Barnes & Noble Beats Amazon To The Android App Punch, But Kindle Will Likely Prevail

[J515OP]

Basically it just says that Amazon being Amazon is enough to steal the throne from Barnes & Noble.

Barnes & Noble just revamped its Nook tablet with a specially tweaked Android makeover and a curated app store.

B&N is now promoting its Nook Color Android e-reader as the "best value tablet" on the market, after adding a custom layer of Android 2.2 Froyo to its dinky tablet, along with a curated app store and Adobe Flash capabilities in its browser. There are other tweaks too, like page-turn animations and even a social media friends app.
And as much as this might say about Barnes & Noble's table ambitions, more than anything else, the update offers clues about what Amazon may be planning for its next-gen Kindle.

Amazon's been planning an upgrade for its Kindle for a while--if you read between the lines--as a way to combat the high-end tablet threat represented by Apple's iPad. We speculated last week that in an Apple-dominated world, the Amazon Android Tablet would suffer difficulties, unless it could really achieve an incredibly low price. The Nook is already there, though, at $250, which is half the entry-level price of the iPad 2. For this price, the Nook Color offers a free email app, enhanced e-books for kids and adults with better multimedia, and a beta issue of the Nook Friends app (which lets you chat with like-minded readers, swap e-books, and find new texts to read based on recommendations). The curated app store contains apps like Angry Birds, news apps like Pulse, and Lonely Planet phrasebooks--not exactly the full Android marketplace experience, instead offering carefully chosen apps that are 100% compatible with the special Android overlay Barnes & Noble has created.

B&N has essentially done everything that we think Amazon may do in the future, although Amazon's already taken the step of launching a curated app store for Android apps to compete with Apple's App Store. America's biggest bricks-and-mortar bookseller is even launching a new ad campaign to promote its new Nook skills.

Is it enough, though, to pre-empt Amazon's hotly rumored attempt to own the entry-level tablet market? In late March, some statistics hinted the Nook had stolen around 50% of the non-Apple tablet market in the U.S., with the Color edition selling more than a million units over the holiday period. That sounds like a strong sales rate.

But though Amazon has always been shy of revealing absolute Kindle sales figures, we can speculate that if it does choose to launch a tablet PC of its own, using a very similar model to the Nook Color's, it could quickly sell many more tablets than B&N does. Amazon's ability to push its product to millions upon millions of its customers is impressive.

Source: Barnes & Noble Beats Amazon To The Android App Punch, But Kindle Will Likely Prevail | Fast Company

 

[idontknow]

If Amazon has been shy in revealing kindle's sales figures ,my guess is that were not that impressive!
Gg

Sent from my NookColor using Android Tablet Forum

 

[Candlestick]

Kindle

Calculator reader - with a great e-ink screen.

After owning a standard reader < non - kindle > and a NC touchscreen tablet - the Kindle is just yesterday's news. It can recover with the new devices - no doubt. I'd rather shop Amazon than B & N for ebooks - b/c of selection - but the Kindle device has reached the end of it's life.

Barnes & Noble had a good idea with their latest touch screen reader to keep that market alive for those who want e-ink.

 

[Biotic]

Now thats impressive for a lighweight tablet. Im actaully thinking about getting one of those tablets.

Superpad Support Dev Sent from my LGV Ally

 

[jinnijinn]

I love my kindle. And latest estimates are that it'll sell 17 million devices this year. The new nook is nice for sure, but lacks all sorts of features I want in an e-ink reader: audio, screen rotation, 3G. I've no doubt a touchscreen kindle is coming; I can wait, as it's a great device as is.

Btw, a new survey is out that shows that folks are buying dedicated e-readers faster than tablets. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/E-readers-and-tablets/Report/Demographics.aspx