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Obviously I was wrong about the Kindle Tablet – It Does Exist

So MG Siegler of TechCrunch has now put his hands on the AmTab, and that proves that all this time I was wrong. Every time I denied the Kindle Tablet rumor I dug a deeper and deeper hole for myself.

Don’t expect me to be upset at my mistake; I figured out all the way back in May that I was very likely guessing wrong on this. The only reasons I didn’t change my position was general pigheadedness and well, I don’t like basing my decisions on unsubstantiated rumors.

Eh. It was fun while it lasted.

According to TechCrunch, the AmTav is based on a 7″ LCD screen (likely the FFS one mentioned in the rumor in May) with a capacitive touchscreen. It’s going to ship with the Amazon Appstore but no sign of the Android Market. There’s no camera, and the initial model will be Wifi only, with a 3G model possibly coming later.

The interface that Sieglerย  described is very different from the usual home screen. It has a carousel type layout with spaces for all of Amazon’s services: Kindle, music, video. It’s called, appropriately enough, the Amazon Kindle. The release date will likely be some time in November, not October (as rumored earlier this week). It’s running on a forked version of Android, and it looks like Amaozn are trying to do this with as little contact from Google as possible.

As much fun as I had denying the AmTab, I’m glad to know it’s over. I got into this because I like seeing new gadgetry and now there’s something really new to look forward to.

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Comments


Mike Cane September 2, 2011 um 6:00 pm

Countdown to Amazon being sued over Apple’s PATENTED CoverFlow UI in 5… 4… 3…


MNielsen September 2, 2011 um 6:03 pm

I haven’t read the article, but let me guess Siegler mentioned Apple more times than Amazon ๐Ÿ˜‰


eug September 2, 2011 um 6:25 pm

If these rumours turn out to be correct then Amazon has just declared war on Google.


burger flipper September 2, 2011 um 6:39 pm

A couple guesses:

I bet the writer is wrong and this will have a dual core chip (consistent with previous rumors).

Much harder to root/jailbreak than Nook Color.

With prime tossed in, it will be huge.

I know I’ll be tempted, even though I shouldn’t be. I hope NC2 proves to be a winner: amp up the specs a little and leave it rootable. Gonna be an interesting Xmas.


Syn September 2, 2011 um 6:51 pm

To bad we didn’t make a bet with you Nate.. if your wrong, dance naked or something. ๐Ÿ™‚

Hmmm.. now I wonder what I should do. My Prime is due for renewal toward the beginning of October. I could let it lapse. Now that Netflix has lost Starz, Amazon has suddenly become a good deal now that they are more in par with each other.


anonymous September 2, 2011 um 6:58 pm

Why exactly is Amazon going into the tablet market?

So the current Kindles will "simply be the low-end, low-cost Kindles, whereas this new one will be the high-end one".
Books on LCD will never be "high-end"! ๐Ÿ˜€


Shel September 3, 2011 um 12:37 am

Don’t feel bad, Nate, I did the exact same thing. I finally got tired of the rampant rumors and pointed out (two days ago) that Amazon had NEVER said they were releasing a tablet, the closest thing they had was Bezos saying, "Stay tuned". Well, I might not be an English major, but that doesn’t mean the same as , "Yes, we are releasing a tablet" to me, either.
So now what do we get? Yep, same thing you got – the TechCrunch article. *sigh*.


Ecchi September 3, 2011 um 10:10 am

Is not Amazon like expositor in IFA 2011?!
Anything about some press conference for showing the new eReaders or tablets by Amazon?


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