Fully Equipped

Plastic Logic has be showing off a larger form factor e-reader--but Amazon may get to market first.

(Credit: Plastic Logic)

Rumors have been circulating for a while that Amazon has a larger form factor Kindle in the works--and we may get a first look at it as soon as this week, according to sources who spoke with The New York Times.

Initially, a lot of the chatter around a new jumbo Kindle was focused on the textbook market. But in recent months, as more newspapers and magazines have become threatened with extinction, these larger e-readers--which also include models from Plastic Logic and News Corp.--have increasingly been pitched as digital saviors for old-media companies looking for what the Times calls "electronic life preservers."

The Times didn't specifically refer to itself as one of the companies requiring such a preserver, but it is expected to be featured in the introduction of the new Amazon device along with other major newspapers and magazines that are already available on the Kindle e-readers for a monthly fee.

Clearly, it's that ability to charge a fee and the potential cost savings of a paperless platform that makes digital readers so attractive to newspapers and magazines. As the Times and other have pointed out, publishers could "save millions on the cost of printing and distributing their publications, at precisely a time when their businesses are under historic levels of pressure."

But there are some inherent problems with shifting paper readers over to e-readers. ... Read More

Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' briefly made an appearance as the No. 1 legal thriller in the Kindle Store.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Yes, Sony and Google have teamed up to offer 500,000 free e-books on the Sony Reader. Free is nice, and half a million is an impressive number, but lots of free and cheap e-books can wreak havoc on your database and best-seller lists--just ask Amazon.com, which found itself with Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" briefly sitting atop its best-seller list for legal thrillers in the Kindle Store, experienced earlier Thursday.

The Kindle Edition of "Mein Kampf" isn't free on Amazon. What's interesting is that there are actually two versions: one costs $1.58, and the other costs $1.60.

Both are fairly popular, but it's the cheaper version that captured the No. 1 spot on the legal-thriller list, then bizarrely disappeared within minutes of our capturing the screen grab. (Amazon, which updates its rankings hourly, had yet to respond to a request for a comment when we went to press, but we'll add any response we get when and if it comes).

Amazon also has some issues with competing Kindle best-seller lists. For instance, when you click on the Kindle Books link at the top of the page, you get a list of best-selling titles with stuff like Steve Harvey's "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man" and "The Shack" listed at the top (they cost $9.99 and $8.24, respectively). Meanwhile, it appears that Robin Hobb's free "Assassin's Apprentice" is the true No. 1 book in the Kindle Store. ... Read More

(Credit: David Carnoy/CBS Interactive)

Additional coverage: Amazon Kindle 2

While Amazon isn't doling out review samples of its new Kindle 2 digital reader for a few weeks, I did get a chance to play with it at the launch event and come away with some first impressions.

Let me start by saying that the Kindle 2 is a nice upgrade over the original Kindle, but we're not talking a jump from, say, black-and-white television to color, so early adopters who own the original Kindle shouldn't feel too dejected.

Yes, the Kindle 2 is thinner--it measures a svelte 0.36 inches at its thickest point--and weighs in at 10.2 ounces. It also has 25 percent improved battery life and is about 20 percent faster, thanks to an upgraded processor. And it's got 16 shades of gray instead of 4, so the text pops a little more. But this is an evolution, not a revolution.

One thing that hasn't changed much is the height and width of the new Kindle. Some people have complained that the original Kindle should have been shorter and forgone the keyboard, like the Sony Reader. Whether you're a fan of the keyboard or not, it's worth noting that the Kindle 2 is about the same size as the original, measuring 8 inches top to bottom. According to the specs, the screen itself is a 6-inch, diagonal, E-Ink, electronic-paper display, with 600x800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi.

One gripe that Amazon has clearly addressed is the issue with the page-advance button. On the original Kindle, that button was extra long and easy to depress, which meant it was very easy to accidentally turn pages. On the Kindle 2, the page-turn buttons are smaller, and in playing with the device I noticed that it took a bit more effort to actually click the button and advance a page.

