It takes longer to read books on a Kindle 2 or an iPad versus a printed book, Jakob Nielsen of product development consultancy Nielsen Norman Group discovered in a recent usability survey. The study found that reading speeds declined by 6.2% on the iPad and 10.7% on the Kindle compared to print. However, Nielsen conceded that the differences in reading speed between the two devices were not “statistically significant because of the data’s fairly high variability” — in other words, the study did not prove that the iPad allowed for faster reading than the Kindle. A total of 24 participants (10 is about average for a usability survey) were given short stories by Ernest Hemingway to read in print and on iPads, Kindles and desktop PCs.
Amazon has announced an update to the Kindle DX , the larger-screened Kindle built to support textbooks and newspapers. The new device, which sells for $379 – down from the previous version’s $480 – features a 9.7-inch display in a black frame. According to Amazon, the all-new e-ink screen has 50 percent better contrast. And it also includes free 3G wireless for instant downloading of books and other content
iPhone , App Store I’ve just recently started making the transition to ebook reading with my iPhone’s Kindle app — after a little hesitance about reading a screen rather than ink on paper, I’ve gotten used to the form, and really appreciate the convenience of always having my reading with me (and the free ebooks help too — I definitely recommend His Majesty’s Dragon ). The Kindle app is seeing some good support from Amazon, too — the most recent update not only enables the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 , but adds both video and audio to the offerings in certain titles. If the books are created for a “Kindle Edition with Audio/Video,” you’ll be able to play other media right next to the text in the app. Of course, the actual Kindle can’t play this media, which probably means a few things
Finally, there is now a Kindle reader for Android phones . Amazon wants to sell electronic books across multiple mobile devices, and currently supports its own Kindle readers, iPhone, iPad, IPod Touch, Blackberries, PC and Mac computers via a desktop client , and now Android. You can read any of the 620,000 books available on the Kindle in the Android reader, and sync your bookmarks and library across other devices so you can pick up where you left off on your laptop or Kindle reader. Compared to other Android apps, the Kindle is a winner and will likely become extremely popular on the platform
Android: We’ve had a Kindle app for the iPhone for awhile, and more recently for BlackBerry , but today, Amazon released the long-awaited Kindle for Android application, allowing you to read Amazon ebooks on your smartphone, whether or not you have a Kindle. More » E-book – iPhone – Handhelds – Smartphones – Amazon
Oh, snap! Merely hours after Barnes & Noble came out swinging with a $149 WiFi-only version of its Nook and a price-reduced $199 3G Nook , along comes Amazon to rip a massive hole in B&N’s billowing sails. As of this very moment, the $259 Kindle 2 — complete with global 3G and the 6-ink E Ink display you’ve come to know and love (or hate) — is now the $189 Kindle 2. Oh, and there’s also free 2-day shipping. Looks like the undercutter just got undercut, huh
You know a product’s taking off in popularity when new cases for it start dropping on a daily basis. So here we are, two Kindle cases in two days, only this one is klearly the feistier one. The KlearKase press release wastes no time in slamming yesterday’s M-Edge Guardian for being twice as expensive, three times as heavy, and presumably nowhere near as cool.
The worst thing about all these eBook readers taking over? Future generations of small-minded twits will miss out on the simple pleasures of a burning pile of books. Unless, of course, they’re really committed.
Color might still be out of the question — both now and far into the future — but Amazon seems fit to take out some of the Kindle ’s fat. Bloomberg has it on word that the company will debut a thinner version of its e-book reader in August, and the new workout regiment will also enhance its screen sharpness and responsiveness. No word on if this’ll apply to current models or be an entirely different variant, but in addition to no color, we do hear it lacks a touch screen. Bummer, but if the price is right, we’ll bite
Facing increasing pressure from Apple’s red-hot iPad , Amazon intends to fight back with a thinner, sharper and more responsive Kindle that will be introduced later this year. According to Bloomberg , Amazon will introduce a new version of its popular e-reader in August. It will boast a thinner build, sharper contrast, and faster page-turning. However, it will not be a touchscreen device, nor will it boast color
If you’ve been waiting to get the Nook experience on your iPad , your wait is over. Barnes&Noble just announced the availability of their Nook app, available free from the App Store. Nook is behind in the race to ereader hegemony so they’ve decided to add a few iPad specific including eight different fonts, customizable line spacing and margins, different font sizes, and themes. In short, B&N reps said, “It’s a giant canvas.” The app has two book “views:” grid – showing all of the covers and split which shows details of the book on a split screen with the cover
Barnes & Noble’s free eReader app is here, and shockingly, it’s probably the best ebook app on the iPad, for now. Better than Kindle, and better than iBooks. More » Barnes & Noble – IPad – E-book – nook – Apple
iPhone Here’s an intriguing idea: author Neal Stephenson and a few friends (including Greg Bear and Nicole Galland) are going to be releasing a set of serialized stories as apps for the iPad and the iPhone. The project is called “The Mongoliad,” and is based on a world designed by Stephenson (author of the great novels Snow Crash and The Diamond Age). The apps will present “an ongoing stream of nontextual, para-narrative, and extra-narrative stuff,” and even ask readers to interact and create their own stories in the universe with some “pretty cool tech.” Interesting. There’s not a lot of information out right now about what the project is exactly, but there is a Facebook page with a few more details, and a skeleton page where you can sign up for more information
What was hinted at in those leaked Dell Streak flyers is now official: Kindle for Android. Unfortunately, it’s not quite ready to download. Amazon’s free Kindle ebook reader — already out for Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and iDevices — won’t launch until later this summer. When it does, users of Android 1.6 and above (with SD card) will have the ability to search, browse, and purchase (without exiting the app) any of the half million books in the Kindle Store
It’s official: Kindle is coming an Android phone near you sometime this summer. Kindle is already available on the iPhone, iPad, and BlackBerry, but Android will join the mobile lineup in the next few months. The free app comes with all of the features you’d expect in a Kindle app: access to Amazon’s half a million e-books, automatic sync of bookmarks, notes, and highlights, and the ability to read books in portrait or landscape mode. While Kindle for Android seems very similar to its iPhone and iPad counterparts, it does come with an additional feature: the ability to buy books through the app itself
