 A relaxed Jeff Bezos at this year's event |  8.9" Kindle Fire HD image projected onto large screen. |
 Making money from USE of the device |  Comparing Kindle and iPad limited data-plan costs. |
They say a picture is worth 10,000 words. I hope so, since my WiFi access there was lost easily and I gave up, as did a couple of people behind me who resorted to pen and paper :-)
I relied on my cameras. These are 4 from the 19 that I've put up at the photo site (no editing done, but I adjusted brightness/contrast), which were taken during moments that stood out for me. Explanations are in the captions there.
I took continuous video, rather than fragments, of most of the Kindle Fire presentation (there was a LOT of information to take in there but I was able to take still pictures with the same camera while doing so -- and while the video will help me remember details I forgot, there is an official pro video of the event anyway. Mine is from the audience perspective, and if it has anything of real interest, I'll upload it this weekend as an alternate view.
The 19 photos I uploaded at PBase are of various points that impressed me. Except for an SD card slot, my expectations were exceeded, once I saw how they are able to get, on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, the speed advantages they claim over even the iPad 3 as well as the Nexus when it comes to downloading and streaming.
The synchronizing of so much now, the visual and audio qualities, and the many extra features will need to be given more attention, and I'll do that after I give summaries (next blog entry later in the day) for each model. You're getting plenty of summaries everywhere else anyway and I'll focus on what it all means for Kindle owners used to some of the older features not found on other e-readers and likely to appreciate the new ones coming and try to explain the differences between the many offerings.
Those differences between the models and the value each person might find from any of them over other ones with different options, will vary quite a bit.
Will try to do a simpler summary before leaving SoCal at noon.
A recommendation: I was seated next to Jordan Crook from TechCruch, who didn't miss a second of it (I think she was one of those using MiFi to connect), and she and cohorts wrote some terrific summaries of the key points. I got a kick out of her opener, which was funny because it was true, and I do have many photos of the whole scene there, which I'll upload later on.
' From outside a massive hangar in Los Angeles, California, grown men and women — members of the press — just literally ran into the venue for Amazon’s special 2012 press event. 'Her well-written, humorous account of her hands-on account of the new 7" Kindle Fire HD models is excellent.
And my reaction to the info on these was pretty much the same. We had free rein to give those models and the Paperwhite e-Ink devices a workout ourselves. Only the Amazon VPs could touch the 8.9" ones and they demo'd them pretty fully except that I don't know if they were really connected to WiFi or were pure demonstrations with all code run from the models, as they won't be ready for shipping until November. &bsp;The Text-View is beautiful on those (I did not like the one for my Kindle Fire for Nat'l Geo and kept my NookColor all this time for JUST that one feature, as it had been clearer and a bit smoother).
Her fellow co-TechCruncher Darrell Etherington has a concise, effective report on the 8.9" Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE etc.
Something unusual
I managed to get an interesting nugget on the Paperwhite but will save that for the next blog article.
Kindle Fire Carousel
Unfortunately, for the many who dislike it, the Kindle Fire Carousel will still hold everything with the same one-time deletion capability but the item will reappear the next time you use it. That information about wanting no 'options' on the Carousel was from VP Dave Limp. In a way, it's the only way to 'see' items in an archive on that device, but some have HUGE collections of Kindle books.
Collections
I heard no word about Collections. If I missed something on that, let me know.
Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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Just like you said, there's a lot of info around, but we know you manage to compile everything that's important, so thank you in advance :)
ReplyDeleteHope the raw notes posted later help a bit, Corneliu.
DeleteThanks mic for the encouragement :-) Wow, there is so much involved in this batch of announcements.
Since I'm pre-ordering the Paperwhite ASAP, I'd sure like to get an answer to: "I managed to get an interesting nugget on the Paperwhite but will save that for the next blog article", ASAP. Thxs......
ReplyDeleteMark, it's exceedingly positive, but I have to look up a reference to things I wrote in order to make it clearer why it's important. I'll be doing that this afternoon. I'd do it now but have to make the airport timing (which is conservative but the shuttle doesn't run that often they say).
Delete