GigaOM » kindle fire

Amazon pushes forward with Kindle Fire HD’s international expansion

Laura Hazard Owen — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:10:09 +0000

Amazon is greatly expanding the number of countries where its Kindle Fire HD tablets are available, the company announced Thursday. The Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ slates are available for preorder in “over 170 countries and territories around the world” today and will start shipping on June 13 in new regions.

The tablets were already available in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan (as well as the U.S., of course). While a 4G LTE version of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ is available in the U.S., only Wi-Fi versions are available internationally.

“Kindle Fire HD is the #1 best-selling item in the world for Amazon since its launch, and we’re thrilled to make it available to even more customers around the globe today,” Dave Limp, VP Kindle, said in a statement.

In the U.S., the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD, which is Amazon’s answer to the iPad, got a big price cut in March. The 4G LTE, 32 GB version, which had been $499, was cut to $399. The Wi-Fi-only version of the same tablet got a price cut of $30 — to $269 for the 16 GB version and $299 for the 32 GB version. Internationally, prices will vary based on operating costs.

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Amazon launches its virtual currency, with $5 worth free to every Kindle Fire user

Laura Hazard Owen — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:51:26 +0000

Amazon rolled out Amazon Coins, its own virtual currency, on Monday. Amazon Coins can be used to purchase “apps, games and in-app items in the Amazon Appstore and on Kindle Fire,” and each U.S. Kindle Fire user gets $5 worth (or 500 coins) free.

“We will continue to add more ways to earn and spend Coins on a wider range of content and activities,” Mike George, Amazon’s VP of apps and games, said in a statement. “Today is Day One for Coins.”

Users can buy 100 coins for $1, with discounts up to 10 percent for larger purchases. Developers get their standard 70 percent revenue share for purchases made with Amazon Coins.

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Here’s how much in content sales turn Kindle Fire into a money maker

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:22:57 +0000

How much in content sales does it take for Amazon to earn a 20 percent profit margin on its Kindle Fire hardware? About $10 per month, which generates $3 once Amazon takes its 30 percent cut. Senior analyst at ABI Research, Aapo Markkanen, estimated by doing the math last week, saying this incremental $3 revenue would be required over the life of the hardware to maintain such a profit margin.

This turns the Kindle Fire into a potentially lucrative product for Amazon, even though most believe it sells the Kindle Fire products near cost, if not below it. Even better: The combination of decreasing hardware prices over time and a rise in content sales — think apps, movies, books, music — will help the product line even more, according to Markkanen:

“Considering the probable margins of app and content sales, our research shows that Kindle Fire is a credible proposition. We expect that there will be a certain level of ‘innovation plateauing’ in mobile hardware taking place over the next five years, and that would certainly work in Amazon’s favor. Its future devices are likely to require less cross-subsidy than the ones we’ve seen so far.”

Markkanen may not have the exact figure for content profits required, but you can bet Amazon does. And this may be why the company wanted to retain control over mobile app pricing when it launched its alternative Appstore. By understanding consumer preferences perhaps better than any other online retailer, Amazon knows the right pricing “mix” for content sales to make money off hardware sales.

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Software turns Amazon Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 lookalike

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:15:27 +0000

Owners of the original Kindle Fire that want to experience the full Google tablet experience have another option now. A full build of the latest Android 4.2.1 software is available for the Kindle Fire; with a few steps, you can download it, install it and practically turn your Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 tablet, save for a few functions.

The steps to download or install are available from the XDA Developers site and of course, it’s recommended to perform a full backup of your Kindle Fire in advance. Installing the software will completely remove Amazon’s Kindle Fire software, which uses a customized version of Android. You’ll lose the ability to watch Amazon Instant Video if you take the plunge, but your Kindle Fire will gain far more as it can be used as a full Android tablet.

How well does the Kindle Fire work as an Android 4.2.1 tablet? Pretty good, based on Liliputing’s hands-on video:

I wouldn’t foresee most Kindle Fire owners make the leap of turning their device into a full Android tablet, but enthusiasts might.

Thanks to occasional sales and refurbished deals, you can pick up the Kindle Fire for less than its $159 current price. Add this custom software to a low-cost Kindle Fire and you have a compelling Android tablet without paying full price for a Nexus 7 or other small slate. You won’t have camera support and the screen resolution of the Kindle Fire is lower than the Nexus 7, but it’s still a compelling solution on the cheap.

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Amazon’s Appstore is on fire: 500% more downloads this year

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:37:11 +0000

Even without a platform of its own, Amazon is doing just fine when it comes to mobile apps. The company announced on Thursday that “[a]pp downloads in the Appstore have grown more than 500 percent over the previous year.” The two biggest drivers of such growth are likely to be Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet line, introduced in September 2011, and strong developer support for programmers to create compelling Android applications for Amazon’s tablets.

While Amazon has had its own Appstore for Android devices since March 2011, I suspect most of the growth came from Amazon’s own mobile devices and not Android smartphones or tablets made by others. A few phones have come with the Amazon Appstore pre-installed, but most do not. That means consumers have to learn about Amazon’s storefront on their own and then install it themselves. Google’s own Play store is central to the Android experience, which is a potential barrier here.

There’s no Google Play on the Kindle Fire or Kindle Fire HD tablets, however. It’s Amazon’s Appstore or nothing, save for any hacking or tinkering that might enable traditional Android apps. For that reason, assuming reasonably good sales of Kindle Fire tablets, most of the app download growth is likely from Amazon’s own hardware. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if the company launches a smartphone, as some expect it to do.

