No, we still don’t have any word from Amazon on where it stands with a smartphone, but it’s definitely making its mobile ambitions clear anyway. Today, the e-commerce giant took two more steps in its strategy to scale up its Kindle Fire tablet business. It announced that it will now sell the two higher-end versions of the device, the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9″, in 170 countries. And it… → Read More
Amazon just announced that it is adding its X-Ray feature to TV shows. The feature already worked with movies thanks to data from IMDb, but the company will now use this very same data for other video content. The entire Kindle Fire family will receive the feature and the Amazon Instant Video app on Wii U will get is as well. As a reminder, X-Ray allows you to discover more about the content you… → Read More
How low will Amazon’s tablets go? We’re now hearing that a $99 Kindle Fire 7″ tablet is in production, and will be shipping this year. At a price that low, the Kindle Fire would be able to more easily compete at the tail end of the Android-based tablet market – an area which is today dominated by low-cost tablets out of China, often sold at the sub-$100 price point. → Read More
Amazon introduced Whispercast for Kindle back in October of 2012, and now the service is getting an update that allows it to deploy not just books and documents, but also apps. that means organizations like schools and businesses can now widely deploy apps across a number of Kindle Fire devices quickly and easily. → Read More
Amazon just announced that it would be dropping the price of the 8.9-inch version of its Kindle Fire HD. The tablet will now cost $269 for the Wi-Fi only version and $399 for the Wi-Fi and LTE version. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ is now available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan as well. Canada won’t get the device this time around. → Read More
Google just announced that it is rolling out a new design for its Gmail mobile web app for Android, iOS, Blackberry and Kindle Fire. The new design looks very similar to Gmail’s recently relaunched iOS apps, with a generous amount of whitespace and larger fonts and icons. The web app now also features Gmail for iOS’s improved search tool and calendar integration. This means the mobile… → Read More
Barnes & Noble last week noted that Q3 Nook revenues were down some 28% over last year on a hardware slump, but the company also saw a rise of 13.1% on content sales — and today it’s announcing some key deals that it hopes will boost that line of business even further. Today the retailer announced deals with Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, Relativity Media, National Geographic, Little Pim and… → Read More
Android tablets have nearly caught up to iPad devices as the world’s most popular tablet platform, and some project that they may even overtake iPads later this year. According to new research from app analytics company Localytics, the U.S., and specifically Amazon, should take the most credit for that trend: some 59% of all Android tablet usage came from the U.S., with over half of that… → Read More
Mobile ad network Chitika measured traffic from tablets and smartphones via impressions on both the period leading up to Christmas and the period immediately following, and found a few devices grew their share significantly, while others didn’t fare so well. The iPhone 5 was the top gainer in smartphones, growing 1.11 percent overall following Christmas day; the Samsung Galaxy S III also grew 1… → Read More
Amazon today announced a feature meant to entice more Android developers into bringing their applications to Amazon’s Appstore platform: A/B testing for Android applications. What this means is that developers can now upload apps with different variables in order to experiment with features and changes, then iterate quickly after gathering learnings from their customer base. → Read More
Amazon today launched FreeTime Unlimited, a subscription service that offers movies, games, and books for the kids. The launch follows the recent software update to Kindle Fire, which introduced FreeTime, a profile system designed to restrict access to certain content. → Read More
Chances are, if you ask a kid in the U.S. what they want to find under the tree (or holiday symbol of your choosing) this year, they’ll ask for an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or iPad mini. Those devices occupied four of the top five spots on Nielsen’s annual holiday shopping study among kids aged 6 to 12, which tracks interest in consumer buying habits over the next six months. → Read More
Amazon and Barnes & Noble have always been good at building portable reading devices. But what happens when video and apps try to elbow their way into the pure reading experience? Well, you get devices like the Nook and Kindle Fire HD – and now the Kindle HD 8.9-inch. This large tablet is so big that I’d be loath to call it an ereader at all but rather a fairly inexpensive, all-in-one device… → Read More
Amazon has confirmed it’s using LOVEFiLM, the movie rental company it acquired at the start of 2011, to power the video service in Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD tablets sold in the U.K.. The slates go on sale in the U.K. today and Amazon is offering Fire buyers a one month free trial of LOVEFiLM. → Read More
Take that, Rakuten! Amazon continues to extend its reach into new markets and increase its focus in Asia: today it announced pre-orders for its first Japanese-language Kindle, the Paperwhite, and, in another first, it has now extended its Kindle Store into Japan, opening with 50,000 titles in the library. It also today kicked off sales of the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire in the country. → Read More
Amazon is in “advanced negotiations” to buy Texas Instruments’ mobile chip business, according to Israeli newspaper Calcalist, with the price expected to be in the billions of dollars range. If the deal goes ahead Amazon would take a step close to rivals Apple and Samsung by gaining the ability to design and manufacture its own mobile chips. → Read More
App discoverability is a constant thorn in the side of developers. It’s also an obvious annoyance for consumers who have to spent time sifting through app store chaff to find the bits of software really worth downloading. Amazon looks to be considering both sides of this problem with a new feature — called Billboards — it’s just added to the Kindle Fire and Fire HD app store. → Read More
With the introduction of the $499 8.9-inch Kindle HD with LTE, Amazon now has a device with the same price tag as the new iPad. Of course, the devices are very different when it comes to capacity, connectivity and screen size. But the consumers will have no choice but to compare them.
