Scrabble Is First Paid Game App for Kindle | Hacker News Reader

Scrabble Is First Paid Game App for Kindle

wired.com

13 pointscwan16 comments

If I was Amazon I'd be slinging Marco SDKs, hardware, whatever, to get a version of Instapaper running on the Kindle. Killer app.

Instapaper is pure liquid gold for the Kindle. Marco has definitely made the right choice to create a start-up based on it.

Right now I've got probably about a hundred articles on Instapaper, collected over the month or so I'm using it, but I haven't read any of them yet. My Kindle should arrive Monday and the first thing I'll do is read those articles on it.

One caveat - WhisperNet. Amazon aren't going to be keen on people buying Kindles, only to use their free cellular bandwidth to read blogs. Amazon have no interest in making hardware, it's just a means to an end, the end in question being the end of the publishing industry.

Deleted comment

For those curious, I was able to find KDK documentation:

http://kdk-javadocs.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

Does anyone know what CPU/clock speed the kindle 3 has? Can't seem to find it with google. Thanks!

I'm interested in the possibility of programming on the unit itself. The low-power consumption makes you less dependent on mains power.

EDIT according to http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95968, it's an iMX35 (ARM11-based) http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=I... (probably iMX353 or iMX357: max speed... 532 MHz)

Yes, it's an iMX35, you can see a teardown of the WiFi+3G version here: http://www.eevblog.com/2010/09/03/eevblog-109-amazon-kindle-...

It bothers me a little bit that they are not opening the KDK for all people at the same time. Nevertheless, I expect to experiment with Kindle apps in the future (if they ever let normal guys into the developer program).

I guess I can understand that they want to test the waters with a brand name app, but now that they've actually published something the continued stinginess with the sdk is off-putting. Maybe one consolation is that, by the time they open it up to regular folk, there might be much better Kindles to play with.

"Major drawback: Unlike Facebook’s or other online iterations of the Scrabble game, there is no social dimension. You can’t play with another Kindle user online; the best you can do is set up a two-player game where you pass the Kindle back and forth."

This seems to me a major step-back. Someone knows if is this a choice made by Electronic Arts or is something imposed by Amazon?

It seems to be currently unavailable at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P2QCE8/

Not seeing in my Kindle 3's store search either.

Was anyone here let into the developer's beta program?

I was, but never bothered to try out the sdk.

I applied to create a fun game that's basically an etch-a-sketch. Was denied.

Would really like to apply, but I want to build a reading application (expressly forbidden by their SDK agreement), because I've yet to see anything efficiently use E-ink displays, and their UIs are uniformly nasty. To the point where I've wondered if they're doing it deliberately, because it could mean relative-death to second-hand book sales.

I was still waiting for approval... :-/

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