Yes, you read that right: Amazon will soon be taking on the iPad 2 with an Android Kindle tablet. Don’t believe us? Read on, and see the evidence stack up…
Anyone keeping a keen eye on Amazon lately will have noticed it’s been buddying up to Android. Last week it launched its Amazon Appstore, selling Android apps straight to your phone, and annoying Apple in the process (Apple claims ‘App store’ is a copyrighted term). Interestingly, it takes a more relaxed approach to in-app payments, while vetting what’s available through it, making it more similar to the Apple App Store than Android Market. It also unveiled its Cloud Player service last week, which lets you stream songs you’ve uploaded to its Cloud Drive service to your Android handset, so you can access your whole music library wherever you are.
All this Android love can only mean one thing: the time is ripe for an Amazon Android Kindle tablet.
Last year Amazon acquired Touchco, a New York-based start-up specialising in touchscreens that are far cheaper than the iPhone or iPad’s. It was thought to be merging Touchco’s staff into its Kindle hardware division, Lab126. Recent job postings on Lab126’s site also asked for experience developing for Android – that could be to make more Kindle apps, or to help research an Android tablet-cum-e-reader of its own. The company is denying the rumours, of course; Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said a colour screen on the Kindle was still “a long way out,” and that he’d seen things in the lab that still weren’t “ready for prime-time production.” But then again, anyone remember Steve Jobs poo-pooing netbooks at the original iPad launch, only to announce the 11-inch Macbook Air shortly after? This could be another case of deft wrong-footing to fool the competition.
Amazon definitely has the content, with all the Android apps it sees fit to approve, over a million e-books on the Kindle Store, along with its music downloading and movie streaming services. And with Honeycomb, the first version of Android optimised for tablets, about to hit, it’s looking like a dead cert. What’s less certain is what an Android Kindle would look like.
In keeping with its Kindle heritage, and considering the takeover of Touchco, it’s likely to have a screen that’s optimised for reading e-books, while showing video and limiting battery consumption, something similar to that produced by Pixel Qi. Most of the Kindle’s marketing trumps reading in direct sun as a selling point over the iPad, after all, with adverts focussing on holiday reading by the beach or pool, so we can’t see it using a similar screen to the iPad. And if it was being sold as the tablet for reading, a 7-inch screen would make most sense, both in terms of portability and to keep the price down. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is the only really serious 7-incher out there are the moment, and that comes with a hefty price tag Amazon could easily undercut. Price is also likely to be key: one of the main reasons the iPad dominates the tablet market so conclusively is because no one’s made a decent cheap alternative. Rivals like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola Xoom are actually more expensive, and considering the iPad isn’t cheap to start with, that’s going to put off all but the most dedicated of tablet enthusiasts.
How much Amazon focusses on the reading side of things will be a key decider in the Android Kindle’s success. Judging by the Kindle’s huge sales, we’d guess it’d market it as the next gen Kindle that can do more than ever, but as to how much it pushes these abilities, we’ll have to wait and see. We certainly won’t be missing the limited browser on the current Kindle.
An Android Kindle tablet is definitely an exciting prospect though. If Amazon can get it right, with a great price and enough extras to tempt people from Apple, we could be seeing the first genuine iPad 2 rival.
Out TBC | £TBC | Amazon
