I’m a big fan of Amazon. I’m dependent on my Prime membership for everything from deodorant to Christmas gifts, and at $79 $99 a year it’s a bargain. I’ve been impressed with their Instant Video original content efforts, and their ability to get big names in television and movies to license programming to them. Despite that, they’re still a long way from convincing me to leave Netflix and go all in on Amazon.
I’m a relatively recent convert to reading books. I wasn’t much of a reader growing up, and it wasn’t until I got my first eBook reader that I found a love for books. For me, reading on a screen is much easier than reading on a printed page. Then there are the added benefits of automatic bookmarking/syncing, lack of physical objects to store, instant delivery, and highlighting and notes that, for those of us with atrocious handwriting, are actually legible.
Amazon released an update for the Kindle Fire today aimed at fixing some of the bugs and interface frustrations people were complaining about. The update brings the Fire’s software to version 6.2.1 and so far does seem to be a noticeable improvement. Touch responses are far more accurate, and everything feels snappier in general. If your device doesn’t automatically prompt you to update, you can do it manually by downloading the file from Amazon.
So, Apple had one of their now-famous events today. They unveiled a bunch of things, including a touch screen iPod Nano, a new iPod Touch with front-facing camera & FaceTime, and a new iPod Shuffle (which doesn’t really look any different from the old one). The thing that everyone was waiting for leading up to the event though, and the thing that’s gotten the most attention, is the new Apple TV.
