I have to admit that, when Amazon launched its own store for Android apps, I was among those who asked why Amazon created its own app store. It all became clearer a while later, when Jeff Bezos’ company launched its own Android-powered device, the Kindle Fire.

Helped by the amazing popularity of the Fire, the Amazon Appstore managed to survive alongside Google Play and other third-party stores, and more so, to thrive. Continuing to slowly build up its Appstore, Amazon recently introduced a new feature, which might just give it an edge over Google Play – the platform now lets you “test drive” an app before you buy it.

The new feature has arrived along with an update to the Appstore. According to Amazon, the Test Drive feature is on a beta roll-out on selected Android phones.

If you have the Amazon Appstore app running on your Android phone, you need to update to the latest version (to do so, follow the Source 1 link after this article using your Android phone). Make sure that you are updating to version 2.6.53 or higher. Once you are up to date, the moment you’ll check an Android app on Amazon’s store, you’ll be able to see the “Test Drive” button.

The interesting part about this “Test Drive” feature is that you won’t have to download anything on your Android phone. Amazon explained how this works as follows (hint, the cloud!):

Amazon brings the Test Drive experience to Amazon.com and Android phones using the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a web service that provides on-demand compute capacity in the cloud for developers.  When customers click the Test Drive button, we launch a copy of the app on EC2. As customers interact with the app, we send those inputs over the phone’s WiFi Internet connection to the app running on Amazon EC2.  Our servers then send the video and audio output from the app back to the customer’s computer or phone. All this happens in real time, allowing customers to explore the features of the app as if it were running locally on their mobile device.

All said, it will be interesting to see how Google will respond to this new feature rolled out on the Amazon Appstore. Will it follow suit and find a way for us to test apps from Google Play? Is Google even bothered by the existence  of  the Amazon Appstore at all?

The runaway success of the Kindle Fire has made Amazon eager to refresh its tablet lineup, but it seems the online retailer is having problem deciding on the right size.

An anonymous source recently tipped Reuters that Amazon is preparing to release an 8.9-inch Kindle Fire during the lucrative holiday season this year. If you believe the latest report from DigiTimes, however, the 8.9-inch model has been apparently suspended in favor of a bigger tablet.

Instead of coming out with an 8.9-inch Kindle Fire, Amazon is now planning to release a 10.1-inch Kindle Fire. Why the change of mind? According to industry sources, the 10.1-inch version of the Kindle Fire is part of Amazon’s strategy to simplify its product lineup and to take on the reigning tablet champ, Apple iPad, whereas the 8.9-inch model was prepared to fight off Samsung Galaxy Note tablets. This last tidbit sounds odd though, because Samsung has no Note tablet in the 8.9-inch range. I suspect that this is a misunderstanding, and the source actually meant to say Galaxy Tabs here.

Market rumors now point to a third quarter release of the 10.1-inch Kindle Fire, with production to ramp up in the second quarter or early third quarter of 2012. All in all, the sources said Amazon is hoping to ship 30-40 million tablets this year. Aside from the 10.1-inch model, an improved 7-inch Kindle Fire will also be released to the market.

While Amazon is busy pondering the release of a bigger Kindle Fire, Apple is reportedly planning to launch an iPad Mini in the second half of the year. The latest rumors come from a Taiwanese newspaper that said the miniaturized iPad could start appearing in stores at the end of the third quarter, with Apple setting a goal to ship out 6 million iPad Minis this year.

NEXT: Bigger Kindle Fire Coming in Mid-2012

Amazon Kindle Ice Next in Line to Kindle Fire, Say Rumors Survey: iPad Buyers Holding Off Purchases Because of Kindle Fire

With Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G LTE still stuck in a legal limbo, we wouldn’t blame impatient customers for glancing in AT&T’s direction, at the delectable HTC One X. Of course, the import banned affected HTC’s version of the One X too, but it seems that at least some units made it into the country before the ban was enforced. The One X is out of stock on AT&T’s site, but you can still get it from other retailers, and at a great price too.

We are talking about Amazon, the online retail giant that has long been the savior of those who crave new smartphones at discounted prices. When the HTC One X first came out, Amazon had it for $179.99. Now, the online retailer has the HTC One X priced at a convenient $129.99.

