Amazon's Appstore has gone live in Japan, giving Japanese users the chance to download Android apps to their smartphones, tablets, and new Kindles. The store will include the same apps as available elsewhere in the world, as well as Japan-specific titles from regional carriers and developers.
It would appear that Samsung is the big winner as far as hardware goes in the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, with no less than three major components appearing in the teardown appearing today. The folks at Powerbook Medic have shown a simple teardown process this afternoon to show how simple (or difficult) it is to repair this device, showing everyone in the doubter class that even though your biggest competitor might want you out of the market, that wont stop them from taking your cash when you want components.
Welcome to Thursday evening folks. Today Microsoft's former Windows head Steven Sinofsky discussed his recent and surprising departure from the company, but didn't go into too many specifics when it came down to why he actually left. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 started shipping ahead of schedule today, while new reports are suggesting that Apple may delay the new iMac into 2013. NASA was the victim of a major security breach recently, and today it said that it will make sure all of its laptops are equipped with full disk encryption by the end of the year as a result.
Amazon's Kindle Fire HD 8.9" has begun shipping, with the LTE-enabled version due to ship out next week, although the stock of the Android slates is already tight. Available ahead of schedule, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" has a 1920 x 1200 254ppi display and runs Amazon's customized Android OS on a TI OMAP4470 processor with SXG544 graphics; the WiFi-only model is priced at $299, while the 4G version starts at $499.
It would appear that the iPad mini isn't living up to the expectations of the folks over at DisplayMate where they've got their eye on the traditions of Apple in the very recent past with the iPad mini. DisplayMate made it clear this week that they felt that Apple was breaking their tradition of bringing "the best display, or at least a great display" to the market, saying that instead the iPad mini has "just a very capable display."
Apple's iPad saw its market share slip more than 15-percent in Q3 2012, according to new research, with Android tablets from Samsung and Amazon clawing away sales amid a growing market overall. While still dominating the tablet market overall, with a 50.4-percent share in Q3 so IDC reports, the iPad faced huge growth from Samsung in particular, which saw a year-on-year increase in market share of 325-percent.
Rumors have floated around for quite a while that the iPad mini features dual-speakers. Apple didn't mention this during the product's announcement, however, leaving many to wonder if it is true. Now we have confirmation that the rumors are true via a simple email from Apple's Philip Schiller, which simply reads, "It is stereo."
Amazon has directly called out Apple's new iPad mini in a homepage attack advert, criticizing the new 7.9-inch iOS tablet for falling short in specifications versus the Kindle Fire HD. The comparison, seen when you first visit Amazon's US site, contrasts the $199 Kindle Fire HD with its 216ppi, 7-inch display against the $329 iPad mini, which has a 163ppi display. That's not the only shortcoming, Amazon maintains.
Amazon has launched the Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, and Kindle Paperwhite in Japan, alongside a new Japanese-language Kindle Store. Over 50,000 Japanese-language ebooks, plus over 15,000 manga titles, pad out the Amazon.co.jp Kindle Store, the company says, alongside English books as well, for a total of over 1m titles when the electronic store opens its virtual doors on Thursday.
This week the folks at Amazon have made it clear that they continue to mean business with their line of Kindle Fire tablets, today calling the Kindle Fire HD the "#1 best-selling product across all of Amazon worldwide." We've had some suspicion rise up in comments and emails regarding Amazon's press releases regarding their own sales suggestions such as this one, so until we're certain Amazon actually does specify that the Kindle Fire HD actually literally did sell more units than any other product on the Amazon website, we'll keep with the quotes. The term "best-selling" could also mean "sold as many as we made" or "did just as well as we expected it to."
While tablets are great for browsing the web and playing games, they're also becoming great devices to read digital content on like magazines and newspapers. According to marketing and analytics firm comScore, Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet has the highest readership rates of any other tablet, including the iPad and Barnes & Noble's NOOK Tablet.
Amazon has launched Whispercast for Kindle, a new mass-deployment and management system for ebooks - and soon apps - on Kindles and Kindle apps for schools and businesses. Intended to allow Kindle titles to be bought and shared out among students and employees, as well as remotely control device passwords, wireless settings, and what titles can be purchased. Meanwhile, Amazon says Whispercast for Kindle will soon be able to handle distributing and managing Kindle Fire applications.
