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The season is almost over, but Amazon’s Appstore has MLB ’11 for free today only. If you want to catch the home stretch of the season, make sure to get in on this deal. Only the devices belo will be able to stream video…
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A seven-inch Amazon tablet priced at $250 or less will compete against inexpensive Android tablets such as Lenovo’s $199 IdeaPad A1 (pictured above) or the $249 Nook color
Amazon is reportedly launching its inaugural Android tablet in the fourth quarter of this year. If the back office chatter is true, the online retailer will first out a seven-incher followed by a larger form-factor device(s) early next year. The latest news has the seven-inch Kindle Tablet costing $250 or less. However, market sources polled by DigiTimes warn of a lack of differentiation between Amazon’s dedicated Kindle e-readers and a seven-inch Android tablet:
Market observers are showing concerns as to how Amazon will differentiate its e-book reader market from that of its tablet while making profits for both after the company’s launch of the 7-inch tablet in fourth-quarter 2011. […] The sources also pointed out that Amazon may run a risk by releasing a 7-inch tablet when 10-inch models have mostly outperformed 7-inch competition over the past six months.
Shipping estimates have been revised and now call for a million units by the end of this month, “but the sources remain skeptical whether Amazon can meet its shipment goal of four million units in 2011”.
Now, about that differentiation comment. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler who saw prototypes described a seven-inch device without cameras. He said the screen used is a regular LCD as opposed to a color display utilizing electronic ink technology many people have been hoping for.
The fact Amazon could be marketing this thing under the Kindle moniker won’t help either, if true. On the flipside, there’s no reason as to why an Amazon-branded Android tablet tied to their all-encompassing cloud and shopping services would ever be confused with a family of dedicated and inexpensive Kindle e-readers.
As noted by Digital Reader, the Amazon Appstore has begun to roll out to more countries worldwide including UK, Canada, South Africa, Venezuela. The Appstore offers a wide variety of Android apps, for those of you who don’t find the Market enough. To install the Appstore on your Android device, hit up this link. I think it’s safe to say that most countries are now on the list.
Let us know how it goes.
Amazon is in talks with books publishers about a new service that could enable customers to subscribe to Kindle books in bulk for an annual subscription fee, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
Amazon has told publishers it is considering creating a digital-book library featuring older titles, people familiar with the talks said. The content would be available to customers of Amazon Prime, who currently pay the retailer $79 a year for unlimited two-day shipping and for access to a digital library of movies and TV shows. Amazon would offer book publishers a substantial fee for participating in the program, people familiar with the proposal said. Some of these people said that Amazon would limit the amount of books that Amazon Prime customers could read for free every month.
However, the deal is anything but certain because print die-hards are not entirely sold on the initiative, fearing the idea might “downgrade” the value of books.
Several publishing executives said they aren’t enthusiastic about the idea because they believe it could lower the value of books and because it could strain their relationships with other retailers that sell their books, they said.
It is also unclear whether enough people would buy into the idea of subscribing to a vast library of digital books. The service would, however, provide value to e-reading aficionados who buy a lot of individual e-books on a regular basis. Of course, if Amazon can work out fair usage terms and keep the prices low, the general public could take the bait, too. If anything, the initiative could be seen as another way to upsell customers to the Amazon Prime subscription package.
That being said, the very idea of subscription-based access to Amazon’s vast books library raises the question whether Amazon is attempting to kill the library per se. It may seem a stretch, but let’s not forget that Kindle books are now outselling hardcover and paperback editions combined. Also, the service could take off if coupled with the forthcoming Amazon tablet, which will probably be the case.
That didn’t take long… The Droid Bionic, which just launched today for $299 on a new two-year Verizon contract, is already discounted $100 on Amazon to just $199. The Verizon online store still lists the device at the original launch price, however.
The 4G LTE capable Droid Bionic has been perhaps the most talked about Android device launched in recent months and at $199 is definitely an even bigger competitor. If you’re still having second thoughts, you can check out our review roundup here.
