Nate Hoffelder

It looks like I was wrong last week when I predicted that the $35 tablet wouldn’t happen; it shipped today.

Today’s tablet has almost nothing in common with the Hivision tablet that the Indian gov’t. had been showing off got the past year. Both cost students $35, run Android, and have a 7″ screen, but that’s about it. And they don’t even have the price in common; today’s tablet will cost students around $45.

The Aakash tablet is running Android v2.2 Froyo on an unknown CPU. It has a 7″ resistive touchscreen, Wifi, 2GB Flash, and a microSD card slot. It’s not clear what CPU it’s using, but some reports list the speed at 366MHz. I hope it’s wrong; that’s woefully underpowered.

The tablet is being provided by Datawind, a Canadian company that (in the past) made a name for themselves with bundling web access into the sale price of a tablet, handheld, or netbook. I came across this company at CES 2011, when they were about to enter the US market with a netbook and tablet. That never happened, unfortunately. Datawind are also about to sell a slightly better version of the Aakash as the UbiSlate 7.

It turns out that the $35 (1,750 rupees) price is real, but no one’s going to be getting it just yet. That price might happen in the future, but only after the India government places an order for 1 crore (a million) Aakash  tablets.

Students will instead be paying 2,200 rupees ($45). The Indian government negotiated a reduced price for  the Aakash  tablet by placing an order for 1 lakh (a hundred thousand) tablets as well as pairing down the hardware. The student version of the Aakash is missing some features from the stock model offered by Datawind. For example, it won’t have the GPRS connection. That will only be offered in the retail model, which is expect to hit store shelves in December with a price of 3,000 rupees ($60).

It may have taken them over a year, but the Indian gov’t. did eventually ship a $35 tablet. that’s a lot better than what i would expect from most government programs.

On the other hand, this tablet sounds rather cheaply made. Is a $60 worth buying if it’s junk? I would think that not having a tablet would be better than having a crappy one. The poor quality can interfere with getting real work done.

What do you think?

via

The  gadget cost experts at iSuppli  have just released their estimate of the parts cast for the new Kindle Fire. As we all suspected, the Kindle Fire is probably subsidized by Amazon and selling below cost.

Update: iSuppli released a new estimate yesterday. Now that they can see the guts of the KF, they think it cost around $202 to make.

But before you read too much into it, please remember that the experts at iSuppli have not seen the guts of the Kindle Fire so they don’t actually know what is in the Kindle Fire. There are so many wild guesses in this estimate that it might aw well be next year’s federal budget. In fact, I doubt that anyone who worked on those numbers has even been in the same room as the Kindle Fire. I’d strongly urge you to take these numbers with about a pound and a half of salt.

With that being said, iSuppli estimated that the Kindle Fire cost $191 in parts alone. Add in their estimate of the manufacturing cost and the total rises to #210.

I would guess that their estimate is probably on the low side, perhaps by as much as $30. But to be honest I do not know. In any case, we already knew that the Kindle Fire was a subsidized tablet.

Once I knew that it had a dual core CPU, IPS screen, and Gingerbread, I could pretty much guess that it was subsidized. Even if Amazon had stripped it down to the cheapest components possible, the software development cost, once factored in, would have been enough to convince me of the subsidy.

Oh yeah, that’s one detail that iSuppli can’t estimate. It’s a people cost, not hardware, so without inside knowledge it’s almost impossible to guess. But you can bet that it adds enough to the cost of each tablet that Amazon are probably taking a loss in the short run.

Of course, once they sell their millionth Kindle fire they won’t be taking a loss anymore. But I doubt that will happen for at least a couple months.

Kobo had a minor booboo today. Their new Android tablet, the 7″ Kobo Vox, has shown up on Futureshop.ca with a spec sheet, ship date, and a retail of $250 CAD.

Update: The product page is down now. Wow that was quick. It went up and down in less that 2 hours. Fortunately I grabbed a copy and saved it here. I also got a .

It’s now confirmed that the Vox is an Android tablet, but it’s not clear yet what OS it’s running. The 7″ screen has a resolution of 1024×600, and the Vox also has Wifi, 8GB Flash storage, microSD card slot, a speaker, and if the product listing is to be believed it will have access to the Android Market.

Battery life is estimated to be around 6 hours and it will weigh 400 grams. Edit: I also just got a hint that not all of the specs are correct, so I wouldn’t rely on them.

