Hasta La Gadget!

A news item is circulating the internet reportedly from German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche claiming Amazon is facing a major hurdle in trying to bring its Kindle to Deutschland. The problem at hand? The two big wireless providers in the country, Vodafone and T-Mobile, are both saying “nein” to providing Whispernet service, and apparently the issue has to do with how much money Amazon was willing to give — unsurprising, if true. Another, very likely reason for T-Mobile’s unwillingness is that parent company Deutsche Telekom is rumored to be working on its own e-book reader, and we gotta believe those company picnics would be mighty awkward if a large subsidiary was given the competition a major boost. We can’t imagine this stopping Amazon for long, and we’d be very surprised if the Kindle didn’t find some way to sneak itself into the region sooner or later.

Filed under: Handhelds, Wireless

Kindle’s German launch stalled by T-Mobile and Vodafone? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, it didn’t happen quite as fast as the original Kindle, but it looks like the Kindle DX has now officially sold out, a full two days after it first became available. As you might expect, however, folks eager to get their hands on the large and in charge device don’t have to wait too long to get their fix, with Amazon promising that the next batch of Kindle DXs will be in stock on June 17th. Of course, as ComputerWorld notes, the fast sellout has once again prompted speculation from analysts that Amazon is intentionally keeping supply low to create more of a buzz around the device, but Amazon itself is naturally staying mum on the matter for now.

Filed under: Handhelds

Kindle DX sold out, but not for long originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, Kindle 2 owners, remember when Amazon made the device official and you thought: “Well, it took them a year and a half to replace the old one, so I can buy this one without fears of immediate obsolescence.” And then remember how three months later they announced the Kindle DX and you thought: “Oh.” Well, if you’re now fearing a color Kindle will come sauntering along in a few months to make everyone jealous, fear not, as Jeff Bezos is saying the tech is still “multiple years” away, adding “I’ve seen the color displays in the laboratory and I can assure you they’re not ready for prime time.” From the few prototypes we’ve seen we’d tend to agree. So, anyone still on the fence about a Kindle, go ahead and buy now with confidence, as your devices won’t be made to look quaint any time soon — at least until that pizza box-sized reader Amazon’s been working on in secret is announced in July. Did we mention it actually cooks pizza?

Filed under: Handhelds

A color Kindle is years away, buyers remorse here to stay originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 May 2009 07:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know that the only reason you’re holding out on buying a Kindle 2 is your aversion to that sterile plastic shell. Well, you’re in luck, aesthete… ‘cos the folks at Colorware will happily sell you a model that lives out loud for a song (and $599, baseline). Or you can send in your own e-reader, in which case a cool $199 will get you the paint job you deserve. It will be 2-3 weeks before you get your device back in your hot hands, but when you do you’ll be ready to read The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby in pop art style. Hit that read link to get started.

[Via Slash Gear]

Filed under: Handhelds

Kindle 2 gets the Colorware treatment, prepares to burn some retinas originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 May 2009 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I was an early believer in Kindle, but I thought it would evolve more quickly than this. Kindle DX is a step forward—more than the Kindle 2—but there’s still work to be done.

The larger screen isn’t just cosmetic. It helps Amazon add functionality without having to justify the screen’s inherent slowness. Today, we heard this a lot: “No panning, no zooming, no scrolling.” The E-Ink screen isn’t fast enough to support those actions smoothly, but now, at 9.7″, it doesn’t necessarily need to.

This opens the door for the long overdue PDF support, which is now native—teachers and colleagues can distribute reports the way they best know how, and it will look good on an easy-to read screen. Not only that, but they can distribute ridiculously unoptimized PDFs, because the Kindle now has 3.3GB of storage (though no more SD slot). Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says you can store 1,500 books, but the way I see it, medical professionals and engineers will store a few hundred PDFs. The $489 price is easy to justify in certain specialized fields. (It’s also going to allow easier access to pirated books, which may not be good for the book-publishing industry, but is certainly good for Kindle sales.)

The relationship with newspaper publishers is shaky at best. I can’t see how an industry that’s hemorrhaging money can subsidize a newfangled tech product in order to lure people (who exactly?) back to subscribing for something they are forced to publish for free online anyway. The early alliance is even more tenuous when you realize that special pricing is only offered to would-be subscribers outside of the reach of home delivery. (At least, it is for now.)

And as for maintaining the look and feel of an ink-stained broadsheet—or even a tabloid—a 9.7″ screen doesn’t do much to get closer to that than the current 6″ screen.

The rest of Bezos’ big bullet points—fast 3G network, 275,000 books and counting, $10 or less for bestsellers, no monthy fees—were all there more or less in the beginning, and are things that in no way distinguish the Kindle DX from the Kindle that came out in 2007.

So what does Amazon still need to work on?

An Alliance with Text Book Publishers UPDATED Forget NYT Bestsellers. The real way to move Kindles is to sell them to every college kid with the software equivalent of 200 backbreaking pounds of textbook. Bezos teased this in his speech, even named names but he didn’t do it with enough conviction to convince me a deal was in the works anywhere close to being hammered out. Believe me, when the Prentice Halls and Houghton Mifflins of the world come around to offering reasonably priced Kindle editions of their high school and university top sellers, you’re gonna hear about it.

iPhone App Updates The iPhone Kindle app was a good start, but we haven’t heard much about it since the beginning. It lacked the ability to shop, it had no search or dictionary. Many people still feel that the ebook trend will only take off when the smartphones (all of ’em)—plus netbooks and tablets—get with the Amazon book retail juggernaut and make sweet sweet DRM-infected love. Only then will demand for specialized easy-on-the-eyes devices like Kindle be super obvious to Ma and Pa.

Keep Improving the Screen, and Investigate LCD The New York Times started printing its front page in color in like 1997 or 1998, if I’m not mistaken. That’s over a decade of color for even the stodgiest of print pubs. (USA Today launched with color a decade before.) Pushing the E-Ink stuff is fine, but if you’re going to charge uberdollars, let’s see some color E-Ink. Not like they have larger customers than Amazon lined up. And while we’re on the subject, how about checking in with Mary Lou Jepsen and the ultralowpowered, super awesome LCD screens she says she’s working on? Blam wants touchscreens and backlighting, but that can backfire. I’d settle for something that’s fast enough to allow for true “leafing” through a book.

Upgrade Old Kindles, Or Make New Ones Upgradeable Simply put, don’t screw your loyal constituents. That’s something Steve Jobs is known to do from time to time, but even Apple knows that you have to give a little something something to the people who paid top dollar for last year’s product. PDF support would be a nice one, if only for that whole “No panning, no zooming, no scrolling” limitation. Seems the feature in the new device is a flaw in the old.

At the end, I have to applaud Amazon’s continued investment and exploration of ebook readers, and if I sound impatient, it’s only because I have the compressed hindsight of other product evolutions (MP3 players, movie discs, etc.) to compare this with. Two years isn’t a long time to revolutionize an entire industry, and this will take much longer than that, but we want to make sure that progress is being made, and that Bezos isn’t squandering Amazon’s natural advantage in this field. [Kindle DX on Gizmodo]