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AllThingsD is reporting that along with Amazon, Yahoo, and Dish Network, Google has made a bid for the free video streaming service Hulu. AllThingsD doesn’t provide any details quite yet, but we can imagine Google’s bid is in the range of $1.5 – $2 billion — just like the other three companies are offering. AllThingsD can’t confirm if Google has made a definitive bid, or is just offering a sum of money.
Google chariman Eric Schmidt said at a conference in Europe last month that Google isn’t ready to give up on Google TV. He cites possible Google TV downfall is due to the scarce amount of set-top boxes rather than full television sets.
The acquisition of Hulu would sure be a break through for Google TV. Currently, almost every large television network is blocking streaming to Google TV, making the content lineup almost non-existent. With Hulu and its partners, Google could open up a whole new realm of content to the service.
AllThingsD has indictated that Google has made clear to Hulu that they are ready to offer a large sum of cash for the product, and we know they’re not scared to do it. Hulu isn’t exactly sure what their stance is on selling quite yet, but we’re sure to hear more in the coming weeks.
The Register reports that Baidu, the dominant Chinese search engine, has launched a mobile operating system of its own. It’s called Baidu Yi and is based on Android, but leaves out Google search and implants their own instead. It also has “Chrome-alike browser” and comes with Baidu-created web apps plus their mapping, cloud synch and music download services. The software is now featured on Baidu’s homepage. This may not be good news for Google.
Remember that Baidu recently partnered with Microsoft to provide Bing-powered English search results for their search engine in China. 9to5Google reported in June that Baidu might want to leverage Android to limit Google’s appeal in the country and further reduce Mountain View’s share of China’s search-based revenue. In January 2010 Baidu’s search-based advertising revenue share was at 63 percent versus Google’s 33 percent. The site was valued at $15 billion and enjoyed 300 million visitors.
Baidu isn’t alone in Android forking. Last week, TechCrunch reported that Amazon too will use a heavily customized Android version to power its upcoming mobile devices. Author MG Siegler saw prototypes and said “it looks nothing like the Android you’re used to seeing”, adding:
TechCrunch’s MG Siegler has come up with quite the exclusive this afternoon, which includes almost all of the details on Amazon’s new Kindle Tablet. TechCrunch wasn’t able to post pictures, but they reassure us they played with it — and they said it’s quite the delight, calling it “solid“. Citing the report, the 7-inch version will be released sometime by the end of the year for $250, and if it’s a success, the 10-inch will launch sometime in Q1. As for the operating system, it will be running Android, but not the kind you and I are used to.
The specs for this device are reported as follows: a 7-inch screen, single-core chip, modified Android, no physical buttons, no camera, and 6GB of internal storage (MG notes some of this is speculation). Did you read that no camera part? Wow.
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. And Amazon will keep building on top of that of that over time. In other words, this won’t be getting “Honeycomb” or “Ice Cream Sandwich” — or if it does, users will never know it because that will only be the underpinnings of the OS. Any visual changes will be all Amazon.
Continue after the break:
Trade publication DigiTimes quoted market sources this morning who heard that the online retail giant, Amazon, is gearing up for mass production of another tablet, a 10.1-inch device, for the first quarter of next year. The world’s largest contract manufacturer, Foxconn, will take care of manufacturing, the report notes. Foxconn is also Apple’s long-time manufacturing partner and they make gadgets and computers for a number of Western brands.
While the report doesn’t cast more light on the device, the screen size suggests a Honeycomb-class tablet. The story does corroborate an AndroidMe claim back in May that Amazon has been working on a family of mobile devices powered by the Android software.
Amazon is also in the process of tweaking its web shopping site to mobile access, apparently in preparation for its inaugural tablet launch next month. That device is said to be a seven-inch slate tightly integrated with Amazon’s cloud and content services.