I’m a little surprised to see this tablet, but not by much I’d already gotten a hint a few days back that Kobo would be releasing this tablet, and that the FCC paperwork was just a convenience, not a sign that they had passed on the tablet.

But I’m also not surprised to see this because I know that Kobo have been working on an Android tablet for at least a year now. In fact, I have a photo from last October of what might be the Kobo Vox. It was called the Kobo Color back then but it’s basically the same tablet.

Given that they have been working on it for over a year, I’m hoping against hope that the Vox will have the enhanced Kobo app that can be found on the HTC Flyer.  That app is incredibly sophisticated and does a lot more in terms of annotation than any of the other mainstream reading apps.

Here’s a video, in case you’re interested:

via MobileRead

While everyone was distracted by the new Kindles yesterday, Apple quietly expanded the iBookstore.

Liz Castro got a tip yesterday afternoon that all of a sudden, publishers and authors had more options for selling their ebooks in iBooks. In addition to US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, and Canada, where you could already sell an ebook, Apple have also added 26 more countries as new markets:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Replublic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portgal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Yep, they added a lot of Europe to the list, which makes me wonder why Apple didn’t just enable an option for the EU as a whole. That would have been so much simpler. Apple is also not making it easy to add the new markets; each has to be added individually and you have to set the retail price one market at a time. In any case, the iBookstore is now up to 31 countries supported, and that’s a paltry sum when compared to Kindle Store (150+) or Kobo (everywhere).

Liz has also gotten feed back from a number of publishers, and most are a little frustrated with the new system.

Also it would be nice to be able to choose Greek as the language of your ebook since it’s in Greek and it going to be sold in the Greek iBookstore.

and

Between their near non existent help from iBooks itunes connect when a book is not accepted, to adding territory by territory for sale. iBooks is about as pleasant to work with as a proctology exam. (or so I hear.)

Apple launched iBooks with the iPad back in January 2010, and it has taken them 20months to add parts of Europe as market options. Hmm. In case it wasn’t c;ear already Apple aren’t going to put any major effort into iBooks. They are far behind Kobo and Amazon and it looks like they are content to stay there.

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So I’m sitting on someone’s doorstep a few doors down from 508 W 37th ST.  I thought you might be interested in 2 photos of the good-sized tent that Amazon have sitting out front. This doesn’t look like a terribly large venue (it has the feel of a converted storefront), but then again I have not been inside yet.

Update 12:15: They took away the kFire (and other demo units) before I really got a look at it, but this is not a make-do device. Not for $200. It’s slick looking, fairly fast, and it’s running on a dual core 1GHz OMAPS CPU. It’s running Gingerbread and I have confirmed that. The home screen running on top works both vertical and horizontal.

This will suddenly become the best tablet in that price range when it ships on 15 November. Oh, my, is everyone screwed.

Update 12:15: I still haven’t had a chance to get to the kFire yet. Will go do it now. Note that I barely got a chance to play with the basic model and I was not allowed to use the upper models.

Update 12:12: The Kindle Touch is just as fast and it has a new menu layout. Looks interesting. it ships 20 November for $99 and $149.

I’m told it’s running Kindle OS 5.0. I like the thought they put into the touch screen layout, even though they wouldn’t let me actually touch it. Page turns are both swipe and tap (in about the right spot).

FYI: The current Kindles will stay on the market for now and stay at current prices.

Update 12:06: Oh good. I just got my web connection back. I’ve just come from playing ith the new basic Kindle.

It’s a neat little device that drops the keyboard. It has no card slot, no speakers, and only the page turn buttons d-pad, and 4 other buttons on front (back menu, keyboard home). I noticed that it is designed to work with a dock (little metal squares on back). It’s very fast and very light 6 oz.

I confirmed that if you email a document to this Kindle it will save your file and annotations in the Amazon Cloud. I think this new feature is supported by the Kindle OS 4.0 that it is running.  It also has a neat trick of a second menu.Call up the keyboard, click back, and you have a second menu of search options  including  find, my items, store, Google Wikipedia, dictionary,

This is the D01100 from the FC paperwork I found last night. The $80 price is actually for the Kindeal model; advert-less it will set you back $110. Both are shipping now.

Buy it NOW!

Update 10:52: Ships 15 November.

Update 10:51: kFire to cost $199.

Yes, we are up to 3 ereaders and a tablet.

Update 10:47: Comixology confimred on the kFire. Also screen res is 1024×600. Kindle Fire has its own cloud supported browser called Amazon Silk. It works kinda like how Opera Mobile works. There are servers supporting it.

