Hasta La Gadget!

We’re still not about say the e-book reader industry has branched out beyond the infancy stage, but one of its flagship products certainly has reason to celebrate. Amazon has announced it’s hit some pretty big milestones with the Kindle. The two bullet points it’s currently touting loudest is that the reader has become “the most gifted item” in the company’s history — quite an achievement given the size of the online retailer, but what’s missing here is any quantitative sales data to give us even a ballpark of the number of units sold. The other big news is that on Christmas Day (we’re guessing not Christmas Eve, else the press release surely would’ve mentioned it, too), e-book sales actually outsold physical books. Those brand new Kindle owners needed something to read, right? It’ll be interesting to see if that momentum is maintained through next year, especially with some major publishers starting to show some teeth with digital delays.

The Kindle bits were all part of Amazon’s annual post-holiday statistical breakdown, so in case you’re wondering, besides Kindle, the company is claiming its other top-selling electronics were the 8GB iPod Touch and Garmin nuvi260W, and in the wireless department the honor goes to Nokia’s unlocked 5800 XpressMusic, Plantronic’s 510 Bluetooth headset, and AT&T’s edition of the BlackBerry Bold 9700.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Kindle most gifted item in Amazon’s history, e-books outsell physical tomes on Christmas Day originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony hedged its bets a bit in committing to ship date for its Reader Daily Edition when it first announced it, but it looks like it’s managed to get the first ones out the door on the early end of its December 18th to January 8th estimate, with the initial batch of pre-orders shipping today. Unfortunately, anyone that didn’t pre-order the e-reader is out of luck for the time being, as it’s now back-ordered with a new estimated ship date of January 15th. In related news, Sony has also announced that it’s signed up an additional 16 publications that will be offering wirelessly-delivered subscriptions on the Daily Edition, including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Baltimore Sun, and The Denver Post. None of those are exclusive to Sony, however, unlike the News Corp-owned publications that were announced last week.

Sony Reader Daily Edition starts shipping, gets more newspapers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s Sir Howard Stringer played the tease at today’s Reader content partnership presser, stating that while Sony could make the device into a multimedia tablet, it would rather wait and see if consumers warm up to current devices. Stringer’s watching if people find the form factor “comfortable and helpful” before Sony starts “plowing on a thousand apps” or building a “Vaio Reader.” We don’t really know how much e-reader acceptance points to the demand for color multimedia tablets, but in regards to the (non-existant, ever-present) Apple Tablet, Stringer says “we’re all working on variations of the same thing.” Hopefully we’ll figure out what exactly he means by that before we grow old and start reading books or something horrible like that.

Sony staying conservative with Reader device, aware of current tablet mania originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joining Simon & Schuster and
Hachette Book Group (Stephanie Meyer, James Patterson) in delaying e-books months after their hardcover releases? HarperCollins, home to Neil Gaiman and the Lemony Snicket series. Beginning in 2010, five to ten books released each month will be given a physical head start lasting anywhere from four weeks to six months. Similar justification as before, the prevailing worry is that the cheaper digital copies so early in a title’s release will make for “fewer literary choices for customers” because publishers won’t be as willing to take a risk on new writers. It’s not necessarily the most sound of arguments, but still we can imagine some short term harm to the e-book industry. Question is, how long can these arbitrary delays last?

[Thanks, Joe]

HarperCollins now also thumbing nose at e-book industry with digital delay originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There was a definite moment of utter pre-launch confusion there, but it looks like the Barnes & Noble Nook is indeed shipping to customers — reader Peter just sent in this photo of his cold chilling on a desk. We’ll see if B&N can crank out the rest of its pre-orders before the holidays, but at least there’s hope now — and we can always tell you where Peter lives if that doesn’t work out.

[Thanks, Peter]

Barnes & Noble Nook now arriving to customers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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