... Read More

My Deep Throat simply goes by the handle "The Dude," and it's unclear whether he's a disgruntled employee of Apple, Amazon, or the hotel where the meeting allegedly took place--or whether he's employed at all. But he says, "It's time this meeting came to light, man." When I asked him why he chose this column as the venue for these revelations, he said, "I like your style. And I hear you bowl on the Wii. We should roll sometime."

Anyway, here's the account of the meeting. There was a tape involved, though it was hard to decipher in patches due to the fact that it was well worn and may have been previously used in The Dude's answering machine.

Sunday, November 18, 2007--8:30 am

The meeting was supposed to take place at 8 a.m. at Hyatt Regency near the San Francisco airport, the same place where the two had come four years earlier to get a sneak peek at "Ginger," which we now know as the Segway.

The boardroom inside the Hyatt near the San Francisco airport.

(Credit: Hyatt)

When he came into the heavily guarded boardroom where the meeting was to take place, Jobs was wearing his signature sneakers, jeans and black mock turtleneck. The jeans had a hole in the front where a white pocket was sticking out. Bezos would later recount that for a second he thought they might have been the same jeans Jobs had worn at their meeting for the Segway in 2003. But they did look clean and washed. Bezos was dressed more formally, in a pressed shirt, but he wasn't wearing a tie.

The two billionaires sat down.

Jobs: Where is it?

Bezos: No, "Hi, Jeff, how's it going?"

Jobs: Hi, Jeff. How's it going? Now, where is it?

[Bezos pulled the Kindle out of a padded briefcase. He held down the Alt and home buttons to take it out of its screen-saver mode and handed it to Jobs. The Apple CEO held it in his hand, staring at it.]

Jobs: Three years, huh?

Bezos: Yeah. What do you think?

Jobs: I think it sucks.

Bezos (smiling): Why?

Jobs: It just does.

Bezos: I had a feeling you'd say that. Can you get more specific?

Jobs: Its shape is not innovative, it's not elegant, it doesn't feel anthropomorphic. And what's with this big button here? I just turned a page and didn't mean to. What's this book?

Bezos: A little Ayn Rand.

Jobs: Jesus. How many times can I say it? There are design firms out there that could come up with things we've never thought of--things that would make you crap in your pants. And this is what you come up with after three years.

Bezos: I think it looks pretty good.

Jobs: You wanted my honest assessment. Well, that's it. It'll never work.

Bezos: Why?

Jobs: I already told you. People don't read anymore. It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed.

Bezos: You have 5 percent of the PC market. I'm looking at the 5 percent of people who read a lot. How's that any different?

[Silence]

Jobs: What percentage of that wants to read on a clunky looking reader that costs $400?

Bezos: Not everything has to be supersexy looking to sell.

Jobs: Maybe not on your planet. On mine, it does.

Bezos: We're going to plaster this thing on our homepage day-in-day-out. It'll sell. Anything we put on our homepage sells.

Jobs: I'll give you that. But your soul, Jeff? Isn't that going a little too far? How 'bout a nice 15 percent discount on the Nano or some Macbooks. We'll make some real dough.

[Jobs continued playing with the device.]

Bezos: What do you think of the screen?

Jobs: (Tapping the screen with his finger numerous times). Nothing's happening.

Bezos: That's because it's not a touch screen.

Jobs: Well, it sucks then. And the interface sucks. Why is there a keyboard? It adds an extra 20 percent to the dimensions.

Bezos: To take notes, type in URLs to surf the Web. I told you, there's a built-in wireless connection. Sprint EVDO.

Jobs (laughing): Surf the Web? On an Etch-a-Sketch?

Bezos: It works.

[Jobs whipped out his iPhone.]

Jobs: This works, too. And it fits in my pocket. And it's in color.

Bezos: The Web is a value-added feature.

Jobs: No features are value added. They're either features or they're not.

Bezos: If we didn't have it, people would criticize us for not having it.

[Jobs mulled over the comment.]

