Amazon Kindle

The iPad is more than just a content-yielding eReader, and consumers are finally making the distinction.

Analytics firm IDC released new data today illustrating Apple’s global tablet market share having increased dramatically from 2011’s holiday quarter. The firm accredited the iPad’s success to its all-purpose functionality that outshines Android devices’ content.

The iPad rose to 68 percent in Q1 2012 from 54.7-percent in Q4 2011. Apple’s 13.3-percent gain is attributed to the Kindle Fire’s staggering 12.8-percent drop to 4 percent in Q1 2012.

IDC’s Mobile Connected Devices Research Director Tom Mainelli explained the market share differences:

“Apple reasserted its dominance in the market this quarter, driving huge shipment totals at a time when all but a few Android vendors saw their numbers drop precipitously after posting big gains during the holiday buying season. […] Apple’s move to position the iPad as an all-purpose tablet, instead of just a content consumption device, is resonating with consumers as well as educational and commercial buyers. And its decision to keep a lower-priced iPad 2 in the market after it launched the new iPad in March seems to be paying off as well.”

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One of the biggest problems that we, as technology writers, face is choosing exactly what to write about on the site. What specifically is worth covering, and what should we leave for other pubs/Twitter/Facebook/Google Plus, etc.? We often pass on the smaller stories or the ones that do not directly relate to our core mission, even though we find them valuable or interesting. We do not want to stray too far from our core idea.

Nevertheless, we have long been after a way to cover the smaller stories, but more importantly give a forum to discuss these general topics, especially if they are interesting. Now that we have 9to5Forums, we have come up with something we call “Asides.” The idea is to bring together a “linked list” type of format coupled with gratuitous linking and the PandoTicker or AllthingsD Voices method of spreading the best of the Web.

Here are the types of topics we will cover on Asides:

1. Mid-minor, but still interesting, Apple/Google news, tips, rumors—especially where there is not much to add from the source.
2. General technology news covering Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. (if it is big and relates to our readers).
3. Sillier stuff like Joy of Tech cartoons or Reddit-type memes.
4. Deals or new gear from 9to5Toys.com that relate to readership needs desires.
5. Interesting posts on 9to5Forums.com that catch our eyes.
6. Quick observations that we would normally Tweet or retweet.
7. App promo codes or hardware giveaways.
8. Author news like “Mark will be writing/tweeting from Poland this week.”
9. Minor site news like outages or minor updates.
10. Anything interesting we do not find deserving of a full story.

We think we have found a new way to present these minor stories in a manner that has not been done before. Asides will appear chronologically on the website interspersed between regular posts (and in feeds and social media).

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However, you will only see the title on the web site, and it will be smaller than a full-sized story. We are working with WordPress on a way so these can open inline, but —for now— clicking on an Aside link will open a new page.

Our expectation is to post 20 or more of these per day. We hope you like Asides and find them useful.
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Some good deals from 9to5Toys.com today:

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If you like Kindle, no better time to jump on the refurb Kindle Fire for $139 + free shipping.  Like new with 1 year warranty.

MacConnection has the Airport Extreme Base Station ($30 off) for $149.  Best Buy has refurb for $99

Used iPhone 4 (no contract): $235 at Cowboom

Transcend 8GB Class 4 SDHC Memory Card for $5 + free shipping

iTunes library fixer upper Tuneup bundle is $30

Logitech Wireless Keyboard: $15 at Best Buy

Lots more at 9to5toys.com (Facebook) (Twitter)(RSS)(Subscribe via eMail)

J.K. Rowling’s widely popular Harry Potter series is at-last available electronically.

The author’s own online Pottermore Shop displays all seven titles in ePub format, and prices vary between $8 each and $10 each, per copy. Fans can also purchase the entire series for $57.54.

The ePub files are unprotected and compatible with most iOS devices, Android devices, and any other eReader, tablet, or smartphone that accepts ePub format. In addition, the Harry Potter eBooks are available in Amazon Kindle formats. A full list of compatible devices and reading services is also available on the Pottermore Shop website.

Conspicuously, Rowling did not make the eBooks available through Apple’s iBookstore.

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Following Wall Street Journal’s report last night that AT&T and Verizon will carry the LTE iPad 3, the publication is reporting that Apple is now testing an 8-inch iPad in its labs. While WSJis not exactly sure the version will launch, it does claim the iPad is being tested.

