The latest release of the Amazon Appstore allows owners of selected Android smartphones to try out some apps for free before buying them. Users can interact with select apps as though they had been downloaded, running them through Amazon's store. Amazon is planning to roll out the new feature for a wider selection of phones in the coming months.
Apple led the market in mobile PC shipments during the March quarter, at least when including the iPad, according to preliminary NPD data. The company shipped 17.2 million iPads and MacBooks, representing a 118 percent jump year-over-year, and 22.5 percent marketshare during Q1. About 80 percent of those units were iPads though, whereas the other top sellers succeeded on the basis of notebook shipments.
Amazon may delay the rumored 8.9-inch Kindle Fire and launch a 10.1-inch model instead. According to DigiTimes, sources speculate that the larger screen will help compete with the iPad, whereas the 8.9-inch variant was said to be designed to go against the Samsung Galaxy Note.
Amazon is engaged in talks with a number of advertising agencies in the hopes of getting them to sign on in backing an ad-supported version of the retailer's Kindle Fire tablet, a source familiar with the discussions has told AdAge. If implemented, the ad-supported model could push prices even lower for Amazon's already budget-priced tablet.
Amazon is preparing to release a front-lit version of its Kindle e-reader and a new, bigger version of its Kindle Fire tablet, a source tells Reuters. The source claims to have seen prototypes for the devices, and says they will likely be released in July. A front-lit Kindle e-reader would allow users to read in the dark without the need for an external light attachment.
A 2010 video has surfaced of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs prognosticating that e-books would eventually wind up around the same price on most competing e-book stores. The video comes as the Justice Department pursues its e-book lawsuit against Apple and two other publishers for alleged price-collusion. Depending on one's interpretation of the video, Jobs' statement could imply foreknowledge of publisher plans or just industry canniness, and could even figure in the Justice Department's case.
Despite the popularity of Apple's iPad and competing tablets such as the Kindle Fire, some consumers still pine for color e-readers. Amazon, maker of the Kindle, top seller among e-readers, has flirted with the idea, but previously maintained that the technology wasn't ready yet for a quality color reading device. Now, sources tell Digitimes, color E Ink technology may finally have reached a satisfactory level of sophistication, and Amazon is said to be preparing to roll out a color Kindle in the second half of 2012.
First introduced at Mobile World Congress, Nokia's Reading app and related e-bookstore for the Windows Phone-powered Lumia range of smartphones will launch in Europe. The two will reach users in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and the UK, PaidContent reported. The idea is to bring local-language e-books to markets that haven't yet seen a widespread adoption of the medium.
Amazon will be providing the Harry Potter series of books to users of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library in the near future. The all-time bestselling book series has been licensed from JK Rowling's Pottermore, and joins the existing 145,000 titles already available for reading.
The Spring top 100 edition of the ForeSee e-retailer satisfaction index has been released. Notable findings are Amazon leading at 89 percent, besting Apple by four percentage points. Newegg trails Apple by three points while Netflix is recovering some lost ground after several summer public relations and marketing disasters. The survey is the result of 21,000 responses from visitors to the top 100 retail websites by revenue.
After setting the tablet scene alight in Q4 last year with 4.8 million tablet sales and taking the number two position in the market with a 16.8 percent market share, Amazon’s Kindle Fire sales fizzled in Q1. For the months of January, February and March this year, Amazon saw its Kindle Fire slide to just a 4 percent market share on with less than 750,000 sales. By contrast, Apple drove home its advantage as the market leader by growing its Q4 market share of 54.7 percent to a dominant 68 percent on the back of 11.8 million iPad sales.
Although Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet achieved a quick rise in the tablet market, Android tablet shipments have continued to slide, according to a report published by research firm IDC. As expected, Apple has solidified its dominant position with 68 percent of the tablet market.
Amazon's Studios division has announced plans to develop original comedy and children's series. The company is currently calling on series creators and writers to submit their proposals for the streaming video programming, which will be distributed through Amazon Instant Video.
Amazon has finally released desktop apps for its Cloud Drive service. The utilities, which are available for Windows and Mac machines, enable users to manage Cloud Drive content and upload documents, images or other files without using the web-based interface.
Retail chain Target has confirmed that it will stop carrying Amazon Kindle e-book readers online and at its stores, along with getting rid of all Amazon-branded accessories and gear. The news comes from a leaked internal memo obtained by The Verge and a further confirmation from the retailer. There are no specific official reasons given as to why the move is happening, citing only a "conflict of interest."
The insistence on having no lower prices at e-book stores has had a conspicuous if brief casualty, according to an account. Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger shared with the New York Times that he had had his sequel book, After Friday Night Lights, pulled by Amazon after it was chosen by Starbucks as a Pick of the Week and given away through Apple's iBookstore for free through redemption codes. Amazon's automatic price check forced the Kindle price to zero, leaving online publisher Byliner.com no choice but to pull the book if it didn't want Bissinger to lose money and jeopardize the Starbucks deal.
Amazon has settled a dispute with the state of Texas over $269 million in unpaid sales taxes between 2005 and 2009. The settlement terms require the company to create jobs in the state and collect sales tax beginning in July.