Jobs: How 'bout Europe? Asia?

Bezos: U.S. first. We see how it does.

Jobs: How's someone going to take this country to country? You're going to get roaming charges. How's that going to work? Different Kindle for every country? Where's the scalability?

Bezos: Maybe we go Bluetooth and no wireless abroad. You connect your mobile to the device via Bluetooth.

Jobs: If people don't read books, why are they going to read ebooks?

Bezos: There newspapers on magazines on there, too--and blogs. Imagine the commuter going to work--"

[Jobs turned the screen of his iPhone toward Bezos.]

Jobs: Again, right here. And the content's free.

Bezos: Bigger screen. No backlight. Better reading experience.

Jobs: You got any widgets?

Bezos (ignoring him): It'll have its own store. With thousands of books. And anybody will be able to create an ebook and upload it to the store. We're going to take up to a 65 percent cut on the content.

Jobs: Will authors stand for that?

Bezos: What choice will they have? It's better than what they get now from traditional publishers.

[Jobs turned the device over and looked at the back of it.]

Jobs: Battery?

Bezos: Removable.

Jobs: Dumb.

[He was taking a closer look at the protective case when the Kindle suddenly dislodged itself and fell on to the table with a loud thud.]

Jobs: Oops.

Bezos (sheepishly): We're working on that.

Jobs: I'm standing on the street and I drop the iPhone it's got a decent shot at not breaking. I take that bet. What happens when a customer calls and says her $400 device slipped out the crappy 50-cent case and went boom. What do you do then?

Bezos: We offer to ship her another at a discounted rate--basically, at cost.

Jobs: You old softy.

Bezos: We aim to please.

Jobs: Best customer support in the world won't make this thing fly.

Bezos: You were the one who said people wouldn't watch video on a tiny little iPod screen--and then you brought out an iPod with video capabilities.

Jobs: That was a smokescreen.

Bezos: How do I know this isn't one, too?

Jobs: You don't.

Bezos: You could do one for us. You do the hardware, we do the store. Sony's toast.

Jobs: Their thing looks better than yours. But it sucks, too.

Bezos: Think about it. "The Apple Reader powered by Amazon."

Jobs: How 'bout "The Apple Reader powered by Apple?"

Bezos: People don't read books.

Jobs: Until I make it cool to read 'em.

Bezos: I'll sell more Kindles than Apple TVs.

Jobs: High bar, Jeff. How many do you think you'll sell?

Bezos: We're trying to being conservative.

Jobs: Let me give you some advice. Don't tell people how many you've sold.

Bezos: Why?

Jobs: Mystery's good. Scarcity, too. It's not a bad thing to be out of stock. Put a rope up. Don't let people in the door. They want to get in.

Bezos: Anything else?

Jobs: You seed it to reviewers?

Bezos: Not yet. Everything goes out tomorrow to everyone at once.

Jobs: Shame. Always better to give it first to a few light heavyweights, if you know what I mean.

Bezos: It'll be all right. Had to get it out. The next one will be better.

Jobs: We'll see.

Bezos: We'll see.

Jobs: I give you what you want? Are we done here?

Bezos: Yeah. Sorry, I needed that. No one can tell me I can't do something like you can.

Jobs: Feels good, right?

Bezos: Thanks, man.

Jobs: It won't work.

Bezos: I know.

Jobs: Safe flight.

While Steve Jobs has been critical of the Kindle's chances, for anybody who doesn't realize already, this is a completely fictional conversation. That said, feel free to comment on whether you agree with these theoretical opinions of the device and whether the Kindle 2 might appeal more to him--or not.

Ever since rumors--and some alleged photos--of Amazon's next-generation Kindle digital reader hit the Web late last year, I keep getting e-mails from readers asking me for buying advice. Here's a typical note:

Hi, David:

Around Christmas, I ordered the Amazon Kindle, but as I'm sure you know, it's back-ordered for a couple of months. Then I saw your article on the Kindle 2 coming out soon and I'm not sure what to do. Should I cancel my order? If the new Kindle 2 comes out right after I get mine, will I be able to return it?

