Posts Tagged ‘personal electronics’

Amazon Introduces The Ability To Lend Kindle Books To Other Kindle Owners

Saturday, November 13th, 2010

A significant factor in the success of Amazon’s Kindle reader has always been the enormous number of Kindle titles on offer for customers to choose from. At the moment, Kindle owners can take their pick from more than 725,000 paid titles. Amazon also offer 1.8 million books which are now out of copyright and can be downloaded to the Kindle for free.

Apart from making huge volumes of reading material available for Kindle owners, Amazon has also gone out of its way to make it easy to read Kindle books without a Kindle reader. This has been done by making a number of Kindle apps which allow Kindle books to be read on a range of different devices freely available.

At the moment, free Kindle apps exist for the Windows PC, the Apple Mac, any device which runs the Android Operating System, the iPhone, the iPad and Blackberry’s smart phone. At first glance, it almost appears as if Amazon is setting up in competition to itself, but the truth of the matter is that each of these apps acts as a retail outlet for Kindle books.

Amazon has just announced that, in the near future, Kindle owners will be able to “lend” each other Kindle books. Amazon has not yet confirmed the exact date - but it should start prior to the year end.

Kindle users will have the option of lending Kindle books to their family and friends for a couple of weeks at a time. The “borrower” can read the book on their Kindle reader - just as if it was one of their own purchases. The original purchaser will be unable to access the book whilst it is “lent out”. Just the same as real book in point of fact.

It won’t be possible to lend every book. The publishers will have the final decision as to whether or not books may be lent. It will be interesting to learn how different publishing houses respond to this.

Amazon has also confirmed that its currently existing free Kindle apps will be extended to include magazines and newspapers in addition to Kindle books. The Apple devices will be activated first, followed by desktop applications and Android devices.

Over the last couple of years or so, the ebook reader and ebooks have really taken off. Although the ebook market is still developing and is at an early stage, the public already seems to have accepted ebooks. This latest development by Amazon brings ebooks even closer to the functionality of conventional books. Apart from balancing the leg of a wobbly table or pressing flowers, ebooks can now do just about anything that conventional books can. It’s another major step forward for ebooks and ebook readers, and it will help them to become even more widely accepted by the reading public.

Learn more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

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Points To Consider When Choosing An Ebook Reader

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

It’s now been three years since Amazon released their original Kindle reader. Notwithstanding the huge influence of the Kindle, it’s worth recalling that it wasn’t the first ebook reader to be launched. However, ebooks are now becoming accepted by the public - mainly due to the influence of the Kindle. Whether traditional printed books could eventually become obsolete or not is debatable - but it looks as if ebooks are here to stay.

However, many people are getting themselves an ebook reader. The recent ebook reader price cuts from Sony, Amazon and Barnes and Noble has made ebook readers a much more affordable option for a lot of consumers. The Kindle may well be the market leader, but there are other readers to choose from. So what should you look for if you’re considering buying your first ebook reader?

One of the most important factors that you need to consider is the quality of the display. Special e-ink technology displays are used in most ebook readers. This gives a reading experience that is surprisingly similar to reading text printed on paper. It’s considerably easier on your eyes than reading on a back-lit computer screen. It is also easy to read in direct sunlight or even glare from fluorescent lighting. A further advantage of e-ink technology displays is that they use power only when “turning the page” - so battery life is extended.

It’s tempting to go for the largest display possible. Obviously readers with larger screens have a higher ticket price than those with smaller displays. They are also physically larger of course - and they weigh more. This will impact upon the portability of the device. That may not represent a problem for you if it’s your intent to read mainly at home. However, a larger reader will be harder to operate with one hand - something which many users like to do.

One of the key factors in the success of the Kindle was its ability to browse for, buy and download books in less than sixty seconds from practically anywhere. Nevertheless, both Amazon and Barnes and Noble have now launched Wi-Fi only entry level models of their readers. These cost a little less than the 3G readers and could be a good option for anyone who doesn’t foresee the need to download books without using a computer or connecting via a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Obviously there’s not much point in having an ebook reader unless there’s a good selection of books to read on it. At the moment, no standard format for ebooks has been agreed. Google uses the ePub format - but Kindle books are in a format which is proprietary to the Kindle. However, Amazon has made free apps - which allow users to read Kindle books on a variety of different devices (e.g. the Windows PC, the Apple Mac, the iPhone, the iPad) - freely available.

Ebook prices can be vary dramatically across different readers. In fact, If you read a lot of books, then picking the right reader could potentially save you enough money on ebooks to make the reader pay for itself in a just a few months. Before you decide which reader to choose, it’s well worth checking.

Discover the Kindle reader for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

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Lower E-Book Reader Prices Could Signal The Start Of A New Pricing Policy In The Digital Publishing World

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Amazon has been an important, quite possibly the most important, player in the development of digital publishing using both their Kindle reader family and their huge library of Kindle books as development and marketing tools. November 2007 saw the launch of the original Kindle. Amazon followed up with the upgraded Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009, and the large display Kindle DX model launched in the summer of 2009.