Officials at some of Apple’s suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has shown them screen designs for a new device with a screen size of around 8-inches, and said it is qualifying suppliers for it. Apple’s latest tablet, the iPad 2, comes with a 9.7-inch screen. It was launched last year.

WSJ’s sources said the 8-inch iPad’s screen would pack a 1,024-by- 768 display similar to the current iPad. The smaller version will apparently also pack a LTE chip inside, as WSJ said the iPad 3 would.

There is always the chance that the 8-inch iPad will not see the light of day, because Apple tests things and sometimes does not bring them to market. An 8-inch variant of the iPad would be a close competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which has seen great growth.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sulfQHdvyEs]

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Apple’s iPad maintained its market lead throughout fourth quarter of last year even though it lost some ground compared to the previous quarter due to an influx of Android-based tablets. In fact, Amazon’s dirt-cheap Kindle Fire device that costs just $199 saved the day for Android slates, really. This is the gist of the latest survey by research firm Strategy Analytics that was released this morning.

Global tablet shipments reached 26.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011— up 150 percent from 10.7 million from the year-ago quarter. Global tablet shipments hit 66.9 million units throughout 2011— a 260 percent increase from just 18.6 million units in 2010. Looking at how tablet vendors performed throughout Q4 2011, the survey recorded a 39.1 percent share for tablets powered by Android. Even though it is a record for tablets driven by Google’s software, Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the holiday quarter for a healthy 57.6 percent share. This left the remaining 3 percent for tablets outside the Android/iOS tablet duopoly, with Microsoft-driven devices holding onto 1 percent share of the market.

This compares to a Strategy Analytics’ survey for the September 2011 quarter that depicted a 27 percent share for Android tablets in Q3 2011 (up from 2.3 percent in Q3 2010) and 67 percent for iPad (down from 96 percent in Q3 2010). Android tablets are clearly picking up steam, largely based on the success of Amazon’s device that launched Oct. 15, 2011. Still, the iPad is expected to remain king of the hill as analysts expect its lead to maintain throughout 2012.

Strategy Analytics Research Director Peter King opined:

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Apple just emailed customers who pre-ordered the book “Inside Apple” from the iBookstore to let them know the book is now available to download and read. Those interested in downloading the book can do so from this direct link.  The Amazon Kindle version should be available in less than an hour.

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Amazon today launched touch-optimized Kindle Store for iPad as a standalone web app accessed through the iOS Safari browser. You may remember that the online retail giant released Kindle Cloud Reader in August —also a web app that works great on Apple’s tablet, but this is an entirely different experience. Available on the iPad at www.amazon.com/iPadKindleStore, the web interface totally feels like a native app. It is smooth, natural and supports familiar touch gestures, like swiping left and right to brows the store’s virtual shelves. The design calls for big cover images, large buttons and elegant typeface that’s easy on the eyes, unlike some other HTML5 web apps that feel cluttered on a 9.7-inch screen and cause eye strain…

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFsmyTIEz0c]

Amazon issued an update yesterday to the $199 Kindle Fire that is supposed to fix some of the mainstream problems, but we are still a fan of the Kindle-as-iPad-app that also got an update this morning.

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Walter Isaacson signing books in Times Square | Photo: Tanner Curtis

We noted last week that Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography published by Simon & Schuster became Amazon’s best-selling book of 2011, but that included just sales of the dead trees version. Print sales do not, however, paint an accurate picture because Kindle e-books are now outselling hardcover and paperback editions combined, prompting Amazon to include Kindle books into the rankings.

The company this morning issued a press release stating that the biography of Apple’s late co-founder broke all records to become the best-selling book of 2011 – just 50 days following the October 23 release. It’s not just Amazon, the book also topped Customer Favorites chart on Amazon and is #2 on Audible.

The exclusive biography is also a top-seller in the Non-fiction category on Apple’s iBookstore, where it can be yours for fifteen bucks. It’s also available as a digital download from the Kindle store. It did not fare as well on Barnes and Noble however, only garnering a #34 ranking of NookBooks. Go past the fold for Amazon’s list of Top 10 best-selling books overall.

