Is the Amazon Kindle For Real?

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Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
People are currently paying ridiculous amounts of money for these devices on eBay. They once again sold out on Amazon.com (there is a 11 to 13 week long wait list).



Is the Amazon Kindle for real or is it one of the most creative marketing schemes in a long time?



Dave

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  • Reply 1 of 8
    irelandireland Posts: 17,802member
    Quote:

    Is the Amazon Kindle for real



    Define 'real' in this context.
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  • Reply 2 of 8
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,464member
    It's cool



    But the success is coming from the hype generated from Oprah.
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  • Reply 3 of 8
    dave k.dave k. Posts: 1,306member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    Define 'real' in this context.



    A product that many consumers want or need.
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  • Reply 4 of 8
    irelandireland Posts: 17,802member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dave K. View Post


    A product that many consumers want or need.



    Define many. Why not say what you really want to say?
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  • Reply 5 of 8
    Amazon is serious about it, if that's what you are asking. The 2nd gen version should be out early next year.
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  • Reply 6 of 8
    Marvinmarvin Posts: 15,585moderator
    I get the feeling people aren't so much interested in the Kindle as the service of buying electronic books. I've seen some books on the iphone and it's fine for reading on but the selection is far too small.



    Battery life isn't an issue as I've used the iphone for about 4 hours straight with the display on and playing music constantly and the battery dropped by about 1/3rd. It's not the 24 hour battery life touted by Kindle but it'll do between 8-12 hours easily and that's enough between charges IMO.



    The kindle also has no backlight so if you are next to a partner in bed, your light has to be on unlike with the iphone or ipod touch.



    The iphone/ipod are smaller but looking at the real-world size, not that much smaller:



    http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/our-kindl...bed-325939.php



    Kindle doesn't have wifi either nor does it have color for books that might have the odd image like a book about artists and their work for example or comic books.



    I really think that Apple are missing out by not having ebooks as an itunes store category. Simply offer color versions of Calvin & Hobbes etc and Kindle can't compete. You'd hold the screen in landscape mode and scroll down a single page at a time. Then simply swish to the left to flip to the next page like you do in the photo app.
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  • Reply 7 of 8
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    I really think that Apple are missing out by not having ebooks as an itunes store category. Simply offer color versions of Calvin & Hobbes etc and Kindle can't compete. You'd hold the screen in landscape mode and scroll down a single page at a time. Then simply swish to the left to flip to the next page like you do in the photo app.



    There is a whole top level Book category in the App Store.
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  • Reply 8 of 8
    Marvinmarvin Posts: 15,585moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aresee View Post


    There is a whole top level Book category in the App Store.



    Yeah but like I was saying, the selection is way too small and it's not really Apple providing the books or the readers:



    http://appengines.com/bookreader.html



    968 books total on the App Store and over 150 are religious, another 100 Japanese books. The AppEngines seller has the most varied collection of books but only has about 200 and mainly the classic books. The Amazon store had 90,000 titles ready for the Kindle launch.



    I think Apple need to make a standard reader and use a standard ebook distribution format. Surely they can link up with some major publisher while also allowing distribution in the standard format.
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