Is that because you've used the multitude of devices offering apps now? (Blackberry, Palm, Nokia OVI, Android Market, Windows Marketplace).
That's some track record of handset usage you have there!
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Amazon Releasing Software Development Kit to Bring Apps to Kindle
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Is that because you've used the multitude of devices offering apps now? (Blackberry, Palm, Nokia OVI, Android Market, Windows Marketplace).
That's some track record of handset usage you have there!
The iPad (with wings, of course, because it's angelic and forged in the Apple Heavens) will be the Kindle Killer because everyone knows it's better to read books on a device that costs more, does more, and is branded by God himself.
A KDK is a last breath of dead Kindle air.
THE KINDLE IS DEAD. AMAZON IS DEAD. MS IS DEAD. DELL IS DEAD.
edit -- Just sayin'
A KDK is a last breath of dead Kindle air.
THE KINDLE IS DEAD. AMAZON IS DEAD. MS IS DEAD. DELL IS DEAD.
edit -- Just sayin'
iFart.
I remember SJ standing up in some conference saying "The amount of apps available for OSX doesn't matter, its the quality".
Personally, I agree.
Quality over quantity. If it applies for OSX, it can apply for the appStore too.
Stevie cannot have a both ways - when it suites him!
Quantity does not matter.
THE KINDLE IS DEAD. AMAZON IS DEAD. MS IS DEAD. DELL IS DEAD.
edit -- Just sayin'
Why stop there?
Sony is dead. Acer is Dead, HP is dead...
in fact, any Apple competitor is dead!!
I find it entertaining seeing people defending Apple so vigorously. I love Apple and almost all its products, but still, one has to accept that apart from Apple there are a lot of good companies with just as good products.
Amazon has been doing an incredible job lately, and the Kindle without a doubt is a success. It being in #1 in Amazon this holiday season proves it.
I know I might be killed by posting this herep), but Amazon and Sony (and now add B&N) kind of proved him wrong. E-book readers were a hot topic during last year and continue to be so this year.
I don't doubt the success of the Apple Tablet, but the existence of it doesn't make other products worthless.
Amazon has been doing an incredible job lately, and the Kindle without a doubt is a success. It being in #1 in Amazon this holiday season proves it.
Steve Jobs said:
I know I might be killed by posting this here
p), but Amazon and Sony (and now add B&N) kind of proved him wrong. E-book readers were a hot topic during last year and continue to be so this year.I don't doubt the success of the Apple Tablet, but the existence of it doesn't make other products worthless.
I
I know I might be killed by posting this here
I don't doubt the success of the Apple Tablet, but the existence of it doesn't make other products worthless.
Buzz doesn't equal sales. We have no idea how many ebook readers actually sold, but indications are that it is nowhere close to the volume where it makes any sense to be in the stand-alone ebook business.
Actually, the quality of the original iFart app is quite good - hi-res responsive interface, variety of different sounds, and it doesn't crash.
It fulfills its intentions as a gag app, and does it well.
Overall, the quality of even the borderline-useful apps is, for the most part, well above average.
I have over 950 apps installed, and use about 30 of them regularly. The majority of them are updated frequently, and are extremely helpful for particular situations which may arise.
The Zipcar app is great for locating and renting one while traveling, as is Tom-Tom, FlightTrack, Zillow Real Estate, UrbanSpoon, Yelp, Trailguru, Jaadu VNC, iCam, EyeTV, Starmap, Redlaser, when shopping, Dragon when writing, etc.
Most of the games available are extraordinary in terms of graphics, detail, and responsiveness.
Again, they do what they are intended to do, and do so extremely well - although I haven't tried all 100,000 to date, I do not find quality to be an issue with the majority of apps I have used on this platform. YMMV
I know I might be killed by posting this here
I don't know anyone with an e-book reader. I think they're far from a popular product at this stage.
Thanks. It's amazing how people denounce as "crap" apps that don't serve any purpose for them but which do their intended job perfectly well and serve what ever minority is in need of such apps perfectly fine.
Funny how the group that most disparages the iPhone for its "gag apps" proselytes their own platform (Windows) for its gaming prowess.
I agree, I find most of the arguments about the quality of the iPhone app platform to be disingenuous at best. Is there a lot of worthless filler in that 100k app catalog? Of course. But there is also a huge collection of highly-polished, highly-useful applications. Read the reviews for any app that is available for multiple platforms and the iPhone version is almost always more robust and more refined.
And where's the outrage over the amount of junk in Microsoft's trumpeted 5 million Windows apps? (I think it was 5 million mentioned at CES.) Aside from games, I rarely find well-designed software for Windows. There are a few gems amid the rubble, but much of it is horrible. I find the Mac equivalents to be far lesser in number but far greater in quality.
