Posts tagged future

Can the Kindle Tablet learn from the XO Laptop?

russianpencil:

I was inspired by the discussion Marco Arment and Ryan Irelan had on the latest episode of Build and Analyze about the rumored “Kindle Tablet.” It got me thinking about the kind of device I would love for Amazon to make — one that I would actually consider buying over an iPad.

I’d like to build on the two seemingly incongruous ideas proposed by Marco Arment and Dan Provost regarding Amazon’s upcoming Kindle tablet. I want the product Provost suggests in his post (because I think e-ink is a feature not a limitation), but I believe Arment’s vision makes more sense given the ecosystem for content Amazon has been developing recently. 

But what if there’s a middle ground here? Both writers seem to acknowledge that it will be next to impossible for Amazon to challenge Apple in any meaningful way, so clearly the Kindle Tablet will have to stake out new territory that the iPad doesn’t currently encompass. 

A few years ago, when I was imagining what the iTab or iSlate (or whatever name we thought the iPad would take) was going to be, I imagined something that built on the technology of the underwhelming XO Laptop. While the project fell short of high expectations, I always remained impressed by its screen technology. The XO Laptop had a dual LCD/high contrast black and white screen that enabled users to use it in direct sunlight. 

The forthcoming Kindle device could satisfy both Arment’s and Provost’s visions by going this route. A color LCD touchscreen for using apps and watching Amazon Prime Instant Video, and high contrast black and white mode for reading.

russianpencil

Why the NYT should license content to app developers.

What if we could subscribe to The New York Times through popular iPad reading apps, like FlipBoard or Instapaper?

The New York Times iPad app is thoroughly disappointing — and even more so now that the paper charges a premium ($20/month) to access it. It contains no links, has little regard for readability and its interface is rigid and ill-conceived.

All too often, I find myself straying from the NYT app for better reading experiences on the iPad, which is a shame: For all the criticism we’ve heaped upon the paper since the introduction of its new paywall scheme, the breadth of its journalism is still largely unparalleled. 

So it got me thinking: why doesn’t the New York Times license its “raw” content — text, photos, videos, etc. — to other content wrappers (ie. popular iPad reading apps), much in the same way it currently works with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook?

What if I preferred reading the paper through an app like FlipBoard, whose attention to layout, readability and interactivity was more closely aligned with my own sensibilities? Or maybe I’m more keen on the bare-bones approach of Marco Ament’s excellent reading app, Instapaper?

This approach could create an interesting marketplace for news reading, with the papers themselves acting as de facto wire services to app developers more adept at creating engaging reading experiences. The Times could charge a more reasonable subscription fee — granting users the right to access its raw content through as many participating apps as they’d like — and app developers could charge for the apps they develop to encase that content. 

Win-win, right?

Paleo-Future.

I could spend (in fact I have spent) hours reading this blog. It digs up old magazine articles that tried to predict the future.