Kindle News: The coming Amazon smartphone. Expanded textbook rentals? Reports on the Digital Book World Conference.

More rumors of an Amazon smartphone soon and a widening of Kindle textbook-rental offerings, plus reports on Digital Book World Conference

There aren't many news stories the last few days except the ones that say that, according to the usual Taiwan news sources, Amazon will release a smartphone by summer 2013 and that it'll probably cost between $100-$200 without the need for a long-term contract.  They suggest that Foxconn has already signed a deal and that the "initial order for the very first Kindle Smartphone is said to total 5 million units."

Without a contract? That would be a no-brainer for buyers who just see no need for the latest whizbang smartphone.  As one who enjoys the Samsung Galaxy S2, and its ability to give a few devices WiFi via the tethering feature, I wouldn't be one of that target market, but it's a big segment from what I've seen from friends and family who have no interest in the fancier phones but who do want a smartphone and who don't want to tie themselves down to a 2-yr plan to get a decent price.
  I did get my Samsung for a penny when Amazon Wireless had one of those specials.

  A big-selling smartphone would be another draw for app developers.


Speaking of apps...
 Business Insider's Business Intelligence is selling a full report on "How Amazon is Trying to Create A Huge Mobile Business" and offering a free trial on what would be a $300 to $400 yearly subscription for businesses needing that kind of information.  In the column describing this, they say:

' Software sales:  The Amazon Appstore has been a huge success on the Kindle Fire.  Developers make almost as much revenue per active user as they do on iOS, and Apple executives reportedly worry that Amazon's controlled, iTunes-like approach makes it more competitive than other app stores, including one operated by Google.

  Given strong early results, Amazon shouldn't have a hard time convincing developers to bring their apps to an Amazon phone. '

Amazon and book rentals? - an expansion of textbook rentals
There also has been some excitement about Amazon's apparent testing of book rentals (see Dave Zatz's "Zatz Not Funny" page for the first example cited).  I saw a couple of more rentable non-fiction Kindle books over the weekend but didn't note the names.  The kicker for those hoping that this will include novels is that every Kindle book noted, as well as the two I've seen, is a non-fiction book recommended for classrooms.

Textbooks have had rental plans at Amazon for some time.

I first explained how it works on July 19, 2011, in the blog entry "Amazon's Kindle Textbook Rentals - Up to 80% off"  And this is still something many families don't know about, so it's worth a read 1.5 yrs later.

 The recent ones, though, are "softer" textbooks in that they're not the heavy-duty $100+ textbooks you normally see but they're, so far, published by more academically-inclined publishers.  Would the Big5 publishers be interested in this for the fiction titles? We'll see, but I'm not optimistic.  Still -- better only a few dollars (for rental) than no dollars.

But for now it's good to see the alternative spelled out on the product page for some of the non-fiction books that are not the usual hardcore textbooks.


The Kindle Chronicles' Len Edgerly Details the Digital Book World Conference
The Kindle Chronicles' Len Edgerly offers an extremely thorough three days of detailed LIVE blogging of the DBW Conference that anyone interested in Publishing today should peruse.  This Conference and Expo took place January 15-17 in NY.

  It's capped off by the weekly podcast's interview segment, which this week involves seven interviewees at DBW, including David Burleigh from OverDrive (which handles the Public Library lending of e-books).

  Len links to the work of all those interviewed.  In that list, I saw that Paul Biba, Former Editor-in-Chief of Teleread, reported on the Conference also, as he has for years.  Paul's view of the proceedings is an intriguing read, describing what worked for attendees and what didn't.  You can also read other blog articles he's written for Goodereader.

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Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links.
NOTES on newer Kindles.

US: Updated Kindle Fire Basic  7" tablet - $159 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB - $199/$249 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16/32GB - $299/$369 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G 32/64GB - $499/$599 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $69/$89 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - $119/$139 Kindle Paperwhite, 3G - $179/$199 Kindle Keybd 3G - $139/$159, Free but slow web Kindle DX - $379 $299, Free, slow web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £69 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £89 Refurb'd Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - £109 Kindle Paperwhite 3G, UK - £169 Kindle Fire 2, UK -  £129 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB, UK - £159/199 Canada - Amazon Canada Kindle Basic, NoTouch - $89

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $89 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB France Boutique Kindle Deutschland - Kindle Store Italia - Kindle Store Spain - Tienda Kindle Brazil - Amazon Brazil China - Amazon China Japan - Amazon Japan

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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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-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Kindle 3 and Kindle 2 under Microscope. And More Photo Comparisons

From KEITH PETERS' MICROSCOPE:

Kindle 2, at 26x	Kindle 3, at 26x
Kindle 2 text, at 26x	Kindle 3 text, at 26x
Kindle 2 "m" vertical stroke, at 400x	Kindle 3 'm' vertical stroke, at 400x

A little over a week ago, we had Paul Biba's microscope comparison of his Kindle 3 and Kindle 2 at 10x and 60x magnifications.

Now we have Keith Peters' comparison of his Kindles 2 and 3, but at 25-26x and 400x.
  Keith was the one whose Kindle 2 and iPad font-magnification comparison earlier seemed to irritate some iPad users and he is sure this will be less controversial.

