doing well anyway (20:80), even the very best of them. The 3G kindle's tailoring is:

- free 3G (yes, free), to buy amazon books

- black and white E-Ink which is much closer to paper than colour displays.

- much lighter and slimmer (241grams; 8.5oz)

- long battery life (2 months - about x60 longer than a tablet), though this probably overshoots the need. i.e. they'd be better off using a smaller battery (or even AA batteries).

I'm so impressed with the Kindle because it resists trying to be the best at everything, but instead makes comprises that optimize it for its purpose. Whereas the Android tablet described here is much worse on all fronts and half-hearted as Android: neither fish nor fowl.

eyko• 15 years ago

I'm buying.

listic• 15 years ago

Does anyone know how durable are the current e-ink readers? May it be so that Amazon moves away from e-ink readers in particular because they can't be made reliable?

I like to read books and I was a theoretical fan of e-ink readers, but I never owned one. My younger brother, on the other hand, was against them: "why buy the device that only reads books?" On a recent trip to the countryside he borrowed a (PocketBook 301 plus) reader from a friend and put it in the tent's pocket together with a phone, iPod and other such stuff. In the morning, he found that the screen failed because it had a tiny crack. Maybe someone accidentally kicked it or something, but modern phones, iPod and such withstand abuse rather well, and this thing broke after one night - it even was in its own leather case that covers the screen! Googling revealed that cracking screen is a common issue.

I start to suspect that those e-ink screen are a flawed technology as they are. There might be a reason Sony makes their readers with a metallic case, but do they last even then?

mikecane5• 15 years ago

>>>There might be a reason Sony makes their readers with a metallic case

Used to. The latest Reader WiFi is all-plastic.

rmc3• 15 years ago

Is this the start of the tablet wars?

mikecane5• 15 years ago

It will be interesting to see if Amazon permits loading of competitor eBook apps. Right now, both Aldiko and Kobo are available in their App Store (I can't find Sony, that might be a search bug, maybe...). And if they do allow it, are we in for a 30% in-app purchase vig down the road ala Apple?

johnyzee• 15 years ago

E-ink is what makes the Kindle for me, it is such a pleasure to read off a screen that does not feel 'electric'. The months of battery life are nice too. I also don't get how TechCrunch has the e-ink devices being the 'lower cost' models, my DX was around $650, way more than this device.

Lastly, I wonder how the rumored browser will work and how it will affect the pricing model. 3G connectivity is free with current Kindles. That works for Amazon because you only ever use the network to download books, and the Kindle browser is restricted essentially to wikipedia. If unrestricted browsing means I will have to pay subscription for a 3G data connection that will be a major pain in the ass compared to now. Particularly since I do not want to browse the web on my Kindle, I have better options for that.

TeMPOraL• 15 years ago

I wish they stop making traditional tablets and focus on e-ink displays. Or at least don't confuse names.

Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

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