For that matter DMCA has allowed OS companies to force this single source app store model on developers so they can steal 30% from us while providing absolutely nothing of benefit.I'm quite sure that thanks to the US congress any such program would be highly ILLEGAL punishable by fines and/or jail time. Gotta love what DMCA has done to the once free nation many of us call home.
But if you jump the border to Mexico or Canada I'm guessing you'd be fine to use such a heinous application if one ever came into existence.
Provided of course that the US authorities don't try to extrodite the author of said program to be put on trial for such terrible crimes against humanity... Well okay maybe not crimes against humanity so much as to copywrite holders and mega corporations who paid the government to make federal laws to fatten their bottom line and to put in jail anyone that they felt were getting in their way.
Oh yea thats right we don't say they 'payed the government' its so SLEAZY sounding... thats right these companies lobbied the government and there's certainly nothing underhanded about THAT.
Don't kid yourself! None of the ebook readers mean anything. There are a millions of them, and none are anything to reckon with! Whether Amazon is trying to compete with those hosts of ebook readers, or the iSlate is irrelevant because the iSlate will destroy them all regardless! They are desperate, and it shows big time!
It is like a bunch of ants that are about to have a giant FOOT crushed on top of them!
When I joined this forum I had no idea of fanboyism on such levels as shown here. The Apple Tablet will make no difference to e-readers as it won't be a dedicated reader. The whole point of an e-reader is to replicate the experience of paper as close as possible electronically, hence e-ink, which Apple isn't going to use. Without e-ink Apple isn't competing with the Amazon Kindle or the Sony Reader.
If people want a device for reading ebooks and nothing else - why on earth would they drop $1K on an Apple tablet, rather than $199 for a dedicated ebook device?
The Apple Tablet has its market, as do EBook readers.
TheSeagull above "gets it".
Seriously? How about the fact that the Kindle was the most gifted item in the history of Amazon.com? It's selling fine, and selling way more units than the Nook, the Apple tablet (because there isn't one) and any other e-reader.
Also, anyone here who thinks the Kindle (a $260 device, with price declining as the display technology gets cheaper) that's a killer reader will be beat out by a $800 to $1000 device that doesn't do the reading NEARLY as well (unless it has some breakthrough screen technology, which it will not, LCD will be on the tablet) is pretty shortsighted. Not everyone has $900 to drop on a tablet when they look for an e-reader. It's like saying that when the iPod came out, nobody would by a wristwatch anymore, because the iPod tells time and has alarms too. It's a pretty weak assertion. Price is a HUGE factor (maybe not to Apple consumers, but to the rest of the gadget/tech buying public, it's a big deal) and that will prevent the tablet from really destroying the Kindle.
What's with the hate? The blind criticism of Amazon, a company that's pioneered DRM-free music (basically obliging Apple to do the same or they risked losing their Store marketshare) and that's way way way ahead of Apple in cloud storage and computing. S3 and EC2 are amazing technologies,. I don't get why so many of you blindly-following Apple fanboys criticize any company that might threaten them. This extends far beyond Microsoft, saying things like "monkey boy Ballmer" and things like that. Please, grow up. If you want to succeed in the workforce, it helps to act like an adult.
You both have a lack of understanding of where technology is headed. Steve Jobs himself says that single purpose devices will NOT win. What you will see happen and already has started, is ebook readers will add additional functionality and screen types, (look at Pixel Qi) in order to try to compete. In doing so, your argument will become obsolete. Dedicated ebook readers will be virtually non existent in 3 years and iSlate will dominate just like the iPhone! I am NOT a blind fanboy. I simply have a great understanding of the history of the tech industry and how this is going to play out! I will be proven correct as is the case 95% of the time as time rolls on!
You're kidding, right? We've already plowed this ground in other threads. "Most gifted item in the history of Amazon.com" is not a commonly used metric for determining the health of a product. The usual metrics are unit sales, dollar volume, and year-over-year sales increase.
Amazon.com has not released the sales figures for Kindles since June. However, you can rest assured that Amazon.com would have touted Kindle sales figures to the heavens if they had been as good as you think.
But you are ignoring the fact that Kindle was the most regifted electronics item in Los Gatos, California this holiday season!
This is today, we are talking about present day - not three years time.
I do not have a lack of understanding of where technology is headed, btw. I'm talking about present day - you are talking about the future.
Again, why would someone looking for an eBook reader spend $1K over a $199 dedicated eBook reader that suits their needs - TODAY?
If the eBook Reader costs the same amount as the Apple tablet, then yes, they'd probably buy the tablet.
Yes, I agree with you, *over time* multi-capability devices will win out.. but this is only when the price decreases enough, however. This has not happened *yet* in regards to eBook readers. In three years time, sure, things will be different - as has happened with iPhone - now can be bought for as little as $99 ( only because its subsidized by the cell phone carrier).