Amazon’s current offer is $70 cheaper than buying the phone from AT&T directly. What’s even better, the deal is valid for both new customers and for those who are already on a contract with the carrier and want to upgrade their phone.

Both the gray and the white versions of the HTC One X are available for purchase on Amazon Wireless. The gray version is in stock and will be shipped out in 24 hours, but the white version would only be delivered in 1 – 3 weeks (something to do with the ban, maybe?)

It looks like the white HTC One X, which had its moment in the TV sun during a recent American Idol episode, is the more popular choice amongst the two. You may want to head to Amazon before the offer expires!

Are you tempted to get the HTC One X, now that it’s been heavily discounted?

NEXT: Amazon UK offering HTC Hero pre-order for £429

HTC Desire HD on Amazon UK, going, gone Amazon App for Android now available, features barcode scanner

If rumors are accurate, it has certainly been and will continue to be a busy year for the R&D team at Amazon.

Not only is the online retailer giant apparently preparing a Kindle with a color e-ink display, but Amazon is also planning to release a new Kindle device with front lighting. The latter came from a Reuters’ source that apparently has seen the prototype first-hand.  According to the anonymous source, production for the new front-lit Kindle e-reader is still ongoing, but the new e-reader should be ready to hit the market in July.

It isn’t too surprising to see Amazon making the decision to roll out a front-lit Kindle, especially since one of its biggest competitors, Barnes & Noble, has had a head start for a good couple of weeks in releasing an e-reader with a similar feature. Given that one of the drawbacks of e-ink displays is that they are less than ideal for reading in low lighting, the integrated reading light might boost the appeal of Amazon’s Kindle line.

While Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is $40 more expensive than the non-GlowLight version, the source said Amazon is likely to keep the price of its front-lit e-reader lineup the same, with a slight chance that the price will be raised by a very small margin. Analysts believe that a $10 premium for the new front-lit Kindle e-reader is well within a reasonable range.

Right now, the 6-inch e-ink Kindle with WiFi connectivity is the cheapest Amazon e-reader, available at $79. The Wi-Fi version of Kindle Touch with special offers goes for $99, while the 3G version with special offers is priced at $149.

As for the color e-ink Kindle that is rumored to come out later in the year, IHS iSuppli analyst Vinita Jakhanwal said that Amazon may not be ready to launch it this year. Back in October, Jakhanwal had the opportunity to look at the product and she thought that Amazon had its work cut out if it wanted to produce the color e-ink reader in high volumes.

Since a color Kindle is supposedly out of the picture for now, how about a bigger Kindle Fire instead? The same anonymous source said that Amazon is planning to release a new Kindle Fire with an 8.9-inch display in the holiday season this year. So that’s definitely one thing to watch out for.

NEXT: Amazon Kindle Fire Source Code Now Online

Amazon Kindle Ice Next in Line to Kindle Fire, Say Rumors Digitimes: Amazon to release color e-readers later this year, 6 millions units to be shipped in 2012

This is a follow-up to my article, from a couple of months ago, analyzing the segmentation trends in the tablet market. Since I wrote that article, we have seen some more data on the market share trends of the iPad and Android tablets, including some very interesting data on the Kindle Fire. Now, let’s have a look at how the data stacks up against my predicted trends.

iPad vs. Android: Market Share Trends

Before I get into this, let’s have a look at the historical market share trends of the iPad and Android tablets over the past couple of years, in terms of quarterly sales.

This shows a fairly clear trend that the market is moving towards Android tablets and away from the iPad. In fact, this shows that the iPad has lost market share in every successive quarter in which there hasn’t been a new iPad launch. In Q2 2011, with the launch of the iPad 2, the Apple sales cycle gave the iPad a marginal boost in market share, which it again lost in the next quarter. Similarly, Android tablets seemed to have received a similar boost, in Q4 2011, with the launch of the Kindle Fire, which seems to have tailed off in Q1 2012 in advance of the new iPad launch.The tablet market’s Q1 2012 performance has been considerably muted, with a 38% decline in shipments. As per NPD, this seems to have been driven by build up of inventory during the holiday season, specifically for the Kindle Fire. This does not mean that the Kindle Fire was a flash in the pan. Rather, since we are tracking shipping figures, we need multiple quarters of consecutive QoQ data to get a good estimate of sales trends.