Thanks for your help,

Susan

I understand where Susan's coming from. The Kindle's $359 right now--a decent chunk of change in a tight economy. And nothing sucks more than getting your timing wrong on the release of the next version of a product, particularly when you're dealing with a first-gen device like the Kindle that has room for improvement.

The wait for the Kindle--and rumored Kindle 2--continues.

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

Give Amazon credit. Until now, it's played its hand with a true poker face. However, despite having been very tight-lipped about its product plans and the number of Kindles sold, last summer a number of bloggers came out with articles confidently predicting that Amazon was about to release a new Kindle. They had it on good authority.

For example, on August 25, 2008, Peter Burrows posted a piece on the Businessweek Tech Beat blog entitled "Here Comes Kindle 2.0." He wrote:

I can confirm what McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman is saying--that Amazon.com plans to unveil a larger-screen model of its Kindle e-book player, aimed at students, in the coming months. And I'm also hearing some details, similar to TechCrunch in July....about an upgrade of the base model, that I'm told is coming in September...my sources say the new version is significantly thinner, has a better screen, is more stylish, and includes fixes to some of the user-interface annoyances with the first version. One person that has seen the device says it is as big a leap from its predecessor as the iPod mini was from the first iPod. "They've jumped from Generation One to Generation Four or Five. It just looks better, and feels better," says the source.

Well, we're almost in February and there's still no sign of any new Kindle. That doesn't mean Burrows and other bloggers were totally wrong about the Kindle 2. You can get parts of a story wrong--like the release date--and other parts right. And the beauty of it all is that no one really remembers sketchy reporting these days unless some jerk goes ahead and quotes your stuff in a column five months later.

Of course, regardless of how accurate--or inaccurate--anything really is, the problem is that the information is out there. Someone like Susan who's looking to buy a Kindle goes ahead and keys "Amazon Kindle" into Google and, lo and behold, on the first page of the search results is a story called "Amazon's Kindle 2 leaked," written by the jerk at CNET who also writes this column. And so Susan starts poking around and realizes there's a lot of information out there about a new Kindle, and from the looks of it, it's going to be significantly better than the original. (Making a jump from "Generation One to Generation Four or Five" seems a wee bit optimistic, however). And then I end up with an e-mail in my inbox.

This all happens pretty frequently. There's speculation about new products and price drops all the time. Most companies keep a tight lid on news to protect sales of their existing products. But some companies purposely leak information to create buzz for their new wares.

In this case, it's hard to say just what transpired (next time I talk to Jeff Bezos, I'll ask him). Some stories claim that Amazon was ready to release a new Kindle for the holidays, then pulled back at the last minute. Fine. But it seems odd that the company would then plaster the device on its homepage and encourage people to buy it even when it was out of stock and there were rumors of a new device coming out. To avoid discounting, Apple and other smart businesses usually try to clear the channel of as much old stock as they can before sweeping in with the new stuff. But Amazon didn't seem to have any stock--or certainly not enough of it.

Some pundits are arguing that Amazon is pulling the old people-want-what-they-can't have routine to hype the Kindle (Nintendo has been accused of the same thing with the Wii). But I've had enough people--and plenty of nontechie people--ask me about the product that I would bet demand is truly out-pacing supply and that Amazon, after saying it misjudged demand for the product initially, misjudged it again--or probably just didn't anticipate Oprah's endorsement or the impact it would have on the product.

So, what's Amazon going to do?

Well, Amazon is a very customer-centric company and won't risk alienating its customers. So it's going to make sure that if you ordered a Kindle during the holidays, you're going to get it. Then it's going to wait until demand starts to wane a bit. And then it's going to announce that a new Kindle is coming. (Or maybe it's two new models, like some of the articles have speculated).