Amazon on Thursday recorded a significant hit to its profit for the first quarter of 2012. Its net income dropped 35 percent from year-to-year, to $130 million. Net sales were still up 34 percent to almost $13.2 billion, setting a new high.
Amazon's Kindle Fire now makes up the absolute majority of the Android tablet platform in the US, comScore found in a fresh study. The e-reader and tablet crossover represented 54.4 percent of all Android tablets sold in the country. At second place, the entire Samsung Galaxy Tab lineup comprised just 15.4 percent of Android slates.
Both the look and the release date for the Xbox 360 Celebration Pack were briefly visible online today, as Amazon.co.uk accidentally posted the information online. VideoGamer.com discovered the online leak, now removed, which revealed a Union Jack-skinned console, Kinect sensor, and controller.
Spotify might be gearing up a more formal Internet radio option, a pair of sources claimed Thursday. While it already has basic radio features, the new method outlined to Bloomberg would be more akin to one like at Pandora or Slacker, where explicitly labeling it as radio would get government-regulated lower royalty rates. The method would also purportedly get it access to artists that normally wouldn't sign for the usual on-demand Spotify system.
Expanding the Send to Kindle line started by Send to Kindle for PC, Amazon today unveiled Send to Kindle for Mac. Send to Kindle for Mac is a lightweight application occupying 18.5MB of hard drive space. A user drops supported documents on the dock item to automatically send them over Whispernet or WiFi to a registered Kindle device or iOS application.
A new long-term estimate by Forrester Research has painted a strong picture for Apple in the tablet space. It saw Apple keeping its lead even up to 2016, when it saw the iPad having 53 percent of the space. A total of 760 million tablets would ship that year.
Amazon on Monday launched its AmazonSupply beta online store that offers industrial, business, commercial, and scientific supplies such as fasteners, beakers, gloves, brooms, tools, and more. The offerings are split up into 14 different categories and more than 500,000 individual items available for purchase. A 365-day return policy is in effect to help make shoppers feel more comfortable with the buying experience.
Sony on Sunday said it was on the verge of shipping its most advanced Blu-ray player for the year, the BDP-S790. The networked movie hub is due to reach stores May 6. Pre-orders are starting now for the player, which costs $250.
The Samsung Galaxy S III may have had a handful of technical features given out with a tentative listing at Amazon Germany. The placeholder has few details, but it claimed a possibly contradictory 12-megapixel camera, unlike the eight-megapixel example that emerged in Vietnam just on Friday. A 4.7-inch Super AMOLED display and 16GB of built-in storage are at least close to the details of the prototype.
Amazon gave a minor treat to readers by shipping the Kindle Touch 3G to international buyers a week ahead of the official April 27 date. A total of 175 countries, including Canada, European countries, and most others worldwide, can have the e-paper reader shipped locally. Every country gets free 3G, although book prices usually carry a slight price hike when bought on 3G outside of the US.
The US lawsuit over e-book pricing was quietly preceded by civil lawsuits in Canada. An interview with Quebec attorney Normand Painchaud confirmed to the Montreal Gazette that he had asked for class action status on a lawsuit against Apple and the same five major publishers targeted by the US government. Other lawsuits have been filed in the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario.
Amazon Web Services has introduced a "one-click deployment" software store for its users. The AWS Marketplace allows customers to buy and deploy web-based software directly onto Amazon's IT infrastructure.
Apple on Wednesday stated that its confronting a Department of Justice lawsuit over e-book pricing was deliberate. Attorney Daniel Floyd told Judge Denise Cote that Apple believed the lawsuit was "not an appropriate case" and wanted to prove itself in court. The company wanted this to be "decided on the merits," Reuters heard while observing Floyd at a hearing.
Taiwan-area contract manufacturers claimed Wednesday that Intel and Microsoft have ambitious aims of reducing the iPad's dominance of tablets. The Digitimes contacts understood the Wintel combination wanted the iPad down from 70 percent share, as it has had in the past, to under 50 percent by mid-2013. For Intel, Lenovo's strength in its native China would be a key factor.
The cross-platform Read It Later mobile app, which allows users to save web content for offline reading, has now been renamed to Pocket. What's more, the app has become free in the process. The app is available for Android and iOS devices as well as a version optimized for the Kindle Fire's version of Android.
Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft are among companies Greenpeace is criticizing in a new report on sourcing clean power for datacenters. The activist organization has rated a little over a dozen Internet-based companies on factors like their consideration of clean power when picking a location, their advocacy for the idea, and how transparent their clean power strategy is. Apple and Amazon have each been given Fs for their location choices; some examples are Apple's datacenter in North Carolina, and Amazon's presence in Northern Virginia, both of which are said to be dependent on a mix of coal and nuclear power.
Audiobook retail giant Audible recently announced a major initiative aimed at getting authors to self-publish through Audible. The move will make available $20 million for direct payment to authors using Audible's services.