Even the iPad’s sales volume at 11.8 million actually came in under expectations. With the new iPad launched in March, it is possible that the iPad may temporarily make some more market share gains in Q2 before the major Android tablet launch in Q3.

The biggest threat to the iPad’s market share will be in the last two quarters of the year, with two major product launches – the Nexus tablet and the new Kindle Fire models. I’ve explained the reasoning for this statement in the section below. Hence, it  makes sense to stick with my original prediction of Android’s quarterly tablet sales overtaking the iPad, in Q4 of this year.

Android Tablets: Segmentation Trends

Now, the section above gives us a good view of where the tablet market is headed, but it doesn’t really explain why. The key reason is market segmentation. A recent survey from comScore highlights the market share of Android tablet usage, among individual tablets, from December 2011 to February 2012. At first glance, it looks like the Kindle Fire has killed every other tablet, but there’s a little more to it than that.

First, let’s divide Android tablets into segments as follows:

1) Low Cost Media Tablet - Kindle Fire

2) Media Tablet - Samsung Galaxy Tab Family, Motorola Xoom, Toshiba AT100, Acer Picasso, Sony Tablet S

3) Hybrid Tablet - Asus Transformer, Acer Iconia, Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1

4) Others - Dell Streak, Other (ComScore has included the B&N Nook Color here)

It is important to understand that since this data shows usage share, actual sales performance would be even more pronounced. Also, since the tablet market is growing at an incredible pace, constant market share implies the segment is growing at the same pace as the market, not a flat sales performance. Now, let’s have a look at this data again.

Now, these figures look a lot more interesting now. Let’s see what this means.
1) The two fastest growing segments in the tablet market are the low cost media tablets (Kindle Fire) and the hybrid tablets. This seems to be consistent with my prediction of segmentation trends in the tablet market.

2) As I’ve stated before, a low priced forked tablet is no guarantee to success, as the presence of the Barnes & Noble Nook Color seems to be minuscule. The key factors to a successful low cost tablet are acceptable content & good marketing push.

3) Most of the Kindle Fire’s gains seem to be at the expense of Media Tablets (since most of the tablets in “Other” would also be Media Tablets). Again, this is no surprise since the functionality offered by all media tablets is practically the same, albeit at different levels of quality. However, since the Kindle Fire is at an industry leading price point it has emerged as the winner. This is also the same problem the iPad seems to be facing.

4) This also highlights that there is plenty of room in the low cost media tablet segment for more competition. With the release of the Nexus Tablet and new Kindle Fire models, the presence of low cost media tablets will be strengthened even more and the primary victims will be other non-low cost media tablets (both Android media tablets and the iPad).

Conclusion

Looking at the trends highlighted above, it looks like the iPad losing the tablet market share crown by the end of this year is a likely outcome, with Apple’s current strategy.

Apple’s decisions over the next year will be very interesting to watch. It seems necessary for Apple to release a low cost 7.85″ mini-iPad, at the rumored $300 price point. However, this would have a significant negative impact on Apple’s profit margins, which is the primary factor driving Apple’s stock price.

Apple has already seen shrinking margins on newer iPad models because of its inability to raise prices, due to competitive pressure. Since hybrid tablets are more of a long-term play, Apple’s only other option is to retain the existing iPad and hope the market share loss can be contained. It looks like Apple may soon have to pick a lane in the margins vs. volume strategy, and either choice will have a long-term impact on Apple’s stock.

NEXT: Amazon’s Kindle Fire May Just Kill Google’s Android Market

Survey: iPad Buyers Holding Off Purchases Because of Kindle Fire Amazon’s Kindle Fire Surpasses the iPad in Demand

While not long ago, e-book readers were rudimentary devices far off from the capabilities of tablets, the thin line between a basic e-reader and a more complex slate becomes increasingly thinner and thinner and thinner.

