The Digital Reader

There’s a story going round today that one analyst has bumped his estimate of the number of Kindle Fires sold. Stifel Nicolas analyst Jordan Rohan’s tea leaves have shown him that Amazon sold 6 million KFs, not 5. He also increased his estimate of Amazon’s revenues by $2b, to $67 billion.

That’s interesting news, yes, and I would bet that he is close to being right. (Last week’s Flurry stats certainly agree with this estimate.) But what’s more interesting is that he preempted Amazon. Amazon is due to announce their financials tomorrow, and he just may have stolen their thunder. But maybe he didn’t.

[Read more →]

Research in Motion, makers of the BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, is rumored to be planning to launch 2 new tablets this year. N4BB has some inside sources that say RIM will be replacing the existing 7″ Playbook with a new and updated model (with a 3G connection). RIM is also rumored to be launching a 10″ LTE equipped Playbook in December.

Given the questionable market success of the current Playbook, you have to wonder what they’re thinking.

[Read more →]

Yesterday I reported on the new Digitimes rumor about how Apple might show off 2 new iPads at iWorld in late January, and today I’ve found another example of why we shouldn’t listen to Digitimes.

The Loop debunked this rumor yesterday. They checked with their sources, and Apple is not planning to release an iPad at iWorld/MacWorld. They’re also not releasing it at CES, either, so don’t get your hopes up. Oh, and The Loop also heard Apple isn’t going to release an iTV at either event.

[Read more →]

It looks Amazon won’t be the only one with great tablet sales this year.

Digitimes is reporting new rumors passed to them from their usual industry sources.  Barnes & Noble is reported to have received over a million of the new Nook Tablets from Inventec, the manufacturer. There are also reports that B&N has expanded new orders for the NT because of good sales over the Thanksgiving Day weekend.

[Read more →]

Digitimes is hearing new reports from industry insiders, and it looks like that 5 million Kindle Fire rumor from a few weeks back is about to come true.

According to their sources, Quanta has already shipped 3 to 4 million Kindle Fires to Amazon. And that count is from the units that have actually left the factory, not just come off the assembly line.  There are also reports that Amazon is on plan to hit 5 million Kindle Fires sold by the end of December.

[Read more →]

So I have another rumor today about Barnes & Noble. It’s not quite as juicy as my last B&N rumor, but this one looks pretty interesting, too . I don’t have much information yet, but I’m going to put this out there and see what turns up.

According to my source, B&N will be offering a limited edition Nook Touch on Friday.  I’m told that it’s going to be white and sell for $80.

Update: And now that new Nook (with the cream colored backside)  is listed on the B&N website. Oy. That didn’t take long.

[Read more →]

There is another rumor out today about the Kindle Fire’s larger sibling.

Digitimes is reporting that the larger Kindle Fire, which I am dubbing the Kindle Bonfire, is not going to launch for quite a few months. The current predicted launch date is right where I thought it would be when the first rumors appeared a couple months back (right after the Kindle Fire launch event).

[Read more →]

Our old friends at Digitimes reported yesterday that Amazon will be shipping a lot more Kindle Fires this year than expected.

According to their industry sources, Amazon has increased the orders from the factories. They were reportedly expecting to sell three and  half million Kindle Fires in 2011, but shortly before launching the KF Digitimes believe bumped that to 4 million.

This most recent news suggests that they’ve increased their orders to 5 million, all of which will be shipped before the end of 2011.

[Read more →]