Kindle News 10/25/11 - UPDATE - 39 free Kindle books Tuesday. Also, Kindle Fire, Amazon customer service, Steve Jobs's cancer.

KINDLE FIRE SELLING FASTER THAN EXPECTED BY J.P. MORGAN

Mobile Entertainment's Zen Terrelonge writes today that J.P. Morgan is "eating its words" that the Kindle Fire wouldn't do well relative to the iPad, and the financial services firm's hardware team now projects that Amazon will move 4.5 to 5 million devices in the 4th quarter.

  This is based on checks of supply chains that show production on this model has increased due to a large number of pre-orders and vendors reporting "an abundance of rush orders over the past fortnight."

  Douglas Anmuth, an internet analyst there who monitors Amazon, anticipates several models in 2012, including 7" and 10" devices with 3G and WiFi.

  One J.P. analyst disagreed saying the tablet is under-featured, something that was said about the iPad last year too.  Consumers seem to have different requirements from those with a largely technical focus, from what has been seen in pre-orders.  Other articles have explained that the minimum iPad cost of $500 has been more than some want to spend, and some want a smaller, maybe more personal style tablet for web browsing and email.

  Considering the streaming media content that Amazon offers (12,000 streamig-videos, including more current PBS ones, that come with Amazon's Prime package of free two-day shipping on most products for $79/yr ($6.58/mo.), it's not a surprise that this new, smaller tablet is doing so well on pre-orders.

  Amazon currently has over 100,000 movies and tv shows at a time that Netflix has lost about 800,000 subscribers due to their pricing decisions.  Despite better earnings than expected, Netflix stock plunged.  I'm a fan of Netflix's streaming video library, though, which works well through my Comcast.  At least we have several options these days.


Amazon expected to to show a profit dip this quarter due to low margins (if any) on the Kindle Fire
Slashgear's Chris Davies reports that some believe Amazon is taking a loss on the Kindle Fire, relying instead on resulting digital media sales to be enjoyed on the tablet.

Geeky-gadgets's Roland Hutchinson writes that Google's Andy Rubin has said there were around 6 million Android tablets out there, so if Amazon sells as many the next quarter as most analysts are expecting, the Kindle Fire would be the most popular Android tablet released so far.

  In the meantime ViewSonic will launch the 7" ViewPad 7e tablet soon, with several more features but an inferior display (800x600) and touchscreen ("resistive").  While Amazon should welcome the release of more tablets that can access their content, I imagine they'll be customizing (beyond the special accelerating features of the Silk browser on the Fire) content for their own tablet.


Reviews of Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson (Fixed link)
SecondAct's Patrick J. Kiger has a good summary round-up of reviews of Isaacson's book, which Amazon thinks could be the year's bestseller.

A couple of observations from the roundup:
  His summary of NY Times critic Janet Maslin ends,"Isaacson also explains that Jobs' mean streak, unpleasant as it was, also helped drive Apple to its phenomenal success."

  Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams focuses, he writes, on Jobs's controversial decision of postponing conventional medical treatment for a tumor in 2003.  As a cancer survivor, who knows how unpredictable cancer can be (and how unnecessarily destructive some treatments), I noted her sensible, "Jobs lived eight years after his initial diagnosis.  Anyone with experience of cancer will tell you that five is considered a relative triumph."

  I've known many who obeyed all the doctors' recommendations, and even when after the requisite operations their lymph nodes were diagnosed to be free of spread beyond the local area and they were announced to be cancer free, they were given chemo for 'prevention' and were dead in a few months to two years.  Others fare well.  It's just not utterly predictable as has been presented by too many about Jobs' cancer.

  I think people should get off his case, post mortem, for his personal decision though of course he would wonder what would have happened had he had the operation.  Not only did he survive 8 years with the less aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, he led a quite productive life during those 8 years.


CBS News story on Amazon's good customer service noted on Reddit (Link fixed)
CBS News's Chenda Ngak writes about a Reddit thread and Ngak's own experience with customer service.  I've posted a link to a recent customer support forum thread on the Kindle forums.


Tuesday's free Kindle books
UPDATED on Wednesday to show each book link for Tuesday, since most will stay free for a few days.  These will be shown on the 'next' page showing "More", so that those wanting to go through the details can do so by: clicking on "MORE" just below)
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