Hasta La Gadget!

There was surprisingly little fanfare surrounding the announcement of Amazon’s latest Fire tablets. Where last year’s unveiling involved renting out an airplane hangar at the Santa Monica airport, the new tablet trio was quietly shown off to a small gathering of journalists at the company’s Seattle headquarters. Asked why Amazon opted for something so low-key, a rep answered, that CEO Jeff Bezos “just likes to mix things up.” (Those wacky billionaires.) Indeed, there was little rhyme or reason to the scaling back. After all, the new HDX tablets, available in 7- and 9-inch sizes, bring a number of key upgrades to the Kindle Fire line on both the hardware and software fronts.

And that’s a good thing: between the Nexus 7, iPad mini and a seemingly endless parade of pocket-sized tablets, Amazon has more competition to contend with than ever. But while the company’s acknowledged that its tablets are basically just content delivery vessels, it’s chosen to compete on specs as well, with a 1,920 x 1,200, 323-ppi display, a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and new software features that include baked-in video customer support and a “Second Screen” TV feature. So is that enough to keep the Kindle Fire competitive?%Gallery-slideshow99754%

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New hardware without a software refresh? Don’t make Jeff Bezos laugh. Today’s arrival of three new slates also marks the unveiling of the company’s latest tablet operating system. And this time, it even has a name. See, Amazon’s been using “Fire OS” internally to describe the software powering its tablet line, and now we get to use it as well, with the arrival of version 3.0. As ever, Bezos and Co. have based the OS on Android (Jelly Bean, this time out), with this year’s codename being “Mojito” — a move from candy names to sugary cocktails. The operating system will ship on the new HDX and HD devices. We weren’t able to confirm that it will roll out to older devices, but an Amazon rep we spoke with implied that there’s a good chance of that, given earlier precedents.

First thing’s first: there’s still no Google Play access. No surprise there, of course. After all, the company’s in the habit of subsidizing the cost of its hardware based on future content sales. Still, as ever, the company was quick to point out the speed with which its proprietary app store has grown in recent years. UI-wise, things look familiar. Content is still king, with the home screen built around a river of apps, games, movies, music, et cetera. The company did respond to customer concerns, however, by adding a more familiar grid-style layout that you can access with a swipe up, which should appease all you Android users out there. Swipe from the right, and you’ll see Quick Switch, which lets you switch between different recently used pieces of content.

Filed under: Tablets, Software, HD, Amazon

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Can you imagine a holiday season without Amazon’s e-reader series? The Kindle celebrates its fifth birthday today — a device that, since its debut, has added bigger screens, slimmer builds, and even some damn decent backlighting. Back at the start, Amazon’s first hardware was just a little chunky, covered in buttons, and housed a 6-inch 800 x 600 e-ink display. However, the online bookseller went on to dominate the then-nascent e-reader market, with no shortage of rivals now wanting claim their own slice of the book-loving crowd. Five years goes pretty fast — we just wonder how many still have their DRM-protected Mobipocket e-books to hand.

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Amazon Kindle celebrates five e-inked years originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Nov 2012 07:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

If Google had to pick a device category in which it wanted Android to dominate, it would certainly be mobile phones for many reasons. Indeed, the original band of Android backers was dubbed the Open Handset Alliance. However, a strong position in tablets would not only have helped to round out the Android ecosystem, it would also have created a beachhead from which to take on Microsoft prior to the launch of its tablet strategy.

Alas for Google, sales of Android tablets have been lackluster and several PC-centric licensees — including Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba and even Android standard-bearer Samsung — are hoping to improve their standing in the tablet market with imminent products based on Windows.

Continue reading Switched On: Android’s tablet troubles

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Switched On: Android’s tablet troubles originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week’s release of the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite offered an opportunity to look back on the rapid growth of e-reading, and look forward to what the digitization of publishing will mean to four major market forces: publishers, bookstores, authors and readers. As during any technological disruption, winners and losers trade fates until the upheaval settles and a new cycle of status quo begins.

Amazon is not the only bookstore represented in the scramble for new-era survival, but its major role has multiple dimensions: seller, publisher, enabler, inventor and primary instigator of disruption. Amazon is banking on being a winner, and was recently handed an advantage by the U.S. government in its uneasy relationship with publishers.

While industrial forces work their way through the dislocation of new paradigms, individuals — both book consumers and book authors — stand to be the biggest winners, and that is a good thing.

Continue reading Editorial: Bring on the digital overthrow of publishing

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Editorial: Bring on the digital overthrow of publishing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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