Here are only a few of his results -- I'm not linking to his original very large shots, to encourage people to click the links to Keith's report -- and when you click on each of his images at his site, they'll take you to the larger ones for closer examination.  His other images and full analysis are very interesting.

One thing he points out is that

' ...the microcapsules of E Ink are either spaced a bit further apart or somehow have some kind of dark border.  They are very distinct from each other, whereas the K3 capsules seem closer together with less of a noticeable border.  Thus, in the K2, the “white” areas still have so much dark border around them that the areas appear more gray than white, whereas in the K3, the white areas are more uniformly light. '

MORE SCREEN-SLEEPER COMPARISON IMAGES FROM KINDLE 2 AND 3




On the text photo, the way the light hit the lounger seemed to have an effect on the tint of the Kindle 2 bezel on the left, maybe because of the beige arm of the chair (not shown).  Both pictures are of the Kindles side by side.
  The larger version of the text photo gives a much better idea of relative contrast ranges.

  * Click on the screen-sleeper images to get the larger versions. *

I'll later add a photo of text that has both normal and bolded fonts.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

iPad as an e-reader? - Not in sunlight. Update3

Len Edgerly, host of the excellent TheKindleChronicles and TheReadingEdge podcasts, is also a long-time Apple fan, and then some.  You can read his Twitter tweets for the last two days to see just how much, as he was in line at 4:30am to get his iPad.  He loves it and has written and video'd first impressions.  The aspect that will interest readers of e-ink e-reader blogs is how the iPad does in direct sunlight, and the images borrowed for this blog entry leave little doubt on that.
  You can read the words in the original, larger image.

Len also did a video of his first impressions.  There is wind noise in the beginning but it clears up within a minute or so.  Near the beginning he shows the iPad and his Kindle (U.S.) side by side, outdoors.




Teleread's Paul Biba points us to an excellent article by Jane which, in addition to spelling out the beauties of the iPad, also draws needed attention to why it is not meant for reading in sunlight (where the Kindle does especially well).  Paul inserts the picture comparison and some text from Jane's report:

'`This is something that most reviews have skipped over:
"The iPad is fairly heavy. It weighs 1.5 pounds versus the Kindle’s 10.2 oz. Plus, it is unuseable in bright sunlight. You really, really need to have some shade to be able to see much of anything. You can see the comparison between the two. The indoor picture is the exact same screen, finger prints and all." '

The article by Jane has plenty of pro's for the iPad otherwise, so please read it.  The iBook reader app is beautiful indoors, though there is no note-making feature on it yet (doable on the Kindle app for iPad).


Since this is an image-happy blog entry, here's a delighful picture by the Denver Post.  The larger photo, slowly viewable upon a click, is done with Adoble Flash but, ironically, cannot be seen by iPad users due to lack of Flash support.

UPDATE 3 - APRIL 6, 2010 - 3:40 PM PM PST - Original posting was at 2:07 PM PST)
  While identifying the source, I somehow forgot to identify the two main people in the photo.  This is of Len and Darlene Edgerly, up early to get the iPad and enjoying what they see.  This is the same Len Edgerly who made the photos and video in the first section above, in his trials of using the iPad outdoors in sunlight.  Outside of that direct sunlight scenario, which Len and other Kindle users with iPads will be using their e-ink Kindle for, he is thrilled with his iPad, as you'll see in his Twitter stream that I linked you to.

 The Denver Post offers to let us share the larger photos from the slideshow, so I made a straight-viewable non-Flash version also, that iPad users can view.
  Your browser may reduce the size of this 950 pixels wide photo and, if so, then PC users can just press the function key, F11, to see it full screen and then press F11 again to get back the toolbars.  (You can also press "Ctrl" and "+" keys together to increase the size (PC) or "Cmd" and "+" keys (Apple).)  On a laptop you normally need to use a special function key-combo.

SUMMING UP
The readability in sunlight is a not-trivial consideration for those intending to read books outside when on errands or in an outdoor cafe or sunning somewhere.  Also almost all reviewers note the relative heaviness of this device for mainly-reading.  See the very thorough review by Melissa J. Perenson for Businessweek, which includes these aspects.

OTHER UNEXPECTED MISSING FEATURES (besides those covered earlier along with pricing analysis):
Printing
I was surprised to read that you can't print from the iPad basically - it's recommended that you send a document to a computer that will print it.  However, some are making special apps to provide printing.  I think iPad II will have a lot of features added to it.

(UPDATE APRIL 5, 2010 - 3:49 PM - Original posting was at 2:07 PM) - FURTHER UPDATE (#2) at 4:53 PM, thanks to commenters to this topic.
PDFs ARE NOT READABLE BY THE IPAD
I had actually been a little shocked to read in two places that the iPad had no native PDF support.  Thanks to Mary McManus and "Anonymous" for alerting me to the fact that apps are being sold (at reasonable prices) that deal with the PDFs.

It turns out that GoodReader handles both reading of original layout and reflowing of text.  There's an iAnnotate app that lets you add notes to a PDF and there's also something called ReaddleDocs that's more expensive, but GoodReader seems the current favorite at 99 cents.  That's impressive.

Will be back with more tonight.

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See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
Also, a page of links that confine searches to mid-range priced e-books. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!