Hasta La Gadget!

A shot of Kindle apps on the iPad. A sneak peak at what we can expect an Amazon tablet interface to look like? Photo courtesy Amazon

It looks like we could be getting an Amazon-branded tablet sooner rather than later, based on the latest reports on the retail giant’s plans.

According to DigiTimes, Amazon will launch its tablet PC models by August or September of this year. The company hopes to push four million units by the end of the 2011 holiday season.

Previous reports suggested that Amazon would be releasing two tablets, codenamed “Coyote” and “Hollywood”, before the end of the year. “Coyote” is tipped to feature an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, while “Hollywood” is purportedly built with Nvidia’s T30 “Kal-El” quad-core processor. DigiTimes claims that Amazon’s tablets will incorporate TI processors instead.

Amazon’s forthcoming tablets will also reportedly be accompanied with their own movie streaming service.

Amazon began its foray into the hardware space in 2007 with the debut of its Kindle e-book reader. Now in its third iteration, Amazon has proven its chops in the mobile device market with a loyal following of Kindle users, even snagging a piece of the iOS and Android party with Kindle iOS and Android apps (and a WP7 app as well).

Amazon solidified its stake in the Android platform in particular with the recent debut of its own Android app store, which would be an obvious choice to have baked in on an Amazon-branded tablet. That, paired with Amazon’s Cloud Drive music streaming service and the rumored movie streaming service, the tablets could be a veritable Amazonian tour de force in the tablet market, if they’re executed correctly.

Market research firms agree: Amazon would be the most credible threat to Apple’s dominance in the tablet arena.

And with Amazon’s focus on non-reading based media and entertainment services, its potential tablet offerings sound perfectly in line with CEO’s Jeff Bezos’ previous carefully-worded statements regarding new products like a tablet (if you need a refresher, he said we should “stay tuned” and that the company “will always be very mindful that we will want a dedicated reading device”).

With the recent rumors and reports, and Amazon’s latest activities, all signs seem to point to “yes,” we’ll be seeing an Amazon tablet in the next few months.

See Also:

• Amazon App Store Requires Security Compromise
• Amazon Launches Its Own Android App Store
• Tablet Wars: Amazon Adds Apps to Kindle

It may actually be impossible for the PlayBook to use Blackberry's email system

Is it possible that the lack of an email client on BlackBerry’s PlayBook is due to the fact that it is impossible to do? A rumor reported by Business Insider says that RIM has to rewrite its entire messaging architecture to get email and messaging onto the flailing tablet.

The problem, according to a source who spoke to a director of BlackBerry product management, is that BlackBerry accounts cannot support more than one device. When the back-end software was written, the designers never foresaw that a person would want to access their email from anything other than their single BlackBerry phone. Thus, it will require “significant work to make the BES [BlackBerry Email System] support multiple devices.”

This could be made even trickier by RIMs current transition to the new QNX software platform.

Bear in mind that this is a single-source rumor. It is, however, both plausible and interesting enough to pass on. Why else would RIM have shipped a business-targeted tablet without the company’s flagship feature?

The Real Reason There Was No Email On The BlackBerry PlayBook [Business Insider]

See Also:

• RIM Demos E-Mail, Android Apps on BlackBerry PlayBook
• Amid Carrier Uncertainty, Sprint Releases RIM PlayBook
• Oh RIM!
• DOA: Blackberry PlayBook to Ship Without Mail, Messaging or …

Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is starting to build a bit of a reputation for accurate Apple rumors, so you may be able to take this with a slightly smaller dose of NaCl: Kuo told AppleInsider that Cupertino’s allegedly ordered 380,000 of those new MacBook Air models with Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors on board, to be completed within the month. Of course, if Apple’s got its heart set on distributing silica scaffolding, it has to phase the existing Core 2 Duo variants out, and so the company’s reportedly finishing a final production run of 80,000 units now. If you happen to notice that your entire state is out of aluminum-clad ultralights, you know who to call!

Update: iPhone hacker Chronic claims the MacBook Air refresh could appear as soon as Wednesday morning.

Update 2: Never mind — Chronic says his sources were mistaken about the MacBook Air on Wednesday.

Apple boots Sandy Bridge-based MacBook Air into mass production? (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Jun 2011 22:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft gave us an early preview of Windows 8

Microsoft to date still hasn’t delivered a response to Apple’s iPad tablet, and the software leviathan might be taking matters into its own hands.

Sources at DigiTimes claim that Microsoft has talked with Texas Instruments and Taiwanese OEMS about possibly distributing a Microsoft-branded Windows 8 tablet by 2013.

According to the source, “Microsoft plans to copy its branding strategy from product lines such as Xbox 360, Zune, Kin smartphone and TV, to compete in the tablet PC segment.”

To date, the Microsoft-branded Xbox 360 line has been one of the company’s rare hardware success stories. Microsoft’s other hardware products haven’t had much luck: The Kin smartphone, Zune PMP, and Microsoft-branded televisions have, for lack of a better word, flopped. Microsoft revealed the core functionality of Windows 8 earlier this month at the D9 conference.

Microsoft didn’t return our request for comment. But company representative Frank Shaw did tweet this morning: “Nothing like starting the day with a hot steaming cup of speculation.”

The move seems unlikely from a business standpoint. Developing a Microsoft-branded tablet could sour its relationship with other Windows 7 and Windows 8 hardware suppliers, something that Microsoft can’t afford to lose. However, computer manufacturer Acer has already expressed discomfort about some of Microsoft’s tablet plans: The company’s CEO J.T. Wang claimed that Microsoft is imposing “troublesome” restrictions on makers of processors who are making Windows 8 tablets.

Wang didn’t elaborate on what those restrictions are. But it’s possible that Microsoft’s strategy with Windows 8 will be similar to its approach with Windows Phone 7, in which the company issues a strict list of criteria to phone manufacturers, requiring their handsets to contain specific hardware in order to run Microsoft’s operating system.

See Also:

• Windows 8 Tablet OS Is Just Windows 7 With a New Skin
• Microsoft Patching Up Windows Phone 7’s Ragged Update Process …
• How Microsoft Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on Windows Phone

Dutch tech site All About Phones claims that Google Maps Navigation will get a true offline mode later this summer. In December the Android app received an update that cached routes and the surrounding areas, but without a data connection you still couldn’t enter a new destination. A source inside the Dutch telco industry said that Goog would removing the requirement for coverage — an obvious next step for the nav tool, especially with Ovi Maps bringing its turn-by-turn prowess to WP7. The move is also bound to be another thorn in the side of standalone GPS makers like Garmin and TomTom. After all, it’s tough to compete with free.

Google Maps Navigation to get offline mode? Garmin and TomTom on notice originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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