Color Kindle `Still A Long Way Out,' Says Amazon CEO

SEATTLE — A color version of Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle e-reader may come eventually, but it won't be soon.

Speaking Tuesday at the online retailer's annual shareholder meeting in Seattle, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said that adding color to the Kindle's "electronic ink" display is a difficult technical challenge and that a color screen is "still a long way out." Bezos said he's seen things "in the laboratory" that are "still not ready for prime-time production."

Tablet computers such as Apple Inc.'s iPad and some e-readers sport LCD displays, which can show color. But those are harder to see in sunlight and consume much more power than e-ink displays.

As usual, Bezos did not detail how many Kindles Amazon has sold since the product launched in 2007, except to say customers have bought "millions" of them.

Also Tuesday, Bezos said that Amazon Web Services, which sells Web hosting and data-storage services to other companies, has the potential to be as large as Amazon's retail business eventually. He called the overall market for such services a "very, very large area" that is generally not being done efficiently.

"Whenever something is done inefficiently, that creates an opportunity," Bezos said.

For now Amazon's Web services division has a long way to go. It is part of a group that had $188 million in revenue in the first quarter, while Amazon's retail operations brought in nearly $7 billion.

Comments

[marijam]

05:34 AM on 05/27/2010

Love my kindle. Read more than I ever did. I work on a computer all day, no desire for a color reader or even for a back lit reader. The kindle is very easy on my eyes after having stared at a computer screen all day.

[planetjeffy]

11:48 PM on 05/26/2010

I'm waiting for the 3D projector Kindle

[rbryanh]

01:15 AM on 05/27/2010

I'd hate to have to give a presentation of any complexity in b&w. Seriously... there are subjects that are unteachable without color.

[marijam]

05:30 AM on 05/27/2010

There's a very large segment of the population that are color blind. I guess they're just out of luck and can't be taught certain subjects.

[rbryanh]

09:03 PM on 05/26/2010

It's called the iPad.

I need a "reader" that won't read my email like I need whalebone stays in my briefs.

And speaking of this nifty little script I've got that strips Amazon's DRM off the content I've paid for and transfers it to a device that does more than one thing... Gotta run, 10 books to go and then I can dump Amazon's idiotic single-purpose device in the trash.

(I considered giving it to a child, but can't bring myself to inflict it on any of the terrific kids in my life.)

[thereisonlyoneparty]

10:00 PM on 05/26/2010

The LCD of the iPad is not for reading. It may be a multipurpose device, but reading books is not one of those purposes.

The Kindle is an amazing device for people who want to read and do not want to deal with the shortfalls of reading on a light emitting device with a shiny reflective screen. Could it do more? Probably, but it would make more sense to design a more capable eReader from the start instead of trying to get the Kindle to do things it was not meant to do.

It is also funny that the iPad is supposed to be so open and multipurpose. It does more than the Kindle, but nowhere near enough.

[rbryanh]

01:12 AM on 05/27/2010

Having read a hundred or so books on mine, it's working better for me than a Kindle did, except for low-light situations where the Kindle is unusable. I don't find any drawbacks to reading on a shiny light emitting screen - quite the reverse. The image is clear, crisp, and causes me notably less eye fatigue. The use of color also makes illustrations, diagrams, charts, and graphs a great deal easier to read.

Even in good light, the Kindle definitely required that I wear my glasses, whereas I can easily read the iPad without. (Paper falls somewhere in between.) And as for content, being able easily to transfer any e-book format from any source (including Amazon) is a huge boon.

As for "nowhere near enough," what a strange statement. What would be enough? Wash dishes? Walk the dog? Plug leaking oil wells? ;)

[LabRat]

06:15 PM on 05/26/2010

I don't want a color kindle. Touch screen maybe, color no.

[rbryanh]

01:14 AM on 05/27/2010

I've found charts and graphs of any complexity completely unreadable on the Kindle's black and white screen.

As a tech writer, I find any b&w medium to be very limited when it comes to conveying very complex ideas.

[Gil76]

10:20 AM on 05/26/2010

The fact that kindle has all those little buttons is bigger than a color screen. I haven't bought an
ereader, yet, but right now I'm leaning towards the nook. None of those buttons...and it has color!

[opus101]

04:17 AM on 05/26/2010

Who cares about a color book reader? If someone want color he will buy the IPad. Amazon need to focus on getting the price for the Kindle below $200.

[LabRat]

06:16 PM on 05/26/2010

Amen. Kindle is for books, not a million apps.

[rbryanh]

09:07 PM on 05/26/2010

Since I can't see the sense of treating print media as somehow separate from the other information I consume, I'm kinda partial to the view that books are just one of a million apps. (Actually, I've only twenty or so, and none of them are Amazon's Kindle app. It was a nasty, limited little thing, and since converting Amazon's content to other formats isn't all that hard, I deleted it.)