Another example, PDAs: PDA market died not only because smartphones became cheaper and popular, but also because 'dumb' phones became more intelligent - they can often do most things a PDA can. In fact, if you look,the lines between smartphones and 'dumb' phones is blurring. At one time, smartphone meant - "a phone that you could sync with your computer, and install 3rd party apps" - well, 'dumb' ( Feature ) phones have been doing this for quite some time.
But the present is now, not 3 years time in regards to EBook Readers.
I have a Kindle DX and love it...is it an iPhone or an iPad/iSlate/iTablet competitor? ...Not even close
Will I ever play games on it? ...Maybe a crossword puzzle or soduku, but I don't expect the quality of an iphone app or even an original nintendo game.
Will the Kindle app store be successful? ...HIGHLY successful...there are a bunch of possible apps that could be built to work great with the Kindle...I could probably even get a newsreader app that let's me get my favorite newspaper/blog downloads for cheaper than what Amazon currently charges me per month...
But I think the biggest app that is needed (if amazon lets the SDK go that far) is a whole new file organizer...an app that lets me have individual folders for personal ebooks and work-related PDFS and ebooks would be the first thing I buy...
Will I ever play games on it? ...Maybe a crossword puzzle or soduku, but I don't expect the quality of an iphone app or even an original nintendo game.
Will the Kindle app store be successful? ...HIGHLY successful...there are a bunch of possible apps that could be built to work great with the Kindle...I could probably even get a newsreader app that let's me get my favorite newspaper/blog downloads for cheaper than what Amazon currently charges me per month...
But I think the biggest app that is needed (if amazon lets the SDK go that far) is a whole new file organizer...an app that lets me have individual folders for personal ebooks and work-related PDFS and ebooks would be the first thing I buy...
I for one was this close to picking up a nook. Now I'm holding off to see what this tablet is. Assuming it makes a decent ebook reader, I'm more than willing to pay around a grand for it in the hopes that I can use it as my travel computer as well.
I think it is reasonable to assume that Amazon has some intention to improve hardware and OS capabilities if they are going to release an SDK to developers. I'm probably wronog though...
What A JOKE ! That stupid thing isn't worth a dime ! With what? A totally new OS ? New and unseen hardware?
This is ridiculous !
This is ridiculous !
The Downside to the Kindles Free 3G Wireless
From Amazons Kindle Development Kit terms:
Active content will be available to customers in the Kindle Store later this year. Your active content can be priced three ways:
Free Active content applications that are smaller than 1MB and use less than 100 KB/user/month of wireless data may be offered at no charge to customers. Amazon will pay the wireless costs associated with delivery and maintenance.
One-time Purchase Customers will be charged once when purchasing active content. Content must have nominal (less than 100 KB/user/month) ongoing wireless usage.
Monthly Subscription Customers will be charged once per month for active content.
So for free and one-time-charge apps, theres a monthly limit of 100 kilobytes of bandwidth. Go over that and the developer has to start paying the bill. As point of reference for just how small 100 KB is, the Daring Fireball RSS feed at this moment is 115 KB. With gzip compression, it shrinks to 36 KB. So even with compression, a free or one-time-charge Kindle app could only download the DF RSS feed twice per month without going over.
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Daring Fireball 10-01-22 1:47 PM John Gruber http://daringfireball.net/
From Amazons Kindle Development Kit terms:
Active content will be available to customers in the Kindle Store later this year. Your active content can be priced three ways:
Free Active content applications that are smaller than 1MB and use less than 100 KB/user/month of wireless data may be offered at no charge to customers. Amazon will pay the wireless costs associated with delivery and maintenance.
One-time Purchase Customers will be charged once when purchasing active content. Content must have nominal (less than 100 KB/user/month) ongoing wireless usage.
Monthly Subscription Customers will be charged once per month for active content.
So for free and one-time-charge apps, theres a monthly limit of 100 kilobytes of bandwidth. Go over that and the developer has to start paying the bill. As point of reference for just how small 100 KB is, the Daring Fireball RSS feed at this moment is 115 KB. With gzip compression, it shrinks to 36 KB. So even with compression, a free or one-time-charge Kindle app could only download the DF RSS feed twice per month without going over.
★
Daring Fireball 10-01-22 1:47 PM John Gruber http://daringfireball.net/
Was not the question he ask.
You more proved his original point by your statement there. You refused to give them a chance.
The Blackberry app store for example is pretty well done and easy to navigate around. Its biggest draw back is the lack of number of apps but it is growing at a fairly descent pace.
I have never played with WinMo or android app. I expect winMo app store in the end will look a lot like it is on Xbox live which is fairly well done.