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Some are saying that just because the Kindle sits atop the BestBuy.com “Best Selling” tablets category, it is outselling the iPad 2.

Not so fast.

There is exactly one model of Kindle Fire, while there are about 16 models of iPad, two of which are second and third on the list and iPads make up a majority of the top 15 list.  Did number 1 outnumber #2+#3+#5+#6…?

Could the Fire be the top selling tablet at Best Buy still?  Sure (unlikely), but there is no way to tell from the data provided.

And that’s before you get the to the whole $199, making money on the razor blades business model.
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The title says it all: “Letters to Steve: Inside the E-mail Inbox of Apple’s Steve Jobs“. A new book penned by CNN technology writer Mark Milian takes a look at the hundreds of emails between Jobs and the people that discovered his publicly available email address. It also includes never-before-published e-mails exclusive to the book, which is available starting today for $2.99 on Amazon.

This book is based on interviews with many of the customers and fans Jobs communicated with. These tales reveal the intricacies of how Jobs portrayed himself as likable and accessible through direct interaction with fans. He handled customer-service inquiries himself and carefully revealed hints about upcoming Apple products, guaranteeing headlines on blogs. However, some of these letters, when analyzed, provide a glimpse into his “reality distortion field,” in which he lobs insults, bends the truth and uses misdirection in order to manipulate anyone on the receiving end.

To accompany the release of the book, CNN is running a three-part series on their website. The first part in that series was published today and details Jobs’ emails related to customer service. Here’s an excerpt where customer  Scott Steckley recalls receiving a phone call from Jobs after emailing him regarding a long wait for his Mac repair:

“Hi Scott, this is Steve,” Steckley recalled hearing from the other end of the phone.

“Steve Jobs?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jobs said. “I just wanted to apologize for your incredibly long wait. It’s really nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things.”

“Yeah, I understand.”

Then Jobs explained that he expedited the repair. “I also wanted to thank you for your support of Apple,” Jobs said. “I see how much equipment you own. It really makes my day to see someone who enjoys our products so much and who supports us in the good times and bad.”

This next one has been posted before but is still entertaining:

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ChangeWave Research in a new survey polled 3,043 consumers on consumer tablet demand for the holidays, including a close-up look at demand for the Amazon Kindle Fire vs. the Apple iPad. Overall, tablets are big this holidays as sales in the United States increase an estimated 130 percent.

Everybody wants a tablet, it seems. A total of 14 percent of respondents plan on buying a tablet in the next 90 days, an eight percentage points increase over an August ChangeWave survey and more than triple the level of a year ago. However, nowadays shoppers no longer have to pick between an iPad or an array of same-looking Android tablets because Amazon is now the second most-popular tablet brand (people clearly want an Amazon tablet).

According to ChangeWave:

The Amazon Kindle Fire is going to leapfrog the competition and become the number two product in the tablet market, as long as it can provide a quality user experience. But the Amazon surge may also contain a silver lining for Apple, by damaging the tablet market hopes of the remaining competitors in the field.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) plan on buying an iPad, or two out of three tablet buyers. People are loving their iPads and it shows in satisfaction ratings. A total of 74 percent of all iPad owners are Very Satisfied versus 49 percent for all other tablet manufacturers combined. More than one in five, or 22 percent, eye an Amazon tablet and just four percent plan on buying a Galaxy Tab from Samsung. Apple’s score is in line with iPad’s IDC-estimated 68 percent share of the tablet market. In addition, Canalys projected Apple will overtake Hewlett-Packard to become the #1 PC maker globally on the heels of iPad 3 release, although not everybody is down with counting iPad as a computer. More tidbits and charts after the break.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/?v=NnSmENvbY8I#!]
With the $199 Kindle Fire out of the gate, the inevitable questions pops into mind: Which is faster overall, the Amazon or Apple tablet?

The comparison isn’t really fair because Amazon skimped on internal components, which was key to its breakthrough $199 price point. An iFixit teardown reveals Texas Instruments’ OMAP 4430 chip inside the device, also  found inside Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

For starters, iPad 2 boots much quicker than the Amazon tablet – again, due to its more efficient dual-core processor and optimized software. Browsing the web? No surprises here either, Safari on iPad 2 stormed ahead, performing noticeably faster than Amazon’s Silk browser which offloads page rendering to the Amazon cloud. One thing to remember: In this test, Kindle Fire was loading Flash content which of course is not supported on Apple’s device.