Amazon drew flak on Thursday after it was accused of and later confirmed inflating its Amazon Prime video catalog. The company acknowledged to Fast Company that it counts each individual TV episode as a show, leading to even just one long-running TV series representing a large part of its catalog. A roster of 17,000 titles claimed by Amazon amounted to 1,875 titles, all but 150 of which were movies.
Apple after silence through the past two days responded Thursday to the Department of Justice lawsuit over alleged e-book pricing collusion. Spokesman Tom Neumayr flatly rejected the accusations when asked for comment by AllThingsD, recapping the company's objections to the European Union that the iBookstore was beneficial as it was created. The iPad-focused store kept Amazon from having excessive control and improved e-books themselves, Neumayr said, pointing out that the move beyond the Kindle format also upgraded books themselves.
Google chief Larry Page hinted at a shift in his company's Android tablet strategy during his company's quarterly results call on Thursday. When asked about what Google would do to improve Android's poor showing on tablets, he believed that most success would come at the lower end of the market. Google was "quite focused" on the category, he said, without saying what that meant.
Barnes & Noble leapt quickly on rumors by unveiling the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight. The reader is the first to merge e-paper with edge lighting that evenly illuminates the screen in the dark without needing an add-on or an outside light. The trick is meant for couples that don't want to interrupt a sleeping partner, but it also has an advantage for anyone that doesn't want to buy a clip-on reading light.
Amazon has a hefty update available for the Kindle Touch. The upgrade to 5.1, released today, enables switching from portrait to landscape orientation and Bing powered language translation of highlighted text.
The Australia Competition and Consumer Commission is considering taking the same path that the US Department of Justice did in confronting Apple and publishers over e-book pricing. Regulators have been asking Australian retailers whether they thought publishers were rigging pricing in the country. There were "competition concerns" whenever a company wanted to curb the ability to put a product on sale, the agency said.
Samsung late Wednesday detailed the US launch plans for a trio of its main Android tablet devices for the year. The Galaxy Tab 2 line will come to the US in both 7.0- and 10.1-inch forms with their dual-core 1GHz processors, Android 4.0, three-megapixel rear camera and VGA front cameras intact. The two are considered lower-cost versions of original Galaxy Tab ancestors but do have unique support for infrared remote control using Peel's Smart Remote app.
Barnes & Noble looks likely to preempt Amazon's front-lit Kindle with an e-reader of its own. A leaked instance of in-store signage at The Digital Reader shows the Nook Simple Touch getting "GlowLight," a nickname for a system that evenly illuminates the display despite coming from the edges. Although not mentioned in the ad, the effect is easier on the eyes than an LCD backlight.
(Updated with settlement news) As suspected, the US Department of Justice has sued Apple and publishers over claims of unfair e-book pricing. The complaint accuses Apple of colluding with publishers by both requiring a switch to an agency model, where publishers set the prices and ask for more, as well as demanding "most favored nation" status where no rival could have a lower price than the iBookstore. Some publishers are believed to have settled, but Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster are all targeted.
Macmillan CEO John Sargent in an open letter blasted the Department of Justice for its e-book antitrust lawsuit. He insisted that his publishing company had "done no wrong" and that he, alone, had Macmillan switch to an agency model that hiked e-book prices. Revealing more than the DOJ had mentioned itself while confirming rumors, he said talks had broken down after "months" and that the DOJ's terms would allegedly let Amazon go back to the wholesale model and unfairly dominate through artificially low prices.
A pair of sources said Tuesday that the Department of Justice may sue Apple over its e-book pricing concerns as soon as tomorrow, April 11. Deals were being wrapped up with "several" publishers this week, Reuters had heard, but Apple wasn't in discussions and could face legal action soon. No final decision had been made, which given the timing could see a lawsuit moved until later.
Amazon gave Appstore developers an important catch-up on Tuesday through support for in-app purchases. Its custom Android store now uses the same 1-Click engine to handle buying content as for the apps themselves. The switch preserves the typical 70 percent royalty paid to developers and only restricts things such as solely extra-app purchases, illegal or "offensive" material, and virtual currencies that could be exchanged between users.
The combination of a leak and discoveries has revealed that Amazon is likely developing a unique illuminated E Ink screen. A source showing a disguised prototype in person to TechCrunch had an adjustable screen that evenly lit up with a cool light. The effect was like that of a white LED, but softer and easier to read, according to the anecdote.
Google gave notice Thursday that it was ending its e-book reseller program. The effort, which let physical retailers and other third parties resell from Google Play Books, had "not gained the traction" Google wanted. A current set of 16 partners would be phasing out as the service wound down by the end of January.
Amazon has created a new offshoot in its Kindle Store dedicated to Spanish-languague eBooks. Appropriately named eBooks Kindle en Español, the site offer just Spanish eBooks and new features that are meant to cater to Spanish-speaking, US-based customers. These include help pages, phone, and e-mail support in Spanish.
Talk of a 7.85-inch iPad was revived again after historically accurate John Gruber mentioned in a podcast that it was supposedly still in testing. He told The Talk Show co-host Dan Benjamin that he had heard from numerous insiders that the smaller size was "one of the ideas they're noodling with." The design he understood had the same 1024x768 resolution as the iPad 2, just scaled down to the lower physical size.
