Kindle – Time To Give Up (in a good way)

[Mad_Man_Moon]

Pixel Qi - What ALL Laptops Should Use
This tech should be looked at as the answer to Amazon's iPad problem.
Give up.

Promote the Amazon app for PCs, and partner with Dell/HP to release a netbook with a pixel qi screen, stop losing money on hardware manufacturing, and start making money through the software. You're already being held to ransom by the publishing houses (or will be if they start to follow what'stheirname's example), make this step, make it bold, and make it important, and you can begin to recoup lost ground.
I'd get the Amazon App if I had a PC with this on it. I'd also probably get a few other digital subscriptions, too ... which would (perhaps) be something else that they could look in to.

They could also partner with a slew of the new tablet makers, and produce an Android pad, or even (shock) a Windows 7 one!

Discuss!

[Rootfireember]

Amazon still has about 80% of the ebook market, last I read and aren't in as dire straits as you'd paint. You can already get an app, and read your amazon kindle books from a kindle, ipod, ipad, pc or mac, or android phone. In addition to the actual kindle device.
When more slates come out, I'm sure they'll have apps for those, as well. Why make another device specifically for it when the program's already out there for it?

[Mad_Man_Moon]

Good point.

What I was saying; is that the hardware (especially at the new discounted prices) can't be a huge winner for them right now. I don't mind being wrong on that account, but I thought that the mechanics with devices such as these are that they enable built in consumers of hardwired content, essentially bringing in the dough.
Now that iPad is around (and apparently selling rather well, but not exactly part of that market, so it's difficult to fudge statistics on) that's a slice of both the pie and the consumers that are probably elsewhere.

I'm just looking to the future, really.
I know all of those apps exist, for the current platforms available, but we don't have an android tablet yet, and if they can reduce the costs on the hardware, perhaps their earnings would rise.

No?

[Rootfireember]

mhmm.
-I will say it is nice to be able to read on my ipod or my pc and have it synch to where I left off. B&N says it does the same thing with their e-reader for ipod and pc, but I haven't gotten it to work *at all* yet. , and getting stuff to their e-reader's a lot less easy than one click and BAM it's on everything you have.


Editing:
I do wish the kindle itself looked better. The buttons could be a bit larger for the alphabet, it could be offered in different colors, etc, instead of making it look like a calculator from 1995... I mean. really. ANyone else out there think the kindle itself looks like a big old calculator?

[Mad_Man_Moon]

I don't like the look of the kindle, either.
Think that the DX is the better model, obvious, and looks much nicer in black.
Nice that they decided to allow PDFs, too, SIGH!

I was loving the iRex products, and I'm a bit sad they're not doing so well, but awesome tech. They were promising colour within a year from now.

[Rootfireember]

DX does look better. But...urgh. It still looks like a giant calculator.
Hopefully one day the normal kindle will have more dx-like styling soon.
And maybe color options. I can see that pumping out sales.

[Nicholas Smith]

I honestly can't see the Kindle selling to the mass market now. There's a niche for it, but average consumer will say "But I can buy an iPad and read books *and* my email *and* " so on. Amazon probably are more interested in selling the ebooks than hardware really, the Kindle was just an opening shot to get the market going.

[Mad_Man_Moon]

I honestly can't see the Kindle selling to the mass market now. There's a niche for it, but average consumer will say "But I can buy an iPad and read books *and* my email *and* " so on. Amazon probably are more interested in selling the ebooks than hardware really, the Kindle was just an opening shot to get the market going.

I know what you mean.
I wish it wasn't so, either.
Not for the kindle, fuck them, but for other ebook readers.

I just fundamentally know that LCD reading is a pain in the eye.


Not that I'm not actually for that. It's really good for getting one to sleep ;-)

[Nicholas Smith]

I'm in the same camp as Charles Stross, been reading on an LCD screen so long now it doesn't bother me. I started off by reading books on a greyscale with radioactive green backlighting, then worked all the way through 2 dozen different devices, and my eyes are in pretty good shape.

[Mad_Man_Moon]

I've been doing it for the past 10 years and it's still tiring.
Plus I work in front of one, then come home and hermit in front of one, so it's not like we're any different there.

Mind you, I don't have a cell/mobile phone, sdo perhaps I save some eye hours there.

My point still stands, I think, despite the irrelevant LCD tiring conversation ... the point is they should be selling product, not hardware (and they should be DRM free!)