The Kindle readers dominated the market and took a 60% share of all e-book reader sales in the USA. The Sony reader, which was actually launched in 2006 before the Kindle, followed in second place with a share of around 35%. Other companies saw the potential of the e-book reader market and launched or updated their own readers to get a slice of the pie.

Companies such as Sony, Barnes and Noble, Bookeen, Plastic Logic and iRex did their best to get their share of the new and fast developing e-book market, but the Kindle’s dominance looked to be pretty much unassailable. It wasn’t until the launch of the Apple iPad that the Kindle had any credible competition - even although the two devices were very different and would appeal, you would imagine, to different audiences.

Nevertheless, since the release of the iPad, e-book reader prices have pretty much gone into free fall. The Kindle 2.0, which retailed for $ 359 at its February 2009 launch is now priced at just $ 189. The Kindle DX, which has just had a mini makeover and now sports a new higher contrast screen, has had its price slashed from $ 489 to $ 379. Still a pricey piece of kit, but a lot cheaper than before and also way cheaper than even the entry level iPad (which also has a monthly connection fee associated with it). The price of the Barnes and Noble Nook reader has also dropped to just $ 199.

Whilst the price of e-book readers may be falling, the same cannot be said about the price of the e-books which these devices are used to read. Again, Apple had a hand in this. Apple had, in advance of the launch of the iPad, set up their own book store and negotiated a pricing deal with the major publishing houses which basically allowed them to fix the price of their e-book editions at whatever level they wished. The only rider being that they could not offer the same e-book version at a lower price on any other platform. This effectively put paid to Amazon’s policy of pricing e-books at $ 9.99 or lower and was very popular amongst the publishing companies.

Amazon may have had to abandon their low e-book price policy - but that wasn’t necessarily a disaster for them. Considering the way that Amazon have made it possible to read Kindle books on such a wide variety of different devices - you can use the PC, the Mac, the iPod Touch, the iPhone, the iPad, your Blackberry and any device which runs Android to read Kindle books right now (and no doubt there will be further additions in future) - it must be obvious that Amazon are more interested in book sales than hardware sales. The latest downward price movement for e-book readers and simultaneous price increase for e-books means that they can now sell the hardware for less and make their profit by selling e-books over the life of the hardware. The same will apply for Barnes and Noble and Apple themselves of course.

This trend may tend to favor companies which have a foot in both the book and hardware sales camps. Considering the current number of devices which can be used to read Kindle books, it looks as if Amazon will be a major player in the future of digital publishing for some time to come.

Learn more about Amazon’s Kindle reader for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

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Kindle Reader Further Price Cuts

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

It looked like Amazon had found the ideal product for their business model in the form of the Amazon Kindle reader. Its domination of the developing e-book reader market was almost complete. It achieved approximately a 60% market share (the Sony reader was second with a 35% market share), and it was difficult to see, despite the fact that almost every new reader that was released was instantly given the title of the “Kindle Killer”, where the competition was going to come from.

Then the Apple iPad came along and, although it is an entirely different device, it did look set to spoil the party somewhat. The iPad is not without some fairly major flaws of its own, and whilst most Apple devices seem to provoke a “love them or loathe them” response, the numbers of people who would buy almost anything with the Apple logo on it are certainly large enough to make a major dent in the sales of the Kindle.

It wasn’t just the fact that Apple were releasing new hardware, they also negotiated a deal with a number of the major publishing houses which allowed them to set the price of the e-book versions of their publications at whatever level they wanted. The only condition was that they could not offer the same e-book edition on any other online retailer for a lower price. This effectively put paid to Amazon’s policy of pricing all Kindle books at $ 9.99 or less and, since this deal was struck, it does look as if the average price of e-books has been edging steadily upwards.

It’s a different story with the actual e-book reader hardware however. Barnes and Noble have dropped the price of their Nook reader from $ 259 to $ 199. Amazon have now dropped the price of the Kindle 2.0 from $259 to $189 - a very low number considering that it retailed at $ 359 when it was launched in February of 2009. The price of the larger format Kindle DX has also been reduced from $ 489 to $ 379, an event which coincides with the device’s first upgrade which includes a higher contrast screen and a new body color.

Even the pricey DX model is now over $ 100 cheaper than the cheapest of the Apple iPad range. Neither does the iPad come with connection to the internet for free as is the case for the Kindle range. Of course, the iPad is much more than an e-book reader, so it may be that people are prepared to pay more for a more powerful and versatile device - even if it does have much poorer battery life and a less “reading friendly” screen (which excels for other applications).

It will be interesting to see whether this downward price movement of e-book readers is simply a temporary reaction to the iPad or whether it heralds the dawn of a new pricing policy. It could be that companies like Amazon and Barnes and Noble might take advantage of the trend for higher priced e-books by offering lower priced hardware secure in the knowledge that they will make their profit throughout the life of the device. Or it may simply be a stalling tactic until the next generation color Kindle hits the streets later this year.

Find out more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

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