Get Ready for the 7inch iPad mini – Implications for Applications
The rumor du jour appears to be a new addition to the iPad family, the 7inch iPad Mini. The existence and commercialization of such a device has been often foretold, but Apple has not as yet released such a device. If they do through, service providers need to be ready to deal with the implications.
Steven Jobs famously said that to operate a 7inch tablet one would have to file down your fingers. He basically said that Apple would not release such a device.
But times have changed. As Montréal’s Rene Ritchie pointed out at iMore, there is an increasing amount of competition in the 7inch space, from Google and Amazon, and the quality of these offerings is getting …
Microsoft Invests $300 Million in the Nook
Microsoft and Barnes and Noble have announced that Microsoft will invest $300 million in the Nook and it will be spun off as a separate joint venture.
It may seem, just as Microsoft is on the cusp of releasing Windows 8, strange of them to invest in a rival platform that’s based on a forked version of Google’s Android platform. Aren’t they helping a competitor?
I see a few points here:
This is primarily about content. Supporting the Nook means gaining access to ebook content and controlling that access. It means Windows 8 tablet users will be able to read e-books without having to rely on Amazon.
Bolstering Nook also bolsters a competitor against Amazon; reducing if ever …
How much should an e-book cost?
With the kerffule this week over the US Department of Justice’s case against Apple and the large publishing houses, it’s interesting to look at what an e-book should actually cost.
Amazon has been selling e-books at around $9.99, which was a price point that created a lot of traction for the e-book industry and saw it taking a large part of book sales, even increasing the number of books bought per reader per year.
However, since the introduction of the agency price model, facilitated by Apple, the price of e-books has risen. According to several media sources, Amazon was making a loss on the sales.
For many, it’s confusing as to how it is possible that an e-book can even cost so much; given that the marginal cost …
Amazon should partner with RIM to build a smartphone
Successful mobile phone ecosystems in the future are going to feature a whole range of devices to access data and consume content. Amazon has a strong presence with its Kindle range of devices, and arguably is strong on the web, but has little or no direct control over smartphones.
It has borrowed space on smartphones today with its kindle book reader for iOS and Android, and has created an Android app market. But it doesn’t control the underlying platforms so is susceptible to competitive pressures from Google or Apple.
Amazon’s Platform Strategy
With the introduction of the Kindle fire for $199 it’s clear that Amazon is using the razor-blade model to make device hardware cheap and wireless transport of their content cheap. Amazon’s goal with hardware is to …