The Kindle 2--or whatever it's called--may look identical to the alleged Kindle 2 in the leaked pictures. And it's probably going to be better than the original Kindle in a few key ways; it will be zippier, the interface will be improved, and the buttons will be redesigned to avoid accidental page turns, though reviewers will still find things to complain about. As Sony discovered with its new PRS-700 Reader, you can sometimes take some nice steps forward while taking one big step back. (And if the photos are real, I'm sure Amazon has noted some of the critical comments that certain readers have made about the design of the "leaked" product).

Anything new and improved often costs a little more. So, to make sure no one's too disappointed, Amazon could price the new Kindle at $400 (the launch price of the gen-one Kindle) and drop the price of the original to $300. If you happen to have bought the old Kindle within a month of the announcement, you'd be offered the option of returning that Kindle or taking some sort of rebate on it--or possibly a credit for buying books in the Kindle Store. (I could see Amazon throwing a whole bunch of recent Kindle purchasers some sort of store credit for books).

The other serious possibility is that Amazon has already discontinued the original Kindle and will send out the new Kindle 2 to anybody who's ordered it--whether it be last month or now. That would be the simplest thing to do, so long as the new one turns out to be a nice upgrade.

When's this all going to happen? Well, with the Kindle only being "sold out" and not back-ordered for 2-3 months anymore, I think we're starting to hit the wane phase (relatively speaking), especially with consumer spending falling off a cliff. So, I'm guessing March. Valentine's Day would be a potential target date, but that seems a little too close.

Of course, everyone could accelerate the process by simply not buying any Kindles until Amazon announces the Kindle 2--or offers customers some clear guidance as to what it will do should you buy a Kindle today and a new model comes out two or three months from now.

What do you guys think? Will Amazon choose to gradually phase out the original Kindle? Or will it end up suddenly shipping everybody who ordered a Kindle for the holidays (and now) a new Kindle 2?

Old Kindle meet the new Kindle?

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

After rumors surfaced on the Web a few months back that a new Kindle might be on the way, Amazon.com did its best to shoot them down, saying a new Kindle was not coming this year. Well, Boy Genius Report has gotten a hold of some photos that appear to be the Kindle 2, so we're curious what Amazon has to say now.

From the looks of the new device, Amazon has tried to address some of the criticisms of the Kindle, most of which revolve around its somewhat homely design and a few poorly placed buttons. The shape has been modified to make the new Kindle more attractive, but it appears Amazon is sticking with the same off-white color scheme--for better or worse.

Old back versus new back.

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

The Boy Genius Report's mole or "ninja," has some comments about the new Kindle. First, ninja says the device is basically the same size as the older model, but is thinner and has "a slightly heavier feel, and it feels much sturdier." The source indicates the new model uses the same cellular EV-DO network for downloads (it's Sprint's network in the current model) and a metal back is visible in some of the pictures. I particularly appreciated the look of the new leather carrying pouch for the device, since I don't like the existing Kindle's protective case. There are more photos here.

Boy Genius Report also notes:

As far as buttons go, on the right side, the bottoms from top to bottom are: Home, Next Page, Menu, a joystick, and Undo. On the left side, there's Previous, Page, and Next Page. We're told the buttons are significantly smaller, to avoid accidental page turning. The joystick takes the place of the scroll wheel and it "takes a little getting used to." As far as the redesigned keyboard...it "has a good layout, but lettering on the keys could be darker." Continuing our tour around the unit, next to the sliding sleep button, there's the headphone jack, and on the right-side edge you've got the volume up/down buttons. What's interesting (and you can see this in the photos) is that the backside of the unit is mostly metal, with the speakers at the bottom of the back. One more plus? They've finally ditched their own charger. The Kindle 2 can be charged with a miniUSB cable.

No word on when the next-generation Kindle will arrive, whether there will be a European model, or how much it will cost. However, I have a feeling we'll soon get an announcement from Amazon--if indeed this turns out to be a real product that will go up against the upcoming Sony Reader, the PRS-700, which features a touch-screen display and will hit stores next month in time for the holiday buying season.

As always, feel free to post your comments. What do you think of the design of the alleged Kindle 2? And how much do you think it will cost?