DigiTimes’ report also notes Amazon placed an order for up to eighteen million Kindle units for the entire year, confirming their lead in the e-reader market with an estimated 60-70 percent share of global e-book reader shipments in 2011.
This is interesting. Amazon appears to be testing a redesign of its shopping web site that appears to be specifically optimized for tablet browsing. The Next Web discovered several tweaks which seem to be accessible only to a small number of users who are testing out the new design. These include the more prominent search bar and bigger controls, so you don’t have to sand your fingers down.
Another tell-tale sign: The new site gives prominence to Amazon’s tablet-friendly services such as Instant Video, MP3 Store, Cloud Player, Kindle, Cloud Drive, AppStore for Android, Game and Software Downloads and Audiobooks. Yes, we might be reading too much into it, but this feels like a part of launch preparations for the rumored Amazon tablet.
Forrester’s Sarah Rotman Epps predicts bright future for the Amazon tablet, which in her own words will “be synonymous with ‘Android’ on tablets” a year from now (disclosure: Epps was wrong on predicting iPad numbers plummeting back in June). She wrote in a note to clients Monday that Amazon could sell five million tablet units in the fourth quarter, considerably more than the 3.27 million iPads Apple sold in its first quarter, adding:
Enter Amazon.com, whose tablet can compete on price, content, and commerce. If it’s launched at the right price with enough supply, we see Amazon’s tablet easily selling 3 million to 5 million units in Q4 alone, disrupting not only Apple’s product strategy but other tablet manufacturers’ as well.
A recent survey from Nielsen revealed that a tablet from Amazon marrying e-reading features of the Kindle to the computing capabilities of tablets could appeal to wide demographics. Nielsen says women now amount to a whopping 61 percent of e-reader owners, up from 46 percent last year. As for tablet and smartphone adoption, women climbed only by four and three percentage points in the period, respectively. The numbers led Silicon Alley Insider to joke that “women are from Amazon, men are from Apple”.
Amazon tablet mockup via BGR.
The rumored Amazon tablet isn’t even out yet (the company is sourcing components for manufacturing), but that hasn’t stopped market analysts from estimating its potential. According to Forrester Research, the online retailer could sell up to five million tablets in the fourth quarter of this year. The figure is not to be dismissed easily, especially in light of poor sales of other vendors in the Android tablet space. Heck, the number fares more than favorably versus the 30 million iPads Apple sold since April of last year. Analyst Sarah Rotman Epps wrote in a note to clients:
Thus far, Apple has faced many would-be competitors, but none have gained significant market share. Not only does Amazon have the potential to gain share quickly but its willingness to sell hardware at a loss, as it did with the Kindle, makes Amazon a nasty competitor.
In addition, strong sales of the Amazon tablet is likely to become the key incentive for Android developers who have largely ignored the market for Honeycomb devices.
Nevertheless, popularized by Apple’s iPad, the tablet is on the rise. Amazon on its part is best poised to reap the benefits due to the sheer size of its ecosystem offering the kind of integrated product which can challenge Apple’s vertically integrated approach to gadget making. Also…
According to the New York Post (via BGR), Amazon is getting ready to launch their rumored Android-powered tablets with a price tag “hundreds less” than Apple’s current $499 base model iPad 2. “Hundreds less” sounds a lot like $299.
The devices, expected to launch sometime in October, will more than likely be the result of the entry-level tablet codenamed “Coyote” and it’s pro-model counterpart the NVIDIA T30 Kal-El powered “Hollywood”. We told you about these devices back in May, which will most likely be powered by a highly customized Amazon version of Android (bringing with it Amazon services like the Appstore, Kindle eBook store, Amazon Videos, music and possibly brought together by the Cloud Drive).
Amazon is clearly prepping a huge move into the tablet market. We reported this week that the company signed up a third touch panel supplier, and that was after recently becoming the second largest buyer of tablet-related parts – without yet having released a tablet.