Update: 10:41: Dual core CPU does games great. This isn’t a stop gap device.

Update: 10:38: Now Showing off the Kindle Fire. It’s using its own interface, just like TC reported a few weeks ago. Appears to have a camera in upper left corner.

Update: 10:36: Whispersync now works for Movies and mp3 bought from Amazon.

Update: 10:34: Just pulled out Kindle Fire. 7″ IPS screen (not same as on NC), 14.6 ounces. Sells Amazon content including ebooks mp3s, movies, etc.

Update: 10:32: Still pitching service but now doing AWS (Amazon Web Services).

Holy shit. Amazon now have 3  Kindles to undercut the Nook Touch and Kobo Touch.

Update: 10:29: Now promoting Amazon services – MP3, appstore, AmPrime, etc.

Update: 10:26: Now showing new Kindle commercial.  Same 2 geeky white folks as last freinds commercial.

Update: 10:23:  And now the $79 6″ non touch Kindle. Ships today, weighs under 6 ounces.

Update: 10:21: Amazon just revealed the Kindle Touch 3G same as the Kindle Touch but for $149. Both ship November 21st.

Update: 10:16: Jeff just pulled out the Kindle Touch, a 6″ model with a Neonode touch screen, Price is $99. Also has new feature called X-Ray.

Update 10:14am: Bloomberg leaked the complete presentation at 9:35am. Yes, it’s going to be 3 devices that I foudn the FCC paperwork for last night.

 Update 9:51 am: Inside now and waiting for it to start. I almost got a picture of the new gadget but they covered it up before I knew what I was looking at. BTW I’ve heard via Twitter that someone at Amazon accidentally uploaded a test video to their Youtube channel. It’s supposed to be the same very high res video as RIM used to show off the Playbook’s video ability way back when. The Playbook could play it and that demonstrated its ability to stream the video to HDTVs and the like.

Update 9:37 am: We’re lined up inside, but they haven’t let us go into the event and sit down.

Update: 7:57 am: The big boys have started showing up in their fancy TV trucks: CNN, CNBC, Fox. There’s also a satellite truck around the corner but that’s been there since before me.

Update 7:28 am: Still no sign of any gadgets but Amazon decided to remove any doubt about who was throwing the party today. See the new picture at right. I think I might end up using this post to live-blog the event.

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I’ve just been given the most amazing tip about Amazon’s new gadgets. It looks like Amazon may have quietly put 3 devices through the FCC over the past few months, not just the one we expect to see tomorrow.

Update: I just flipped my prediction around. It used to be 2 tablets and an ebook reader. I changed because only the 1400 is referred to as a tablet. The other 2 are "electronic display devices".

Something you need to know about Amazon is that they are incredibly secretive when they can get away with it. They’ve sent several Kindles through the FCC, and they concealed the Kindle the exact same way each time. Amazon created a dummy corporation for each Kindle and then had the FCC hide all the identifying documents (photos diagrams, user manual, etc).

Today I have for you 3 FCC listings for 3 devices from 3 companies from 3 different parts of the USA. The listings have nothing in common aside from the fact that they have everything hidden, they’re using similar model numbers, and they have pretty much the same FCC label design as on the current Kindles.

Two of the devices have Wifi and the other has 3G. I disagree with my source about which is which, but we agree that these belong to Amazon. The similar model numbers and virtually identical labels are too much of a coincidence.

The image above is from one of the listings. That is the backside of a Wifi equipped D01400. I’d estimate, based on the diagonal, that it has a 7″ screen. I expect that to be the device that Amazon will show off tomorrow. BTW, the D01400 is from a dummy company by the name of Okakopa. The name is a Hawaiian word that means October. Some one at Amazon clearly has my sense of humor.

I don’t have time today to trace the dummy companies back to Amazon; that would have to wait for business hours, anyway. But I will be taking a deeper look into this later in the week.

D01200 (FCC)

D01400 (FCC)

D01100 (FCC)

That’s what the gdgt blog are reporting, but I’m going to take this one with a grain of salt. Ryan Block posted this morning that his sources at Amazon told him that on Wednesday Amazon will be launching the tablet they have, not the tablet they want.

According to Ryan, Amazon had to make a number of compromises in order to get the Kindle out the door in time for this holiday season. They decided to go outside their own team at Lab126 and signed a deal with Quanta. The kTab is reportedly going to look a lot like the Playbook, and that’s because the Playbook was the starting point (according to Ryan). This shortcut was used because of time. If Amazon want to ship by the end of October this was their only option.

