The competition between Apple and Amazon for the hearts and minds of readers continues to be good news for us all.
Amazon has just announced a new series of Kindle products that includes the Kindle Fire, a touch-sensitive, color tablet that–at the retail price of $199–will pressure Apple to bring down the price of its iPad.
In an air-conditioned tent in central Manhattan–ground zero for the publishing industry–Bezos demoed the new device, which he’s calling a “media tablet.” Its 7-inch touchscreen provides readers access to apps from Amazon’s Android appstore, which includes Kobo reading apps and magazines.
Equally interesting for readers (and writers) is a new Kindle Touch, which includes an “x-ray” feature that allows you to “look at the bones of a book”–including characters, terms and Wikipedia references. The two new Touches retail at $99 and $149.
You can find succinct reviews and specs for these various tablets at Engadget and TechCrunch.
I have a Kindle 3 and an iPad 2, I can read a couple of hours in my Kindle without distraction, but with the iPad I can’t concentrate because there is a lot of games, email alerts and facebook.
I didn’t know anything about x-ray thanks for sharing.