But the growth isn’t related solely to device sales: Amazon has made a serious attempt to help developers create or port applications to the Amazon Appstore. Along with the download figures shared on Thursday, Amazon announced support for A/B testing:

“With A/B Testing, developers can test simultaneous treatments of their apps, receive data about what’s worked best, and quickly adjust their apps to take advantage of this customer learning. A/B Testing is the latest developer service that Amazon has launched (along with Achievements, Leaderboards, Whispersync across devices, In-App Purchasing, and 1-Click Purchasing) that make it simpler than ever for app developers to concentrate on the differentiating parts of their apps rather than the undifferentiated infrastructure and engagement components.”

That’s a nice development feature that could give programmers a better idea of what consumers do and don’t like about application changes. From there, a developer could quickly adjust code for the optimal experience.

This new development feature is just another in a long list that Amazon has provided since launching the Appstore: GameCircle, a Maps API, Test Drive (Amazon says 20,000 apps can be consumer tested online for free), localization support, and a Kindle Fire emulator are all part of the developer experience now. And the better Amazon treats its developers with supporting tools, the better the apps will be helping to fan the Kindle Fire download flame higher and higher.

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iPad mini: A first video look at Apple’s small tablet

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:13:03 +0000

I jokingly said today that the iPad mini is here almost two years after I really wanted it. Props to Apple for realizing what I saw back then: The form-factor of a small portable tablet can be a desirable feature. My iPad mini arrived today, so here’s a video look and my first impressions of the new device. I bought a 16 GB Wi-Fi model for $329 but you can increase the storage or add mobile broadband capability as additional options.

Watch this video for free on GigaOM

Although I’ve only just started using the iPad mini, there isn’t much new in the experience because it runs all of the apps that any iPad can run. That’s a good thing. The camera quality is better than I expected so far and because the tablet is so light and thin, I could envision myself taking it everywhere; just as I did my with Nexus 7 tablet.

So is the 1024 x 768 screen resolution an issue? Not as much as you’d think, even though that’s the same resolution as the first and second iPad models. As I explain in the video, cramming the same number of pixels into a small screen adds some clarity. It’s no Retina Display, but it’s better than the first two iPads.

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What the shift to the cloud means for the future EPG

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:17:53 +0000

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Connected consumer third-quarter 2012

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 06:55:33 +0000

The third quarter saw many parts of the traditional media business in flux. New digital platforms that once had confined themselves to user-generated content began to invest in creating professional-quality content. At the same time, TV programmers began to wrestle with both the threat and the opportunity presented by second-screen and social-TV platforms. The period also saw the rollout of new device-based content ecosystems, red flags and red ink for traditional consumer electronics makers, and a resurgence of consumer purchases of movies. This quarterly wrap-up discusses these developments as well as offers trends and topics to watch for the remainder of 2012 and beyond.

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A look back at mobile in the third quarter

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 06:55:10 +0000

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Why Amazon might buy TI’s mobile chip business

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:07:29 +0000

Amazon is considering a bid for Texas Instruments’ mobile chip business unit. The Next Web noticed that an Israeli news site, Calcalist, reported on Monday that the deal is in advanced negotiations and will be valued at billions of dollars; TI’s market cap is currently $32.35 billion. Texas Instruments’ OMAP line of chips powers various phones, ereaders and tablets, but the company has been steadily losing ground to other chip makers in this market, such as Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Samsung. TI will reportedly keep its other lines of business for sensors and automotive chips.

Indeed, TI’s OMAP line has had few major product design wins of late. It powers the new Kindle Fire HD tablets, the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, and a fair number of Motorola phones. Even Motorola, however, has recently switched to alternatives from Qualcomm: The company’s new Razr HD and Razr HD Maxx will use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip; a change from the prior Razr models that relied on a TI OMAP.

Texas Instrument’s OMAP woes, however, could be a benefit to Amazon in several ways. First, although the up-front cost would be massive, the purchase could cut the unit costs to produce hardware such as Kindle e-readers and tablets. Currently, Amazon sells hardware roughly for cost, with hopes of recouping revenues and profits through content sales. By producing chips in house, profits could be seen on the hardware although it could time to realize such benefits; it’s not cheap to sink money into long-term capital such as chip fabrication production lines.

Having its own chip business could lead Amazon to customize the silicon so that its optimized for Amazon’s products. This approach is similar to that of Apple, which creates custom chips that are made to run iOS to its full potential. While Amazon doesn’t have a mobile operating system of it’s own, the company is using Google Android as a base with Amazon software for the user interface. With a chip business, Amazon could improve the performance of its tablets by optimizing the union of silicon and software.

This situation does cause one to think about Amazon getting into the smartphone business as well. As noted, TI’s OMAP chip already powers numerous Motorola handsets as well as my own Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset. I’d say there’s an outlier chance here as the smartphone market isn’t an easy one to crack. It’s not out the realm of possibilities, of course, and if Amazon is going to spend billions for a chip business, it will surely want to maximize its return on that investment.

That leads to one other possibility here if Amazon were to buy the OMAP business from TI: Servers. While Amazon is known as a retail and content company, it’s a cloud company when you peek inside.

The company relies heavily on its cloud services for the retail experience, Whispersync technology and its AWS, or Amazon Web Services which let users rent computing storage and processing power in the cloud. For some time, x86 chips have powered cloud-based servers, but cloud computing can be done on smartphone chips as well; an OMAP purchase could reduce Amazon’s cloud costs and even lead to custom hardware that’s more power efficient.

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