It sounds like Amazon and Quanta made a number of changes to the design, but we won’t know what they are until Wednesday. The tablet is "supposed to be pretty poor" and is a "stopgap" measure. It sounds like Amazon are afraid of what Barnes & Noble might launch next month, and that they’re pretty anxious to get something out the door – anything, just so long as it ships.

TBH I never took the "kTab as an iPad Killer" idea very seriously, and now I clearly had a good reason. The kTab is clearly going to be about as well designed as the original Kindle. The software features will be good, but the general performance and appearance might turn stomachs.

At least that’s what the latest rumors say. I’m not taking a side until I see it on Wednesday.

Update: I’ve just finished reading and thinking about the TechCrunch rumor that Wednesday’s announcement will be the Kindle Fire. MG Siegler also reports thatthe kTab will be based on a Texas Instruments OMAPs CPU, same as on a number of newer Android gadgets (and the Playbook). The kTab is also believed to be running Android v2.1, which is not a good thing. That is last year’s OS and it feels like it.

I’m not so sure I beleive it. First of all, there’s no trademark for the term. Amazon have not registered Kindle Fire or Fire. That tends to make me doubt that they will use it. More importantly, Kindle Fire doesn’t sound quite right. It’s a verb- noun pairing, and while it does roll off the tongue it doesn’t quite have the same alliteration of just Kindle.

On the other hand, this is the guy who got the first look at the kTab. He clearly has inside sources so this report is probably true.

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.

I was handed some juicy insider info the other day and oh my, is it a surprise.

Barnes & Noble is rumored to be releasing a replacement NookColor some time in October. All the unsubstantiated rumors had come out of Asia, so I wasn’t sure that I  should take them seriously. I did, but that was only because B&N have been clearing out the refurbished units at a decent discount. And until today the unsubstantiated rumors were all I had.

According to my source, Barnes & Noble held a planning meeting last week. One of the topics discussed in the meeting was B&N’s marketing plans for their ebook readers and how they would be promoted next quarter.

I have, in my hot little hands, a slide that may have been used in that planning  meeting. It mentions that B&N will have 3 ebook readers next quarter, not 2. According to the slide, the NookColor will be getting a brother tablet. Now, I’ve been asked not to post the slide, unfortunately; it might be possible to trace it back to my source. Here’s what it says:

• Nook EPD

• Smart Touch $139

• Nook Color

• Encore $249
• Acclaim $349

There’s also a notation that it has been approved by WL/JI, and I believe those are the initials of William Lynch (CEO of B&N) and James Iannone (head of B&N Digital Products). (Before I go further, let me confirm that Encore and Smart Touch are valid product names for the current 6″ Nook Touch and 7″ NookColor.) That part is legit.

All I have right now are the names and prices of the tablets, but that alone tells me several details. First and foremost, B&N will keep the NookTouch at $139, and they will have the 2 NookColors at higher price points. The Encore and Acclaim tablets will be priced at  $249 and $349.

The Acclaim name is new.

Given that B&N kept the name Encore, it seems likely that the Encore tablet will keep the 7″ screen from the current model. I would also guess that the new tablet will be a hardware upgrade from the current one – that’s why the price is the same.

On the other hand, the Acclaim tablet could be anything. And that makes it so much more fun – I can speculate to my heart’s content. Here’s my idea.

I think the Acclaim name was chosen becuase of the connotations. It’s the name of a defunct gaming company, so just saying the name in certain circles will be enough to identify the tablet as a gaming device.

Now, the trademark for that name is owned by Playdom (a Disney sub). We already know that the current NookColor has apps from Disney, so clearly they have a working relationship with B&N and that tells us that Disney would be in a position to know about the new NookColor. This would suggest that Disney already know about the name and they are okay with it.

Aside from the name connection, there’s little to suggest that this is a gaming device. But I think it is, and that would mean that the Acclaim tablet is the Android tablet that GameStop are currently beta-testing. No one knows any details yet about the Gamestop tablet, aside from the fact it’s based on the hardware of an existing tablet. But ever since a reader pointed out the relationship between B&N and Gamestop, I have believed that they were using the hardware.

Gamestop have a connection to B&N. Disney have a connection to B&N. Wouldn’t it make a lot of sense for the NookColor Acclaim to be sold by both retailers and use content from Disney (and other developers, of course)? The 2 retailers could share the ecosystem and the development cost while using the tablet for non-competing purposes. The guy who tipped me to the idea that B&N and Gamestop might share a tablet is expecting them to do just that.

