3G Kindle also hitting Australia in 2 weeks

[Palo Verde]

yes that much talked about e book now Australians will be able to buy a Kindle e book gizmo from Amazon, a 2-year old technology now comes with 3G for whatever and whenever the impulse is to buy a book, with 3G (in America, the 3G with kindle is free, not sure here what the arrangement is) in 2 weeks time
customers need only to register on Amazon website than they cn browse the Amazon site for books and download them whenever the impulse is, with 3G you can buy anything anywhere you can make a mobile phone call.

Amazon's Kindle comes to Australia | Australian IT

Amazon (Thumbnails)

Amazon (Thumbnails)

Kindle Features in USA

Say Hello to Kindle

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Paper-Like Display: Reads like real paper with no glare, even in bright sunlight

Long Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging

Carry Your Library: Holds over 1,500 books

Read-to-Me: With the new text-to-speech feature, Kindle can read every newspaper, magazine, blog, and book out loud to you, unless the book's rights holder made the feature unavailable

Free Book Samples: Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.

Large Selection: Over 350,000 books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs available

Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise

[yorrick]

Further news to dampen the spirits of the Kindle.
1) Downloads (per book) will cost more since they are sent overseas from the US.
2) No local web interface to download books

Quite possibly, they will introduce geographic restrictions - in other words, some books you can't buy from the US because they haven't worked out the distribution of electronic books with the local publisher.
Also - Australian authors may not be published on Kindle because of this...

[Palo Verde]

I knew this sort of thing would happen to Australia, pretty protective market local distribustion blah blah etc.
Apparently the most expensive thing was Amazon only had a deal with AT and T so all books to be HSDPA via roaming from AT and T in USA, becos none of the telcos here want in since Amazon will not let them have a large chunk of profit.
Yet the same does not apply to Apple, who still manage to have a iron clad control on all carriers here who decide they want to sell iphone. Apple seemed to have more bargaining power than Amazon to control carrier profits in terms of selling their gadgets alongside the carrier's data.
However iphone sales is declining as more and more people now turn to new stuff in the market like Android and WinMo 6.5 and Maemo 5 (nokia)
Same reason why the Blu Ray players in Australia/ UK / NZ all are of a different zoning to USA, yet Singapore, HK, Japan, Taiwan are all of the same zoning as USA (free trade)

[yorrick]

Declining iphone sales could be indicative of a saturated market.
What you need to look at is the market share and iphone does take a big chunk right next to Blackberry.
Android, Palm OS and WinMo 6.5 are still too new and too fewer phones available. Initial sales reports may look spectacular, but I'd make a call in 12 months time with "market share".

BluRay will still have problems due to:
1) Stupid zoning - Australia is ranked with South America on regional zoning
2) Too expensive compared to DVDs (and having to upgrade the DVD and TV - makes it an expensive upgrade)
3) High Def downloads on the internet.

Poor Sony - having won the war against HD-DVD, they still haven't won the hearts of consumers...