Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

It’s a busy, busy start to October for Kindle rumors and Kindle news -

1. Vook have launched. I’ll be adding reviews soon and it does seem well thought out – you can buy a vook online for $6.99 or as an app on your iPhone for $4.99.  
2. Everyone is talking about how Kindle UK will launch next week (TimesOnline makes the jump of taking it for guaranteed). It was the same story in September beginning, and last year, and eventually at some point everyone is going to be right, and then they’ll claim they got it right first. Meanwhile, Amazon UK is wondering what to do with its marketing budget. Welcome to Apple style free marketing Amazon.
3. By the way, look at this little gem which is the source of all the rumors - 
   

   An Amazon.com source said: “The key things they needed to tie up have been tied up. The rumours I’ve heard are all saying next week.”

4. Amazon settled the Kindle 1984 lawsuit with the student getting … wait for it … $30. His lawyers got $150,000 which is supposed to be given to charity (Rumors are it’ll be the Waste Everyone’s Time for Nothing Foundation).
5. The students at Princeton aren’t liking their Kindle DX very much – apparently the difficulty in taking notes is severely curtailing their enjoyment of the devices. Every other university is still in testing mode and Princeton is already panning the Kindle DX - perhaps Jeff Bezos should have left out his alma mater.  
6. Jessie Kunhardt at Huffington Post thinks the ebook revolution is missing the big opportunity i.e. adding on more book readers. She’s under-estimating the Trojan Horse of ‘Kindle as textbook/periodical reader’ which will get people into reading and into reading books.  
7. PVI had to change the terms of their eInk acquisition after shareholders complained. It makes zero sense to sell a company when you’re in a market that is exploding and shareholders will really miss out long term.

The pace of announcements is definitely getting quicker and as we jump to Apple’s Tablet things get even busier.

Apple iReader Rumors continue to spike

Just when you think there would be something more interesting to talk about (such as Snow Leopard which is already out) the Apple blogosphere goes back to Apple’s iTablet/iReader -

1. A really good article (in general, not just for breaking news) on 10 details on the new Apple Tablet at iLounge -
   

   * 10.7″ screen and a 3G and a non 3G version.
   * Runs iPhone OS.
   * Its designed as a slate like replacement for books and magazines, plus all of the media, gaming, app, and web functionality of the iPhone and iPod touch.

   Reports that it will be announced Jan 2010 and sell starting May 2010.

2. Gizmodo says Apple will ‘redefine print’ and claims that Apple has had meetings with newspapers, textbook publishers, and magazine publishers -
   

   Two people related to the NYTimes have separately told me that in June, paper was approached by Apple to talk about putting the paper on a “new device.”

   A person close to a VP in textbook publishing mentioned to me in July that McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press are working with Apple to move textbooks to iTunes.

   Apple also recently had several executives from one of the largest magazine groups at their Cupertino’s campus, where they were asked to present their ideas on the future of publishing.

   Apparently everyone except book publishers have an invite to the party Apple is throwing.

3. Apple rehired one of the original developers of the ‘groundbreaking but failed’ Newton personal digital assistant. Personally, would stay away from calling a failed product ‘groundbreaking’ – However, the NY Times can get away with things other people would get blasted for.  

Much more interesting to me is that Apple bought Placebase, a mapping company, in July – it probably means that Apple replaces Google Maps with its own product i.e. PlaceBase. It would be a little comeuppance for all the Google Voice drama Google have subjected Apple to recently.

500K Public Domain Books

Teleread has the news that the NY Public Library and Kirtas Books have teamed up to make 500 thousand public domain books available on demand.

They can be converted on demand into ebooks for you or printed out -

1. $1.95 for ebook. 
2. $8.05 for soft cover. 
3. $18.05 for Hard Cover.

It’s really good that more and more companies are providing this option.

Filed under: kindle, news Tagged: | kindle rumor