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The Amazon tablet we’ve been hearing about every now and then in past weeks is inching closer to release, folks. Industry publication DigiTimes reported this morning that Amazon picked a third supplier for touch panel parts as it gears up for manufacturing. Looks like TPK Holdings will be joining Wintek and JTouch as suppliers, the publication wrote:
Amazon, considering that the supply of 7-inch touch panels by Wintek and JTouch may not be sufficient for use in its tablet PCs, has decided to add TPK Holding as a third supplier, according to industry sources.
Shipments will begin in September, Wintek “stressed”. Note the may-not-be-sufficient part in the above quote, suggesting a likely increase of the original two million launch units. Amazon allegedly planned on unveiling its inaugural tablet in October, around the same time Apple was rumored to bring iPad 3 to market. At first, the online retailer had experienced difficulties sourcing parts because Apple pretty much locked out other vendors until mid-July they signed up Foxconn, Apple’s long-standing manufacturing partner, to produce the Amazon tablet. Surprisingly, Amazon even went on to become the largest buyer of tablet parts. A market survey has it that…
Feeling adventurous? Soon, you will be able to float down the Amazon River — Google Earth Street View style. The Google Earth team is currently on the Amazon River taking images to stitch together in the 360 panoramic view that you know and love. Google has partnered with the Foundation for a Stable Amazon (FAS) to take these images of the river, as well as local communities and forests.
In this first phase of the project, the Google and FAS teams will visit and capture imagery from a 50km section of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus—the capital of the state of Amazonas—to the Terra Preta community. We’ll then process the imagery of the river and the communities as usual, stitching the still photos into 360-degree panoramics.
After the Earth team is done they will leave equipment for the FAS to continue to take more images. While you wait for the Amazon to become available, you can view Stonehenge and the Whistlers slopes. This is sure to be exciting for Amazon enthusiasts who can’t travel.
Amazon has halted accepting new Android app submissions in their German Appstore. Apple has been pressuring the U.S. courts to demand Amazon to shut down their Appstore, because Apple says it infringes on their trademark “App Store”. The U.S. case continues, but Apple has now filed lawsuits in Europe, forcing Amazon to halt accepting new apps in Germany — for now. Amazon told developers:
“For the time being, we are not accepting new app submissions from developers located in Germany. We have been forced to impose this restriction due to a legal action filed by Apple in Germany seeking to prevent us from using the term ‘appstore’. We believe Apple’s claim is without merit and are actively contesting it.”
Amazon also says they expect even more countries in Europe to halt accepting new apps. (via The Telegraph)
In what is another indication of a rumored Amazon tablet, Taiwanese trade publication, DigiTimes, this morning quoted sources from the supply chain who said Amazon has become the second largest buyer of tablet parts as component suppliers are lining up to provide parts for Amazon’s seven- and ten-inch slates. That’s a notable change from previous reports asserting Apple had gobbled up pretty much the entire supply of tablet parts. The Amazon devices are apparently due for a fourth quarter launch and the online retail giant is targeting to ship four million tablet PCs this year.
The publication named suppliers which include an unnamed processor from Nvidia, gravity sensors from Sitronix and touch panels from Wintek (also an Apple supplier) in addition to J Touch and Chunghwa Picture Tubes. Note that the mention of the seven-inch Amazon tablet probably means a new Kindle e-reader while the ten-incher most likely refers to a brand new Android-powered tablet said to be integrated with their cloud stores carrying mobile apps, music, movies, e-books and other digital warez. A Retrevo survey indicated that 79 percent of buyers would consider an Amazon tablet if priced less than $250. Apple is said to be considering cheaper components for next iPad amid the increasing pricing pressure in the market.
Much has been said about a rumored Amazon tablet so far. It should be based on Android, we are told, and Asian source have chimed in with their share of leaks, the latest being that Taiwanese contract manufacturers have begun producing the gizmo, presumably for a Fall launch. But will you take the plunge? That’s what research firm Retrevo set out to figure out in a July study stemming from polling over a thousand online individuals in the US. Key takeaway: Amazon tablet must be really affordable if it’s to hit the ground running.