Yet, contrarily to what many have said, Amazon is not trying to be yet another Apple wannabe. The Kindle… → Read More
Along with Amazon’s big tablet announcements earlier today, it’s finally also unveiled the first markets to get the Kindle Fire tablets — both the new Kindle Fire and the HD version — outside of the U.S. The news first trickled out in a forum announcement on Amazon.co.uk, which also announced availability of the new Kindle e-reader.
This is announcement is more significant than Amazon finally… → Read More
Amazon in its ongoing press conference has hinted at some improvements to the Kindle Fire software. It seems to be a completely new interface with great improvements to existing apps — or, in some cases, totally new apps. Over the past few days, developers have spotted that the Kindle Fire OS is now based on Android 4.0 instead of 2.2. It remains to be confirmed but the important changes seem to… → Read More
Amazon just introduced new Kindle Fire tablets, including a revamped old version that costs $159, and is both faster and has longer battery life, as well as two Kindle Fire HD models, one with an 8.9 inch display and one with a 7-inch display at a higher price point, but with Dolby Digital sound and high density displays.
The HD models have a TI OMAP 4470 processor, as well as improved Wi-Fi… → Read More
Amazon is a company that just cannot stop leaking information about its new products. Before the live coverage of Amazon’s press conference on TechCrunch at 10:30 in Santa Monica, it is now a good time to write down what we know about Amazon’s lineup.
New Kindle devices are highly expected and the major focus of the conference should be on hardware. The Nexus 7 has proven to be a… → Read More
And Amazon’s pre-announcement PR onslaught continues. While the recent Kindle Fire leak may have ruined Amazon’s big surprise, the online retail giant is still working to position itself as a hotspot for Android developers, and has just released some new stats about the growth of its Android Appstore to back up its claims. → Read More
After this morning’s news that the Kindle Fire is now sold out, The Verge received a leaked photo of what is purported to be the next Kindle Fire. Two models are supposed to be released, a 7-inch variant that will replace the existing device and a new 10-inch device that would put it in competition with Apple and the iPad. The Verge’s report lines up nicely with previous rumors that circulated… → Read More
For most geeks, uttering the word “Firedock” conjures up images of this Kindle Fire-friendly speaker dock that was announced back in March.
But something interesting happened last month — Grace Digital released that very same Kindle Fire speaker dock under a different name on July 17. That by itself isn’t much to write home about, but The Digital Reader points out that Amazon now owns the… → Read More
Since fully launching a year ago, Onswipe has built touch-optimized experiences for iOS — starting with the iPad and, more recently, adding iPhone. Today it’s taking its first step beyond the Apple ecosystem with the launch of support for the Kindle Fire.
Onswipe’s stated goal is to deliver native app-like experiences through the mobile web. Achieving that on the Kindle Fire was particularly… → Read More
Well, today’s shaping up to be a banner day for Kindle Fire owners. If the news of some nifty features for Kindle Fire games isn’t enough to get owners hot and bothered, how about a nice dose of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean?
Android developers and hackers have been working feverishly ever since Google released Jelly Bean to the Android Open Source Project repository two days ago, and it wasn’t long… → Read More
Amazon is said to be working on the next version of the Kindle Fire with more premium materials, including some type of metal casing. But perhaps even better (depending on your size preferences), the long-standing rumor that Amazon is allegedly working on a 10-inch tablet have resurfaced.
BGR reports that “Amazon is finally ready to move forward with the [10-inch] tablet.” General rumors… → Read More
Amazon is prepping a 7-inch $199 tablet for a third quarter release, reports Max Wang for Digitimes. Reportedly, this tablet will have better specs than the Fire with a higher quality screen and more than likely a more competent computing platform. The original Fire will then get cut to $150. Then, later in the year or maybe in early 2013, Amazon will release a 10.1-inch model. This comes by way… → Read More
Amazon’s Kindle Fire is one of the most popular Android-powered tablets, but it doesn’t feature a GPS chip. Given how important location-based services have become, that’s a bit of a drawback for many developers and quite a few apps that want to access location features on Amazon’s tablet actually crash. To avoid these issues, Kayak teamed up with Skyhook to provide location services for its… → Read More
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