Rumor: Amazon Gunning for a Tablet Release This Fall

A shot of Kindle apps on the iPad. A sneak peak at what we can expect an Amazon tablet interface to look like? Photo courtesy Amazon

It looks like we could be getting an Amazon-branded tablet sooner rather than later, based on the latest reports on the retail giant’s plans.

According to DigiTimes, Amazon will launch its tablet PC models by August or September of this year. The company hopes to push four million units by the end of the 2011 holiday season.

Previous reports suggested that Amazon would be releasing two tablets, codenamed “Coyote” and “Hollywood”, before the end of the year. “Coyote” is tipped to feature an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, while “Hollywood” is purportedly built with Nvidia’s T30 “Kal-El” quad-core processor. DigiTimes claims that Amazon’s tablets will incorporate TI processors instead.

Amazon’s forthcoming tablets will also reportedly be accompanied with their own movie streaming service.

Amazon began its foray into the hardware space in 2007 with the debut of its Kindle e-book reader. Now in its third iteration, Amazon has proven its chops in the mobile device market with a loyal following of Kindle users, even snagging a piece of the iOS and Android party with Kindle iOS and Android apps (and a WP7 app as well).

Amazon solidified its stake in the Android platform in particular with the recent debut of its own Android app store, which would be an obvious choice to have baked in on an Amazon-branded tablet. That, paired with Amazon’s Cloud Drive music streaming service and the rumored movie streaming service, the tablets could be a veritable Amazonian tour de force in the tablet market, if they’re executed correctly.

Market research firms agree: Amazon would be the most credible threat to Apple’s dominance in the tablet arena.

And with Amazon’s focus on non-reading based media and entertainment services, its potential tablet offerings sound perfectly in line with CEO’s Jeff Bezos’ previous carefully-worded statements regarding new products like a tablet (if you need a refresher, he said we should “stay tuned” and that the company “will always be very mindful that we will want a dedicated reading device?).

With the recent rumors and reports, and Amazon’s latest activities, all signs seem to point to “yes,” we’ll be seeing an Amazon tablet in the next few months.

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