Asked whether they’d consider buying any Android tablet with similar features over a base model $499 iPad, more than three-quarter respondents, or 79 percent, said “Yes, if it cost less than $250”. Amazon is rumored to be skipping on some tablet features in order to keep production costs down, like use a less expensive touch panel which can only detect two fingers at once.
Of course, Amazon knows how to build gadgets like Kindle and make them less expensive over time. The tablet, however, they’d have to price aggressively from day one as Apple pretty much set the starting price at $499. Nearly half the respondents would choose an Android tablet over an entry-level $499 iPad if it was priced less than $300 and nearly one in three would go Android with a sub-$400 device.
In a blow to other tablet makers, including brands such as Motorola, Samsung, Research In Motion, Hewlett-Packard and others, a whopping 55 percent would seriously consider a tablet from Amazon. This highlights the power of ecosystem which has turned Apple’s tablet into a smash hit. Amazon too has its own app store, music store, movie store and other digital stores in the cloud, bound to create a compelling user experience in the familiar environment from a trusted name in online retail. More food for thought and pretty charts right below…
Great news for students from Amazon today. You can now save up to 80 percent off the list price of the print textbook by renting Kindle Textbooks on the Kindle or Kindle-compliant devices such as Windows and OS X PCs, iPads, iPhones and BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone 7 devices. “Tens of thousands of textbooks” are available for rent across those platforms, reads an Amazon page promoting the deal. You can choose a rental length between 30 and 360 days and extend your rental for as little as one day. What’s best, regardless of your chosen rental period, Amazon will charge you only for the exact time you need a book. From Amazon:
Kindle Textbook Rental is a flexible and affordable way to read textbooks. You can rent for the minimum length, typically 30 days, and save up to 80% off the print list price. If you find you need your textbook longer, you can extend your rental by as little as 1 day as many times as you want and just pay for the added days.
You can tell whether a Kindle edition is available for rent in the Textbooks Store section of the Kindle app or from the search bar. The ability to rent textbooks in fair terms is good for students, but it ain’t like they were going to keep them anyway.
Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes quotes unnamed industry sources who claim Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer for gadgets, will produce a rumored Android-driven tablet from Amazon, said to sport a 10.1-inch display, with shipments to begin in 2012 at the earnest. Quanta Computer, another contract manufacturer from Asia, has already begun shipping a smaller seven-inch device to Amazon, the report notes:
Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) has reportedly landed orders for 10.1-inch tablet PCs from Amazon with shipments to begin in 2012, while Quanta Computer has begun shipping a 7-inch model to Amazon. Foxconn declined to comment on market speculation.
Foxconn of course is Apple’s long-time manufacturer so it comes as a surprise that Apple did not exercise its influence and billions to block rivals from tapping Foxconn’s manufacturing potentials. That’s not entirely unheard of, however…
The Wall Street Journal is reporting Amazon will be selling a tablet by October, to compete with Apple’s iPad. While the details are sketchy as of now, WSJ is saying the tablet will have a 9-inch screen and will run Android. Oddly enough, the tablet will not feature a back camera. Lastly, Amazon won’t be building the tablet themselves, but will outsource to a manufacturer in Asia.
Amazon’s tablet will have a roughly nine-inch screen and will run on Google’s Android platform, said people familiar with the device. Unlike the iPad, it won’t have a camera, one of these people said. While the pricing and distribution of the device is unclear, the online retailer won’t design the tablet itself. It also is outsourcing production to an Asian manufacturer, the people said. One of the people said the company is working on another model, with Amazon’s own design, that could be released next year.
There will also be two eReaders before Christmas, one touch and one at a significantly reduced cost. Along with the tablet in October, there is word that we can be seeing another tablet designed by Amazon themselves in 2012.