Of course, all I have are the names and prices, so this could be completely off the wall.

Wistron, one of Kobo’s hardware partners, sent a new gadget through the FCC today. It’s called the Kobo Vox and that’s all I know.

Now, I would normally speculate about the gadget but I’m not sure what it is. The screen shape is rather odd for a tablet or ebook reader; the (screen) corners are far too rounded for most screens that I know of. No large screen tablet has corners that rounded. You can sometimes see that on small devices but not often.

Note that I’m talking about the inside corners, not the shell.

Wistron is calling it an "eReader Tablet", and it was test for Wifi(n). We also know that it has a microSD card slot and the model number is K080.

It’s my guess that this is a device that Kobo worked on and then decided not to release. I suspect that Wistron sent it through the FCC becuase they have a business partner that is interested.

Update: I’ve gotten a hint that Kobo will release this tablet. Whoops. Also, this is now a 7″ tablet.

We’ll know more in early November; that’s when the embargo lifts.

FCC

Do you recall how last month a rumor went around that the Kindle was supposed to get library ebook support some time in September? Guess what: it wasn’t a rumor.

It’s been just over 5 months since Amazon announced that the Kindle would get library ebooks, and it is just about to happen. Unfortunately for us, the system isn’t actually live just yet. It’s in beta at a couple libraries in the Seattle area. It’s not available elsewhere just yet

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Update: Amazon have expanded the beta to include all OverDrive partners in the US. The new service is slowly being rolled out to the 11 thousand participating libraries. I can now see that something like 50 or so libraries support the new service (as of Wednesday at Noon).

Note that not all will be getting the service right away. Also, not all of the 11 thousand libraries mentioned in the press release actually support ebooks; some are like my local library (which only has audiobooks). But whne they do, it will be offered as an additional service at no charge to the libraries.

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I found an ongoing discussion over on MobileRead this evening where several Kindle owners are trying (and succeeding) to download ebooks from their libraries. Several have reported seeing Kindle ebooks listed and I have one report of someone actually downloading an ebook to their Kindle.

The Kindle hasn’t gotten a firmware update recently, so this would suggest that there might be some unseen conversion going on to change the Epub/PDF to Kindle, and then wrap the ebook in the expiring DRM. Edit: On the other hand, one commenter pointed out that he doesn’t think the conversion is happening, and he could be right. Amazon might be serving up the relevant Kindle file from their own catalog.

Update: The commenter also made me catch something I had missed. There are thousands of Kindle ebooks in each library system. I seriously doubt that they had the funds to buy all those new ebooks, so they must be using the existing license to cover for the Kindle copy when it is loaned. That was one of the details hinted at back in April and it’s good to see it confirmed.

Update: The Kindle is also spuuposed to have a new firmware update, v3.3, which enables the new service. It’s not avaialble yet but some people in the Seattle area report that they got it as an over-the-air update.

Neither Amazon nor OverDrive have announced anything, and in fact I’m still waiting to hear back from my contacts at Overdrive. But I do know that Amazon’s help pages now refer to the library ebooks as a current feature, and OverDrive already list the Kindle as having beta support. The service is indeed live.

You can see proof of the new support on the website for the King County Library System. Their website promises that the new support is up and running right now. The other library is the Seattle Public Library.

So this news isn’t as great as you being able to download the library ebooks today, but it’s still a big deal. It means that fairly soon you will be able to download ebooks from any of OverDrive’s 11 thousand plus partner libraries in the US and read them on your Kindle. According to Overdrive, all 3 generations of the Kindle are supported (see the screen shot above). Unfortunately, you’ll need a wifi equipped model for direct downloads; you cannot download a Kindle library ebook over 3G (no one wants to pay the data cost).  Go dig out that USB cable; you’ll need it. BTW, if you check with Amazon, all the apps are supported too.

If you really want library ebooks on your Kindle, I would suggest that you go ask your local OverDrive  library partner. They can then bug Overdrive about the new features.

P.S. I will add an update here when I hear back from Overdrive.

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Earlier today I showed you a couple of product pages for Kindle ebooks on Amazon.fr. Now I can show you something even better.

Merrill Goussot, the editor of Le Journal du Kindle, sent me a screen shot (at right) and a link. Part of the Kindle Store is up and running right now. Well, it’s up at the moment. You can’t actually do anything because none of the product pages are available.

