Kindle Fire
Encyclopedia
The Kindle Fire is a tablet computer
version of Amazon.com
's Kindle
e-book reader
. Announced on 28 September 2011, the Kindle Fire has a color 7" multi-touch
display with IPS
technology and runs a forked
version of Google
's Android operating system
. It includes access to the Amazon Appstore
, streaming movies and TV shows, and Kindle's e-book
s. It was scheduled to be released in the US on November 15, 2011, but was released a day earlier, on November 14.
The device sells for US$199. Estimates of the device's initial bill of materials
ranged from $150 to $190, with one analyst estimating a total production cost of $201.70. Some analysts expect the device to be a strong competitor to Apple's iPad
. It has been suggested that Amazon's business strategy is to make money on selling content through the device, as well as the device acting as a storefront for physical goods sold through Amazon.
The Kindle Fire's external dimensions are 7.5" x 4.7" x 0.45', with the visible area of the screen a little smaller than a standard 4×6" photograph.
and USB 2.0 (Micro-B connector). The device includes 8 GB of internal storage — said to be enough for 80 applications, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. According to Amazon's list of technical details, the Kindle Fire's 4400 mAh battery sustains up to 8 hours of consecutive reading and up to 7.5 hours of video playback with wireless off.
, the Kindle Fire includes a cloud-accelerated "split browser" called Amazon Silk
using Amazon EC2 for off-device cloud computation; including webpage layout and rendering, and Google's SPDY
protocol for faster webpage content transmission. The user's Amazon digital content is given free storage in the Amazon Cloud's web-storage platform, and a built-in email application allows webmail (Gmail
, Yahoo!
, Hotmail
, AOL Mail, etc.) to be merged into one inbox. The subscription-based Amazon Prime, which includes unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows, is available with a free trial period. The current version of the Kindle Fire OS as of November 29, 2011 is 6.2_User_3003020.
Content formats supported are Kindle Format 8
(KF8), Kindle Mobi (.azw
), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively, Audible
(Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV, MP4, VP8
.
Some users of the Kindle Fire report having problems with Wi-Fi
, including inability to connect and disconnections. However, detailed analysis has shown slow USB transfer speeds to be the result of Amazon's driver implementation, not a hardware issue.
The recent update by Amazon however, removes root
and apps in system/apps not shipped originally with the Kindle.
A member in the xda-developers
forum has posted a fix, following the update.
Tablet computer
A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...
version of Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
e-book reader
E-book reader
An e-book reader, also called an e-book device or e-reader, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals....
. Announced on 28 September 2011, the Kindle Fire has a color 7" multi-touch
Multi-touch
In computing, multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface's ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface...
display with IPS
IPS panel
IPS panel technology was developed by Hitachi in 1996 to solve the two main limitations of TN-matrices at the time, those being small viewing angles and low-quality color reproduction...
technology and runs a forked
Fork (software development)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...
version of Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
's Android operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. It includes access to the Amazon Appstore
Amazon Appstore
The Amazon Appstore is a mobile application store for the Google Android operating system and was opened on March 22, 2011. It was launched with around 3,800 applications both free or paid. Developers are paid either 70% of the sale price or 20% of the developer's list price, whichever one is...
, streaming movies and TV shows, and Kindle's e-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
s. It was scheduled to be released in the US on November 15, 2011, but was released a day earlier, on November 14.
The device sells for US$199. Estimates of the device's initial bill of materials
Bill of materials
A bill of materials is a list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, components, parts and the quantities of each needed to manufacture an end product...
ranged from $150 to $190, with one analyst estimating a total production cost of $201.70. Some analysts expect the device to be a strong competitor to Apple's iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
. It has been suggested that Amazon's business strategy is to make money on selling content through the device, as well as the device acting as a storefront for physical goods sold through Amazon.
The Kindle Fire's external dimensions are 7.5" x 4.7" x 0.45', with the visible area of the screen a little smaller than a standard 4×6" photograph.