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Amazon, the king of sweet deals, is running an interesting promotion designed to boost both sales of Android phones on their site and app downloads through its Appstore for Android. You can now get any Android smartphone or tablet sold through their site between July 11 and through October 11 and the company will put a $15 credit into your account that can be redeemed against app purchases on the Amazon Appstore for Android. You can also buy music on the Amazon MP3 store and e-books on the Kindle Store, if you want.
The credit will be in your account once your Android phone ships, with the expiry date set to November 12. More about the terms of this promotion here. Amazon Wireless offers a decent selection of phones, including the latest models such as HTC’s Thunderbolt 4G, LG’s Revolution and Motorola’s Droid X2. The $15 credit is split between the three stores, with each getting a $5 credit. This should be enough to buy you a cheap or discounted Kindle book, a couple of 99-cent games or apps and a few songs or even a whole album.
I see these things from time to time on 9to5Toys and wonder how the heck they can make any type of tablet with a 7-inch screen $90.
The one review it does get on Amazon sums it up pretty well:
While the unit does work. It’s slow, and sometimes the touchscreen is unresponsive to touch commands. I basically have to press really hard on the screen for it to take commands.
It does a poor job streaming video from youtube.
My Samsung Captivate, cell phone is faster than this unit.Overall:
Pros: Works, great for web surfing low media content sites, great to use as a picture frame,
Cons: Slow, Touch screen not accurate/responsive.
So, it would appear that you are pretty much buying a photoframe with a battery and a resistive touch screen (enclosed stylus). Still, for $90…
Amazon Android logo mockup: BGR
The venerable Amazon tablet has inched one step closer to reality with the news that the company has begun sourcing parts for a rumored tablet. According to DigiTimes, a Taiwanese trade publication, Amazon is hoping to ship some two million units in September, in time for the holiday shopping season:
Amazon reportedly has held talks with TPK Holdings, Wintek, HannStar Display and J Touch for the supply of touch panels, indicated the sources, noting that Amazon targets to ship four million tablet PCs before the end of 2011.
However, Apple is pressuring the supply chain considerably. The Cupertino, California company reportedly plans to ramp up iPad 2 manufacturing to twelve million iPad 2 units for the third quarter, up from an estimated 6-7 million units in the second quarter and the 4.9 million iPads Apple shipped during the first quarter. Because of this, the Amazon tablet could be facing serious constraints, the report notes.
The story corroborates a previous report from the same publication calling for a September-August launch. The rumor-mill talk is that the online retail giant will introduce a plethora of Android-driven mobile devices, possibly even a smartphone. Amazon’s boss Jeff Bezos wouldn’t reveal anything beyond dropping hints and teasing us to “stay tuned”.
Peter Kafka reports for the All Things D blog that Amazon cut a deal with San Francisco-based Triggit to sell adverts on other people’s sites. Previously, Amazon was only selling ad slots on their own web properties, such as IMDB.com and Amazon.com. In a nutshell, the online retail giant buys ad inventory from other sites and resells it to marketers at a premium because they are using data on their shoppers and probing visitors to target likely prospects. The author explains:
Amazon uses the detailed data it collects on its customers and visitors to create pools of potential marketing targets. Amazon tells Triggit to hunt down particular Web surfers after they’ve left the site, using tracking “cookies”; once the startup finds them it purchases ad inventory those users are looking at. Amazon uses that ad space to serve up an ad for the marketer it’s working with, and charges them for the impression.
Granted, this isn’t an ad network per se because Amazon is essentially re-selling other people’s inventory. But looking at the big picture, it’s another sign giving away that Amazon is slowly putting the remaining pieces of a puzzle in place in order to create a comprehensive end-to-end ecosystem designed to efficiently monetize users with physical products, digital media content, apps, advertising and devices. After all, Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt included Amazon in the “gang of four” for a good reason.