The iPad 2’s graphics unit, praised for its nine times performance jump, helps with scrolling, which is pretty choppy most of the time on Amazon’s device. One surprising finding is that Kindle Fire streams Netflix smoother than iPad 2, most likely due to the new version of their Android client which is not yet available for Apple’s platform.

This is not the most scientific test in the world, mind you. Again, as 9to5Google noted in its quick review, there’s really no comparing Kindle Fire to iPad 2, be it on the price, overall polish, performance or shininess. As for the speed, mainstream buyers may not be interested in raw specs anymore and Amazon has priced this thing out of the range of the Samsungs and BlackBerrys of this world so it’s more of a competitor to Android tablets than to Apple.

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In addition to a revamped Android version, Netflix said today that a “new tablet experience should be available for members with iPads in a few weeks”. What’s the new tablet experience like? According to a press release and a blog post, Netflix aims to consolidate the app’s user interface across iOS and Android tablets with a “much more immersive” design that manages to cram up twice as many movies and television shows as before without looking cluttered. Neil Hunt, chief product officer at Netflix, says:

In the last 12 months we have seen a threefold increase in how long Netflix members are watching on their tablets. We’re happy to debut a new user experience coinciding with the release of the next generation of devices from industry leaders. The new Netflix interface offers a significant improvement in browsing and searching for TV shows and movies to instantly watch.

Each item in the new interface sports a larger artwork than before and you can swipe between the individual rows of titles. If this sounds familiar, you’re right – a similar experience is built into supported set-top boxes, gaming consoles and other Netflix-ready devices.

Interestingly, the new Netflix software is also available for the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. Netflix also offers a free trail, here.

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We pondered how best to get our hands on the Steve Jobs Bio that was released last night at midnight. I ended up getting it on Kindle (and hardcover soon) while others at 9to5Mac got it at the iBookstore and/or via local hardcover outlets. We were wondering what the breakdown was for our audience…

Obviously, the book is beyond popular as the #1 Kindle eBook as well as hardcover and Audiobook currently.

Hows the reading going? I passed out at around page 400 last night. Anyone finish? Skip to the last chapter?

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We’re getting reports that the Steve Jobs bio is hitting Amazon Kindle early and we’re just hearing that it has hit the iBookstore as well (it has been hitting at midnight the world over but looks to have gone a bit early because of Amazon’s jumping the gun).

Apple also offers an Isaacson Jobs-Einstein-Franklin three pack for $47 and and Audiobook version of Steve Jobs narrated by Dylan Baker over 25 hours ($30).

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As it passes into Monday in Australia and across the World, the Steve Jobs bio is hitting the iBookstore (full shot below). It is still a $16.99 pre-order in the US but should become available at midnight tonight. It also hasn’t begun shipping in hardcover form from Amazon $17.88, but the Kindle downloads should be available at about the same time. We saw that some bookstores had begun stocking them prematurely yesterday and readers have been sending in lots of scanned pages since then (thanks).

Thanks Dean!

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Update: Simon and Schuster have announced that the book will now be released on October 24th.

The WSJ reports that Steve Jobs and biographer Walter Isaacson knew that he was dying weeks before the end.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Isaacson last interviewed Jobs four weeks ago, right before, and right after he stepped down from his post as the CEO of Apple.

Jobs indicated at that time that he knew he was going to die soon. The scene will appear at the end of the book.

From Isaacson’s upcoming Essay in Time Magazine:

A few weeks ago, I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant. We talked about his childhood, and he gave me some pictures of his father and family to use in my biography. As a writer, I was used to being detached, but I was hit by a wave of sadness as I tried to say goodbye. In order to mask my emotion, I asked the one question that was still puzzling me: Why had he been so eager, during close to 50 interviews and conversations over the course of two years, to open up so much for a book when he was usually so private? “I wanted my kids to know me,” he said. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”

In the wake of Jobs’ death, his biography has catapulted to the top of the Best Sellers list at Amazon. Also the “Movers and Shakers” top two is the bio and I, Steve: Steve Jobs in his own words.

Perhaps ironically (because I read almost everything on an iPad now), this might be the last hard cover book I ever buy.

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