Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

iKindle For August?

The latest entry in the “when will Amazon come out with its iPad-killer?” guessing game: Maybe as soon as August.

This comes from DigiTimes, the trade journal that sometimes does an astonishingly accurate job of sussing out secretive product plans by reporting on Asian component makers. And sometimes, it’s not accurate at all.

So take all of this with as much or as little salt as you’d like: DigiTimes’ sources say an Amazon tablet could hit the market “as soon as August-September,” and that the company thinks it can move four million devices by the end of the year.

Like other reports, DigiTimes predicts that the tablet will take advantage of the streaming movie service that Amazon has been quietly building over the past couple years, and presumably other media as well.

It’s worth noting that Amazon officials have done a good job of not dissuading people from thinking they’ll launch a full-featured tablet built to compete with Apple’s iPad. And that the company has already gotten into the mobile business by operating its own version of an Android app market. So if/when it does launch an iKindle, we won’t be shocked.

It would be nice if Amazon could offer users a full-featured music service at the same time it launches its mystery device. And music industry sources say that Amazon is now “very engaged” in discussions with labels to beef up its locker service, which it launched without label sign-on earlier this year.

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus