Kindle; With Ads

     Amazon has been recently trying to be able to lower the cost of their popular Kindle eReader, and today they announced one of their latest attempts.
     The company announced earlier today that the Kindle will now be available for $25 cheaper. This is the same Kindle hardware as the current version, so what's the reason for the price drop? Amazon will be introducing a new advertising UI for the Kindle device.
     In the new $114 Kindle, you will see an ad when the device goes into screensaver mode, as well as under the main menu UI. There will be no ads when you are reading, and Amazon made sure to point our that the ads will be completely unobtrusive.
     To go along with the new Kindle, which Amazon is calling Kindle with Special Offers, Amazon created a new application called AdMash. AdMash allows users to vote on ads that appear on the screensaver, and is designed to bring you more targeted ads, and ultimately making the ads more successful. This ad voting system would follow in the footsteps of Facebook and Hulu.
     Another really cool feature, one that may even make someone favor the ad-based Kindle over the regular one, is the special offers that will be sprinkled in among the traditional ads. For example, one might see an offer for buying a $20 gift card for $10.
     The new Kindle is available for pre-order now, and will be available for purchase on March 3rd.
     This a great step for Amazon in bringing the Kindle's price down. With the price of the Kindle when it was first announced at $399, getting it down to only $114 is a great feat, and will probably be good for everyone: Amazon, the consumers, and the advertisers.

Apple Pulling other eReader Apps? (Update: Apple Responds)

Gadgetator's trying a new format for the not so tech savvy readers. At the beginning of each post, we will be writing a list of tech jargon and their definitions that one would need to know at the beginning of the article. Like this idea? Hate it? Please leave a comment with your feedback. Thank you.

eReader-An eReader is a device that allows you to read digital books instead of paper ones.

     Sony makes an eReader called the Sony Reader. As with many eReaders, Sony designed an iPhone app that allowed one to read the eBooks that they downloaded from Sony on their iPhone. This app was rejected by Apple for some unknown reason. 

     Apps are rejected all the time by Apple, but it's always because of a violation of one of Apple's rules. So far the Kindle, the Nook, and many more eReaders have apps on the iPhone that weren't rejected. This could simply be because the Sony app had some problem with the code that went against Apple's rules. It could also be that Apple has changed it's policy and is now not allowing third party eReader apps.

     Apple also has an eReader app called iBooks, which is the reason why one would think that Apple is rejecting other, third party eReader apps, and even may start to pull the old ones.

     According to the New York Times, Apple is changing their policies to no longer allow third party apps to sell content, like eBooks, inside their apps. Now, if you're worrying about games like Farmville, which allows you to buy coins from inside the app for the game, that's nothing to worry about, this does not stop app developers to sell through their apps, rather just requires them to use Apple as an intermediary. 

     The story seems true, as Sony spokesperson Steve Harber is quoted, "“It’s the opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market, we always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.”

     So what does this mean for other eReader apps? Although the other apps don't have an integrated bookstore, they do allow users to download already purchased content from other devices, something which, according to the New York Times, Apple said was against the rules. This would affect Amazon with it's Kindle and many other popular eBook apps. 

     For now, we'll just have to see what happens. The story seems very believable, and neither Apple, Sony, or Amazon would comment.


UPDATE: Apple responded saying that they had not changed any developer guidelines, but wants a cut of anything sold through their devices.