Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, plans to introduce the next version of its Kindle electronic book reader in August, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans.
The device will be thinner and have a more responsive screen with a sharper picture, the sources said, whilst asking to remain anonymous because the plans have yet to be made public.
The new Kindle will not include a touch screen or color, they said.
Amazon.com, which introduced the Kindle in 2007, faces increased competition from Apple Inc’s iPad — a color tablet device that lets users browse the Web, watch video and read digital books. The new Kindle may be aimed more at Amazon.com’s original e-reader competitors — Sony Corp and Barnes & Noble — than the newer threat from the iPad, an analyst at Forrester Research, James McQuivey said.
“It’s probably likely that Amazon already had this one in mind, more out of a response to Sony than out of any response to Apple,” McQuivey said.
Amazon.com may not have a direct challenge to the iPad this year, he said.
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said this week that the company was concentrating on wooing committed book readers and that a color display screen is “some ways out.”
“I’ve seen some stuff in the laboratory, but it’s not quite ready for prime-time production,” Bezos said on May 25 at the company’s annual shareholders meeting.
The Kindle uses a black-and-white screen that mimics the appearance of paper. The new version will have sharper contrast to make e-books look more like real books, sources revealed. The delay during page turns will also be shortened. The iPad, meanwhile, uses a full-color LCD screen.
Sony is taking on the Kindle with a touch-screen reader, which it introduced last year. Barnes & Noble’s Nook device made its debut in October.
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