Amazon is the most important company “responsible” for mixing things up and the makers of the Kindle Fire are apparently planning to “confuse” us even more. Aside from preparing the release of a bunch of new tablets, set to take the Fire’s popularity to new heights, Amazon is reportedly prepping the launch of at least one color e-book reader as well.

Unknown “industry sources” cited by Digitimes told the website that Amazon’s new color e-book readers will be made available in the second half of 2012, with related components already set to start shipping.

Amazon’s current line-up of e-book readers includes the mono-color Kindles, which are available at prices between $79 and $189. For its future e-readers, Amazon will be using multi-touch capacitive touch panels, if Digitimes’ sources prove reliable, instead of the infrared touch panels used in the first four generations of the Kindle reader.

The sources also reveal the company that will supply Amazon with the touch panels needed to go through with these bold plans. TPK Holding has helped Amazon with the Kindle Fire’s manufacturing last year. However, in 2011, TPK Holding was not Amazon’s exclusive partner for the Fire (Wintek and JTouch also supplied touch panels), while in this particular case the collaboration might be on a larger scale.

Digitimes adds that E Ink Holdings, the company that provides the electronic ink technology for both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, is planning to unveil color electronic paper displays (EPD) in the near future. Amazon might adopt this color e-ink technology as well, which might mean that we will see two types of color e-readers launched by Jeff Bezos’ company in 2012.

Finally, according to current estimations, Amazon is expected to ship six million e-book readers in 2012. However, it is not specified if the number refers to total predicted sales of e-readers, including the old devices, or just the new color ones.

The entire report should be taken with a big grain of salt, as there is not one single piece of information confirmed from official sources. Also, we are talking about Digitimes here, and the website has a past record of starting up rumors based on “dubious” sources.

However, there might be some truth behind the story after all, so you should keep in touch with our website to find out exactly what Amazon is planning for 2012. Stay tuned!

NEXT: Kobo Joins Battle of Touch Readers

Amazon Kindle devices selling over 1 million units a week thoughout the month of December NOOK Color 2 “Confirmed” for Release Ahead of Kindle Fire

In recent days, there have been many reports stating that numerous Android handset manufacturers are working on launching smartphones with their own forked versions of Android. Recent comments by Skyhook CEO, Ted Morgan, and the success of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, seem to have fanned these flames even more. But ignoring Skyhook’s stormy relationship with Google for a second – is this really a sound business strategy for OEMs? Let’s take a closer look.

In order to truly understand whether this strategy makes sense, let’s delve into the two primary reasons the Kindle Fire was successful with its Android forking strategy, and attempt to gauge how well our other Android forking contestants would perform on those same metrics.

1. Price

Amazon Kindle Fire

This is the most obvious factor. At a price point of $200, the Kindle Fire was the first truly low cost tablet that was backed by a strong brand and arrived on the scene with a great marketing campaign. Since Amazon essentially sold the Kindle Fire at break-even to drive content sales, it was able to keep the price point low enough to attract numerous first time buyers. Being the first mover into this segment and landing with a solid marketing campaign from the big ‘A’ created a lot of traction for Kindle Fire among consumers.

Other OEMs

The party is just getting started, folks.

In developed markets, competing based on price is not really possible because of carrier subsidies. There are scores of mid-range smartphones that are available for as low as $0-$50 with a new contract. And, in developing markets, as Nokia has recently discovered, low cost Android smartphone manufacturers already have considerable presence in the market. Clearly, there is no first mover advantage here.

In the tablet market, the Kindle Fire is already a strong player. With Google launching its own low cost tablet in the next few months, it will be very difficult for other OEMs to compete with them purely on price, while making a positive gross margin on sales. Since content sales form a minuscule portion of the revenues most OEM’s earn, means that would-be-players do not have the option of making up hardware losses with profits from content sales.

