What Kobo and Amazon Need to Do with Their Second Generation Tablets

A couple of points. 

On Quad core processors being necessary:

 If want to be sold as general usage tablets perhaps. But as more focused eReader with some general capabilities then no.    Displaying video takes effectively zero cores ; at least the ARM ones. So having two or four makes no difference.   [ Maybe for old, legacy Flash formats, but Flash is dead on Android so it is immaterial. ]  Video is typically decoded by dedicated H.264  hardware in the GPU.  It uses very little  CPU (ARM) or GPU ( ) cores to process.

In a general market “spec war” it might make a difference but in the markets where these tablets are focused not so much.  Qualcomm’s dual core Snapdragon S4 (Krait) hold their own against the Nvidia Quad cores because they are based on a newer, better microarchitecture and implementation.  Quad cores aren’t necessary if using better implemented cores and can be much more power efficient.   One of the huge gaps between Tablets and classic eReaders is battery life.

Even if could put a Quad core in one of these,  it is highly dubious.  One of the primary application class that can use quad cores are games. Making a “reader” focus device into a video gaming device is dubious.   One of the impediments to getting some folks to read is that they spend tons of time on competing media; like video games.

On “There is also expanded facial recognition software to provide an extra layer of security. ” 

   The stuff that exists now does not enhance security at all.  It is a nice gimmick but it is trivially fooled.  It makes for a nice demo that the front facing camera is good for something before the user has set up a video chat app.

On ” all of these tablets issued by Amazon, Kobo and Barnes and Noble are woefully outdated by current standards.”:

   Which calls into question why make general purpose tablets at all.  All three of those vendors have a Android  reader app.  If they have to put effect into making their general Android reader app one of the “best in class” they are effectively removing the differentiation between the general purpose tablet and their offering.  Similarly Kobo and B&N have HTML 5 readers.  If the “ecosystem” is layered on a software problem it is much easier to scale and control inventory costs.  

    Even if want to keep the LCD panels and Android foundation the devices can be useful if solid relatively fixed function ( Maybe a 10-12 extremely focused apps).   There is no need for an app store if primary focused on selling content.  Only a small number of apps are needed for content viewing.

    As Google Play gains more scope these other Andriod app stores are going to be hard pressed to show differentiation on apps. Play’s store is always going to have larger breadth.   The focus should  be on trying to negating or offering a better value add to  the other aspects of Play ( Books and  perhaps  Music  ).  Video is easy if just put a small handful of apps on the device (e.g, Netflix , Hulu ,  Cable/Sat vendor OnDemand  app. )

On the other hand what is sorely missing is:

1. Larger, higher dpi , more chromatic  E-ink displays.  The Kindle DX is not the best that can be done.   Imagine if all books were published in paperback format. Similarly, as PDF readers eReaders aren’t that good.  Better anti-aliased text is large factor for books. More than 16 shades of gray would also help. 256 (8 bit) or 1024 (10 bit) grays would be better if can get the cost down.

2.  Highly complete EPUB3 implementations.   EPUB3 can mean more, video but that there huge improvements to that can be made even without placing a heavy emphasis on video.  Books that could actually typeset Math would greatly reduce the need for PDF documents.  Likewise being able to handle the full range of world alphabets and text layout rules would be a huge move forward.   This would be moving the whole ecosystem forward but the next generation hardware would need to follow.

     Yet another round of vendor lock-in publishing formats is short sighted.  It is a gimmick that may work at first but will loose in the long run.

3. If choose to continue to make specialized Android infrastructure tablet ( variants on designs already composed for the general market ) then they either need “skins’ can quickly layer on top of newer Andrioid versions so that can move deployed devices forward more easily.   The base requirements for the bleeding edge  Android  may conflict with the long term use of the “readers’ that they are selling.  They need flexibility.

I would love to see some kind of ‘trade up’ program.  I have a Kindle, Sony, Nook and a Kobo. (yes I know – I have a problem) – It would be great if any of these companies would take my old one in exchange for a reduced price new/up graded version.  The old ones could then be donated to schools or whatever.  Every e-reader I own is an ‘older’ model and newer/better ones are available.  I’m not going to spend the money on a new one – BUT I might – if there was a trade-in incentive!  Plus I love the idea of old ones being donated – after all – they still work!