Hardware
The Kindle Fire is equipped with a 1 GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 dual-core processor. The display is a 7" multi-touch color screen with a 600×1024 pixel resolution. Connectivity is through 802.11n Wi-FiWi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
and USB 2.0 (Micro-B connector). The device includes 8 GB of internal storage — said to be enough for 80 applications, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. According to Amazon's list of technical details, the Kindle Fire's 4400 mAh battery sustains up to 8 hours of consecutive reading and up to 7.5 hours of video playback with wireless off.
Software
The Kindle Fire is running a customized Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS. Besides access to Amazon AppstoreAmazon Appstore
The Amazon Appstore is a mobile application store for the Google Android operating system and was opened on March 22, 2011. It was launched with around 3,800 applications both free or paid. Developers are paid either 70% of the sale price or 20% of the developer's list price, whichever one is...
, the Kindle Fire includes a cloud-accelerated "split browser" called Amazon Silk
Amazon Silk
Amazon Silk is a web browser developed by Amazon for Kindle Fire. It uses a split architecture whereby some of the processing is performed on Amazon's servers to improve webpage loading performance. The frontend is based on the WebKit browser engine....
using Amazon EC2 for off-device cloud computation; including webpage layout and rendering, and Google's SPDY
SPDY
SPDY is a networking protocol for transporting web content developed by Google and used in accessing Google web services from their browser Google Chrome. Google promotes the protocol in the open-source project Chromium to augment the Hypertext Transfer Protocol protocol, achieving higher...
protocol for faster webpage content transmission. The user's Amazon digital content is given free storage in the Amazon Cloud's web-storage platform, and a built-in email application allows webmail (Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
, Yahoo!
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
, Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
, AOL Mail, etc.) to be merged into one inbox. The subscription-based Amazon Prime, which includes unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows, is available with a free trial period. The current version of the Kindle Fire OS as of November 29, 2011 is 6.2_User_3003020.
Content formats supported are Kindle Format 8
Kindle Format 8
Kindle Format 8 is the next generation file format for Amazon Kindle books – replacing Mobi 7. It integrates many HTML5 tags and CSS attributes. It will be native to the Kindle Fire tablet device and integrated into new e-ink devices by the end of 2011...
(KF8), Kindle Mobi (.azw
AZW
AZW may refer to:*Action Zone Wrestling, a professional wrestling league*AZW, the ICAO airline code for Air Zimbabwe*AZW file format, used by the Amazon Kindle e-Book reader*Architekturzentrum Wien, part of Museumsquartier in Vienna...
), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively, Audible
Audible.com
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
(Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV, MP4, VP8
VP8
VP8 is an open video compression format released by Google, originally created by On2 Technologies.After purchasing On2 Technologies in early 2010, Google has provided an irrevocable patent promise for underlying patents for the VP8 format, and released a bitstream format specification under a...
.
Some users of the Kindle Fire report having problems with Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
, including inability to connect and disconnections. However, detailed analysis has shown slow USB transfer speeds to be the result of Amazon's driver implementation, not a hardware issue.
Rooting
2 days after the Kindle Fire release, hackers have successfully rooted the Kindle Fire in an easy and hard way. While it has been rooted, users reported of Amazon Prime and Video pop up a dialogue box saying that the device is not configured to watch videos properly. A solution for this problem can be found by clicking the dialogue. http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/amazon-video-broken-on-rooted-kindle-fire-20111117/The recent update by Amazon however, removes root
Rooting (Android OS)
Rooting is a process that allows users of mobile phones and other devices running the Android operating system to attain privileged control within Android's Linux subsystem with the goal of overcoming limitations that carriers and manufacturers put on some devices...
and apps in system/apps not shipped originally with the Kindle.
A member in the xda-developers
Xda-developers
xda-developers is a community of over 4 million users worldwide, started in 2003. The site's main purpose is discussion of Windows Phone, Android, and WebOS phones. They are also one of the first places that Windows Mobile and Android users come for general information of the device, ROM upgrades...
forum has posted a fix, following the update.