2. Content

Amazon Kindle Fire

A huge driving factor for the sales of the Kindle Fire is the fact that Amazon presented both an acceptable content library and a low price for consumers. For first time buyers averse to high prices and the usual techno babble you find on sites like this, it was a no-brainer. In contrast to popular opinion, I wouldn’t categorize Amazon’s content offerings as “superior”, but rather “acceptable”, considering the price point. The reason for my argument is because of tablet usage trends – tablets are primarily used for browsing, apps, games & media (books, music & movies). A recent survey of tablet users in the UK, by UM London, gives us an understanding of the importance of each of those factors. The most important bit of information from the survey is the chart below:

As shown by the survey, only 15% of tablet usage is for books, music or movies. The top 5 activities, accounting for 61% of usage, are browsing, games, email, social networking and news. And, for these activities, Android (unforked) offers far more advantages over the Kindle Fire.

In terms of media content, the Google Play Store is behind Amazon. But, in terms of app selection, even though the Amazon’s App Store has grown quickly thanks to effective monetization strategies and perks for new users, it is still far behind the Google Play Store. As per the latest figures, the Amazon appstore offers over 31,000 apps, while the Google Play boasts a collection of over 450,000 apps, most of which run well on 7 inch tablets.

Now, even though Amazon’s offerings do not match the Google Play Store just yet, it is important to note that Amazon did give users enough apps and content to match expectations.

Other OEMs

There are other ways to differentiate yourself, OEM's.

Even though the Android operating system is open source, Google services, including the Google Play Store (formerly the Android Market), are not. This means that OEMs looking to fork Android for their devices must load an independent content library onto the device and most Android OEMs are clearly lacking in this area, as anyone that has purchased a cheap Chinese tablet only to discover no Google Play love will sadly recount.

Given that smartphone usage typically tends to focus even less on media consumption and more on browsing, apps, games and social networking – there is no OEM with the ability to offer a satisfactory ecosystem to consumers. Even OEMs like Sony can do nothing but offer a few Playstation gaming titles. Even if OEMs are successful in licensing Amazon’s forked OS for their devices, the lack of apps would be a severe handicap, putting them below even Windows Phone devices in terms of market performance. I would compare Samsung’s level of success with the Bada OS as a good benchmark for any OEM looking to fork Android. It clearly hasn’t gained much traction thanks to the low app selection.

Conclusion

The combination of sufficient content and the low price point that Amazon used to make its Android forking strategy successful is extremely difficult to replicate, especially in the smartphone segment. It may be a low-risk move for small, low cost Chinese vendors, but there isn’t much of an upside either. Given that any attempt by any large OEM to fork the Android OS would most likely be a one way ticket out of the Open Handset Alliance, it is clearly a very risky move. Most Android OEMs are better served looking at alternative means to differentiate, as attempting this strategy could very well put an end to their mobile ambitions.

What say you?

NEXT: Bigger Kindle Fire Coming in Mid-2012

Amazon Kindle devices selling over 1 million units a week thoughout the month of December Amazon Kindle Fire Source Code Now Online

Samsung has released the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 last month for an almost Kindle Fire-like price of $250 for the 8GB model. Since the Tab 2 7.0 comes with a microSD card slot, the storage shouldn’t put off buyers, given that the tablet does come with a snappy 1GHz dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. But what happened to the bigger Galaxy Tab 2 10.1,  which has been reportedly delayed to receive a quad-core processor upgrade?

It seems that the plan to fit the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 with a faster processor has been shelved by Samsung. The tablet is now up on two different online stores and it still packs a dual-core processor. You can now pre-order the 16GB model of Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 on Amazon and Office Depot for $399. While the latter said the tablet will be shipped out on May 11, Amazon lists it at a slightly later date of May 13.

Although the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is only an incremental update over last year’s model, it is by no means an unattractive tablet. The 10.1-inch screen comes with a 1280 x 800 resolution, which makes the tablet serve its purpose well as a couch companion, as you browse for the latest news on Android Authority. Granted, it’s no Galaxy Note 10.1, but that one seems to be perennially delayed, with endless design changes rumored. We think the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 would make a worthy stopgap tablet until the big one comes along later in the year.

NEXT: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 price leaked: $399.99, coming soon to… Office Depot?

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 pops up on Amazon, starts selling at $249.99 ASUS Transformer Prime 32GB Now available at Office Depot (Updated)

Since it was launched in the holiday season of 2011, the Kindle Fire has become the most popular Android tablet in the US, with a market share of more than 50% as of February 2012. It’s no wonder Amazon is so eager to provide updates for the Kindle Fire, in order to keep their customers happy.

