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Kindle Cloud Storage Coming with the Kindle Tablet on Wednesday?

Amazon will be holding a press event on Wednesday, and everyone pretty much expects them to announce the Kindle Tablet. But have you considered what else they might announce?

I came across some code last night that might give us a clue.

Yesterday I posted about some new code that was found on one of Amazon’s webpages. An industrious Kindle fan had noticed that there were references to "prime ebooks", and that there were menu options for returning and deleting them (just like library books).

There was also a detail in the revealed code that I had noticed but didn’t mention in the post. I was planning to save it for Monday or Tuesday and then get the attention of the major tech blogs. (But then one of my readers pointed it out and I kinda have to post now.)

There’s unused code on the "Manage Your Kindle" page that (when enabled) is going to let you manage your uploaded ebooks in the exact same way as you manage any of the ebooks, periodicals, or audiobooks that you’ve purchased from Amazon.

And I’m not just talking about a fragment here or there; the code appears to be completely written and is waiting to be turned on. You can see a sample above.

The image above shows some of the possible attributes for a Kindle (has Wifi, Prime_ebooks, Pdocs_Archival_Support, etc). One of the attributes will track whether a given Kindle can have the personal documents backed up onto Amazon’s servers.

Now, we don’t know that current Kindles will get the personal document support, but it’s clear that some piece of Kindle hardware will  be getting that support. That’s the whole point of "Pdocs_Archival_Support".

This means that there might be a Kindle that will have the equivalent of the Cloud Drive that Amazon launched a few months back. You’ve always been able to upload docs to  the Cloud Drive but you couldn’t access them from any current Kindle. That is probably going to change.

Needless to say, that is a big deal and it’s arguably more important than the "prime ebook" hints. Of course, what could be even more important is that this new support might also archive your annotations as well as the ebooks. Now that would be a nice additional feature.

Everyone assumes that the Kindle Tablet will be launched on Wednesday, and it is safe to assume that the kTab will have the Cloud Drive integrated into the software. Amazon will already let you upload all sorts of files to the CD, so it would be a little silly if their own tablet couldn’t read the personal Kindle ebooks that the kTab can get from the CD.

I suspect that the personal Kindle ebooks will actually be stored in your Cloud Drive and that would mean that the Kindles themselves might get better integration with the CD. I don’t know for sure that this is a sign of better Cloud Drive integration, but you have to admit that it is the most likely possibility.

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Comments


karen wester newton September 25, 2011 um 5:59 pm

Cool! It would be nice if they would save the annotations in the "personal documents" too! I edit my own manuscripts with my Kindle using the annotations feature and I once lost hours of work when it rebooted right in the middle of reading the book aloud. All annotations in that "file" were lost!

Nate Hoffelder September 25, 2011 um 6:21 pm

That’s what I was thinking, too. Thanks for reminding me to mention it.


K H Acton September 25, 2011 um 8:49 pm

This might not be connected, but my regional cellular carrier (CellularSouth) is changing its name Monday to C-Spire. CS is one of the largest regional carriers with great customer loyalty. I’m wondering if the name change (which is stupid but less regional) might have to do with Amazon’s announcement. They already promote Amazon’s AppStore.


Andrys September 25, 2011 um 9:22 pm

I love nick541’s inspiration of just checking out the source code on the kindle management page!

At first, I thought 'videofooter' might have something to do with the current Kindle Video/Audio Enhanced books that are *currently* readable only on the Kindle apps for iDevices (managed as Kindle devices also) and are strangely still not made readable for Android but should be, in time for the Kindle tablet.

But I haven’t looked at the source code yet. Someone just told me about his post and then I saw your comment there. I wondered if it was a footer for an instructional video showing that might be showing on the page – I have no idea how it’s used there but wanted to see what you found.

Re a Kindle not accessing the Cloud to read a book, we recently got the Cloud Reader, which can access all of our Amazon-purchased books in the older Amazon cloud that is our personal library (though any 'books' there are just references to the ebooks stored elsewhere) to read them via a web browser.

My Kindle for PC picks up my personal docs to read and notate, but they’re local on my drive. So, your find on the possibility of our being able to read THOSE from the featured Amazon cloud of 5 Gigs that each person now gets for free, globally, from Amazon, is another nice find! Huge, since our note taking has not been 'backed up' for us that way and presented on the kindle-annotations webpage.

I’m still hoping for a Touchscreen Kindle 4 only because of the many people who feel that is the way to go. Having a NookColor and a Pocket Edge now, I hate virtual keypads on a 6″ screen and the unreliability and imprecision of the touch, but it’ll make the Kindle line stronger just to have it, even if the relative lack of font blackness is a minor drawback.

So would love it if the announcements were for both the KTab and the K4, with dropped pricing for non-touchscreens.

They’ll probably announce also the delivery locker- feature for safe-delivery for those needing it, at 7-Eleven locations. That’s pretty large for Amazon users in general too. It no doubt comes at a price.

And my most deluded hope is for software PDF upgrades for DX-Graphite (to adjust screen contrast and allow notes as they do for Kindle 3) and even a somewhat cheaper one with a Wireless module.

I first read you when you were absorbed with the Entourage Edge (amongh many other things) and I now have that Pocket Edge and I find that dual e-paper/LCD screen realllly useful in that smaller size. Am using it all the time, despite the inferior LCD display. But I really want the DX Graphite to be upgraded since it is really so much better a size for PDFs.


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