To be honest, the screen shot doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t know. The French Kindle Store is going to look like the US, UK, and German Kindle Stores. But if this page reflects the prices accurately, the French Kindle Store will have higher prices than the German one.

And it does give us one more piece of info that confirms the rumor I posted a couple weeks back. The CEO of Hachette Livre is rumored to have dropped a few hints in following a radio interview. I’m told that he said a new Kindle was coming to France on 8 October, but it’s clear now that he was referring to the Kindle Store.

Should the new Kindle Store open 18 days from now,  it will be Amazon’s 3rd local Kindle Store, following Germany and the UK.

Thanks, Merrill.

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Early yesterday morning I brought you the news that Amazon appeared to have opened the Android Appstore to international customers. I quickly got confirmation from a friend in the Netherlands and from a tech blog in India.

Reports then followed which confirmed access from UK, Canada, South Africa, Venezuela, Finland, Australia,  Romania, and a dozen more countries.

Well, I’ve gotten a bunch of complaints in the past 12 hours that Amazon have cut off the international access, closed the loophole, or whatever it is they did. I’ve been told that it is cut off in the UK, Greece, India, and Canada. Sorry folks, it looks like I was right yesterday when I guess that this might have been a technical error.

As much as we may regret it, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise. the normal pattern for Amazon would be to announce a big and noise public launch. At the very least there should have been a press release, not not just a quiet realization that the Appstore was open to the world.

This would have been an obvious move for Amazon, and while I thought it might be an accident I also hoped that Amazon would let it continue. Making the Appstore available outside the U.S. would have been the obvious next move for Amazon. This wouldn’t just be to drive more traffic to the Appstore but also because of the upcoming Kindle tablet. More users would attract more developers and the more content that Amazon can offer users of such devices, the better to keep them using and buying the products.

P.S. I’m still waiting to hear back from Amazon on this. I will amend this post when I get a response.

Liz Castro has tipped me to this great new way to download and convert webpages. It’s called GrabMyBooks.

It’s a Firefox plug-in that functions kinda like dotEpub, only it’s better. GrabMyBooks will not only get the content from a webpage, it will also let you combine several pages into one. And it gets better. You can also pause the conversion midstream and edit the content to fix the more annoying formatting errors and generally clean up the files. it will also accept RSS feeds as a source.

Now, dotEpub does have one advantage in that it is not tied to Firefox; GrabMyBooks is  currently only available as a Firefox plug-in, which is fine by me.

P.S. Mike Cane ranted and raved about it, which should tell you how good it is.

I’ve just gotten word from an Australian gadget blog I follow that Amazon have quietly expanded their Android Appstore to include Australia. It’s not mentioned on their support pages, so I’m still waiting for confirmation.

My source reports that they successfully installed the Appstore client and registered it with their existing (Australian) Amazon account. This is great, but does it work anywhere else? I ask because I would expect that Amazon enabled Canada, UK, NZ, as well as Australia, only they haven’t announced it yet.

Final Update: Amazon appear to have closed off the loophole. The Appstore is back to being US-only again.

Update: I just got word on Twitter that the Amazon Appstore now works in the Netherlands. That’s confirmation enough for me.

Second Update: I got a pingback from an Android blog in India. They just used the Appstore.

Third Update: The Appstore has been confirmed for  UK, Canada, South Africa, Venezuela, Finland, Ireland, Austria, Estonia, Romania, Poland, and more. <- I’m going to cut it off there and call it good.

I’d love to have everyone try this and report back.

If you want to install the app store client (and you already have an Amazon account), open the browser on your Android gadget and go here: http://www.amazon.com/app-email. That is the direct download link for the install file.

Amazon launched the Appstore back in March, and it has been slowly growing since then. With around 15 thousand apps, it’s still not nearly as large as Android Market, which is the largest app store in the world with nearly half a million apps available. But there’s also something to be said about smaller is better. Take the NookColor App Store, for example, with its curated experience. It might only have a few hundred apps but they’re the good ones.

You know, this expansion could be a technical snafu. It might be due to someone changing the wrong setting on a server. TBH, the fact that Amazon have not announced the expansion makes me believe that  this was an accident, and not part of the planned expansion.

But if it’s not a snafu then it’s a sign of Amazon finally pushing their non-Kindle content sales beyond the US. Who knows, we might see the Kindle games, mp3 store, and streaming video follow suit.

And possibly even the Kindle Tablet.