If you’re having trouble keeping the Kindle Fire from being recklessly used by the juveniles in your household, Amazon hears your pain. This update will likely please many parents, as the new 6.3.1 software update brings additional parental controls to the e-reader device. Once you apply the 6.3.1 software update on your Kindle Fire, you’ll be able to password-protect purchases and disable access to specific ‘content libraries’, as well as block access to the Fire’s Silk web browser, which is, naturally, full of lots of candy.

Amazon last released an update for the Kindle Fire back in March, where some major features were introduced. They included the ability to share passages and notes from books directly from the Kindle Fire, and more. They also included the Book Extras feature, that enabled users to see more information about the book being read without leaving the book. Further to this, Amazon baked in lots of other features that tie your personal data to their cloud, for viewing on multiple devices.

Although Amazon will push the update automatically to all Kindle Fire devices, you can install it manually by first downloading the 199MB file from Amazon, and then by transfering the file to the device via a USB cable. Easy peasy, right? Just in case, you can find more information about the update and installation process on the online retailer’s website. Enjoy your freshly updated Kindle Fire. Your kids likely will enjoy it a lot less.

NEXT: Bigger Kindle Fire Coming in Mid-2012

Amazon Kindle Ice Next in Line to Kindle Fire, Say Rumors Amazon Kindle Fire Under Fire for Patent Infringement

At first, there were doubts and hesitations. The general consensus was that if more experienced manufacturers were having trouble cracking Apple’s tablet dominance, what chances could Amazon possibly have?

If you check the latest tablet market share in the US, however, you’ll see that Amazon has succeeded in proving detractors wrong with its Android-powered tablet gamble. Moreover, the online retailer, with only one device under its belt, the Kindle Fire, has now secured the lion share of the Android tablet market, with an assuring 54.4% lead in just three months of its availability.

It’s easy to dismiss the success of Kindle Fire as a fluke, but for others, it’s simply a case of Amazon doing a darn good job of creating one of the most complete content ecosystems, one that can be rivaled only by Apple. More, Amazon had the guts, as well as the cash to sustain it, to sell its tablet at a loss.

At $199, the 7-inch Kindle Fire has found its niche as a content-consumption device that doesn’t need the latest and greatest of everything. Is an Amazon-branded smartphone next on Jeff Bezos to-do list then?

According to Wired, one Citigroup analyst, Mark Mahaney, says that a Kindle Phone might be out as early as the last quarter of 2012, the same time of year when the Kindle Fire was released to the delight of many consumers. Mahaney wrote that “Based on our supply chain check, we believe FIH [Foxconn] is now jointly developing the phone with Amazon.”

Though a Kindle phone seems like a natural progression, Amazon can expect to face a tougher competition in the smartphone market. Then there’s the question of data consumption, which is less of an issue for a Wi-Fi device such as the Kindle Fire, but might be a stumbling block for a mobile phone.

While the portability factor of a smartphone, compared to a tablet, is a positive point, there are concerns that the desire to consume content will require customers to invest in expensive data plans. It wouldn’t hurt to have the support of one of the bigger carriers in the country to market the phone in a more traditional setting, since Amazon won’t have any problems selling it online.

Knowing Amazon’s ability to survive on razor thin margins, if it offers the Kindle phone with a sub-$100 price point (or however low is Amazon willing to go), it can really push content downloads on its digital storefront to a whole new level.

With Facebook contemplating entering the mobile phone market and Microsoft forming an alliance with Barnes & Noble, going on the offensive might be the best defense strategy for Amazon. When and if Amazon rolls outs the “Kindle phone”, we’ll probably see the same disruptive effect that the Kindle Fire had created in the tablet market last year.

Does the idea of a Kindle phone excite you? Do you think it will help drag prices of smartphone down, like Kindle Fire is doing to the Android tablet market?

NEXT: Amazon Kindle Ice Next in Line to Kindle Fire, Say Rumors

Amazon Kindle Fire Source Code Now Online Amazon Kindle devices selling over 1 million units a week thoughout the month of December