Thursday, October 27, 2011

Kindle News: Sun-shade for iPad/LCD, Amazon net income, accessories for new Kindles, Kindle Fire: "Millions more" built + good video of demo

COVERS FOR LATEST KINDLES

I saw the "Snugg Amazon Kindle Fire leather case and flip stand w/ elastic hand strap and Premium Nubuck Fibre Interior, high quality" case in a press release today.  It stated a normal price of $39.99, with a"Sale" price of $29.99 currently and will be released on November 15, the same date as the Kindle Fire tablet/reader itself.
  I'm partial to flipstands, but I wish this didn't have that stitching showing.  The product is not eligible for Prime.

Here's Amazon's entire assortment of covers for the Kindlefire.

Update: - See the later article on less-expensive covers also.


These are two more unusual covers I've seen and are for the Kindle Basic (NonTouch) and the Kindle Touch.  The first one is the New "York Times cover" ("View from Riverhouse") and the second one is the "Verso Prologue" cover.  Click on the images to

Here are the covers Amazon has for the new e-Ink Kindles.

Click on the images for more info at the product pages for those.

The most useful bookmark for these is the page for all accessories for each Kindle model.

 Note that although the Kindle Touch is a bit larger than the Kindle Basic (NonTouch), cover makers are making covers that will work for both units.


A good Kindle Fire demo on video
Richard B. Drake at the Amazon Kindle forums recommended a YouTube video'd demo of the Kindle Fire, saying it's the best demo he's seen so far.  It's the best one I've seen also.
  To Kindle-Edition subscribers: The video link for use on your computers is: bit.ly/kindlefirevideo.


A Kindle Confession
I got a kick out of this news story by Pat Snyder for Columbus Local News when I spotted the opening paragraph:
' This is hard to admit in pubic, but I'm finally coming out.

After telling my book club, my children, and the English major in me that real books are better, I've been sneaking around with a Kindle. '
  It goes on to describe the realities of public library lending, so if you have time, read the full article at the link.


"iPad to Kindle: ‘Move Over. You’re in My Sun"
Gadgets Technology features iclipstore.com's iclipse sunshade for iPad ! which is for shading the LCD screen from the sun, "solving the outdoor readability issue."

  I wonder if they or someone will make one for the Fire and other smaller LCD screens.  It's something extra to carry around (flat, they say, and doesn't need to be attached to the tablet) but will mean the difference, sometimes, with whether or not you can view or, especially, read the screen outdoors.


Amazon's lower profits in the 4th Quarter
I mentioned the other day that profits would 'dip' for this quarter and they certainly did, as reported by betanews.com -- a big increase in sales (39% increase over same qtr last year) and a decline in net income, which was down 73% year over year.  Shareholder reactions were as expected.  But Amazon finished the quarter with $2.8 billion in cash -- quite a bit over the same quarter last year, which closed out with $1.5 billion.

"Shareholders reacted poorly to the earnings report, driving down Amazon shares by 15 percent in after-hours trading."

  However, a really excellent article on Jeff Bezos by SUCCESS Magazine's John H. Ostdick, that I meant to post earlier, reminded readers of another period in which long-term growth was Amazon's focus rather than short-term gains.

  The familiar story of Amazon's beginnings with a "book beta test among friends" in a garage/basement in 1994 to a TIME magazine "Person of the Year" cover in 1999, involved an initial business plan that "projected that it would not show a profit for four to five years, and bottom-line anxiety created the first cadre of outside doomsayers Amazon would encounter."

Kindle sales in September after the new Kindles announcement
Expenses for the 4th quarter included development of new technologies - e-Ink Touch Kindles, Kindle Fire, the Amazon Cloud, etc., and now, Amazon needing to build "millions more" Kindle Fire units than originally planned.

 Other related costs are the building of many warehouses and hiring of thousands of new employees all over the country and abroad to handle the growing business, but here's what Bezos said about September:
' September 28th was the biggest order day ever for Kindle, even bigger than previous holiday peak days," Bezos said in a statement today.  "In the three weeks since launch, orders for electronic ink Kindles are double the previous launch.  And based on what we're seeing with Kindle Fire pre-orders, we're increasing capacity and building millions more than we'd already planned.” '


Kindle Touch 3G   Kindle Touch WiFi   Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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