Is there still hope for BlackBerry? Can Lenovo make a dent in the tablet market? We don’t know the answers to these questions, but are willing to speculate wildly. This week Andy Hadfield, Simon Dingle and Steven Ambrose discuss the Lenovo K1 tablet, Samsung pulling the Tab 7.7 from its stand at IFA, the Amazon tablet, app stores and operators, iOS 5, the launch of Telkom Business Mobile, Evernote acquiring Skitch, Google shutting down old projects, and more…

With the launch of Amazon’s new 6″ Kindle reading device questions have once again been raised about whether or not the company ships to South Africa and where the best place is to buy a Kindle. The short answer is yes, Amazon does ship to South Africa and the new Kindle is officially supported. The only place you should buy it is directly from Amazon.

The misunderstanding surrounding Amazon’s shipping policies and availability of the Kindle are due to bad reporting in the media and grey importers who would prefer it if you bought the Kindle from them. So let’s start by dispelling the nonsense:

1. “Amazon does not ship to South Africa.” – This is simply not true. Amazon will ship to South Africa from both its USA and UK stores, but it is not allowed to ship all products because some have not been licensed for the region. Books and DVDs, for example, are published via specific channels. Amazon can not send products to South Africa if they are not licensed for the country by the publishers or manufacturers. Amazon will happily ship other products that are licensed for international shipping that includes South Africa – even by normal airmail unless the seller does not allow it. Remember that Amazon is not the seller for most products in its catalogue, but rather acts as a facilitator between stores and customers. In the case of the Kindle, which is an official Amazon product, it is shipped from the USA using courier services only.
2. “Kindle is not officially available in South Africa.” – Again, not true. The Kindle was officially launched in South Africa in 2009, along with over 100 other countries. I was at the launch and I have purchased two Kindles from Amazon since then, shipping both to my office in Johannesburg. The first one arrived in three days. The second arrived after two days but was held at customs. The courier company informed me of this and then delivered the package three days later, after customs released it without additional charges.

Some grey importers do supply the Kindle but are unable to beat Amazon’s price for the device since they need to buy it from Amazon themselves before selling it to you! There is no reason to buy the product from them and you shouldn’t even consider it. The only incentive would be if they could save you money on shipping costs and since they are marking up on retail prices I doubt this would ever be the case. The other possibility is that Amazon is out of stock, which is proving to regularly be the case given the popularity of the new 6″ model.

Stock shortages aside, the best place to buy a Kindle is directly from Amazon. It will be shipped to you almost anywhere in the world, including South Africa, and if anything goes wrong with the delivery Amazon will send you a replacement.

There are some things to bear in mind when shipping a Kindle to South Africa, however:

• Be sure to tell Amazon which country you are in before placing your order. Look for the box on the right hand side of the Kindle order screen that says, ‘Live outside the US?’. Click on it and follow the directions so that Amazon knows which country they are dealing with.
• Amazon does not deliver Kindle to PO Box addresses since it uses a courier service. You must therefore provide a home or business address that it can be hand-delivered to.
• Once shipping costs, sales tax and other fees have been added the full cost of the 6″ Kindle with 3G and WiFi is currently $239.09 (±R1790).
• Amazon has begun charging a small customs deposit so that it can expedite processing of Kindles arriving in South Africa. If no customs charges are levied, Amazon refunds this deposit. I am yet to here of anyone being charged by customs for their Kindle.
• Whispernet and Whispersync are free services, even when accessing them using the Kindle’s 3G connection. However, Amazon does charge for delivering books and other content to the device using the service as part of the price of purchasing a title.
• South African Kindle owners have limited access to the Kindle store with less books available due to territorial licensing. The way to get around this is to change your country setting to ‘USA’ once you have the Kindle. This is done on the ‘Manage your Kindle’ part of the Amazon website. Be warned, however, that Amazon will ask you to prove that you are American and doing so won’t be possible for everyone.

The Kindle is classed as ‘IT’ and exempt from ad valorem taxing by South Africa’s customs authorities. It also falls under the price threshold for imported goods.

If something goes wrong with your Kindle and you need to send it in for repairs or replacement, Amazon will facilitate courier services for the return of the device. I do not know of anyone who has had to do this but I have been told by representatives of Amazon that it is a straightforward and painless procedure.

Amazon’s Whispernet and Whispersync services also work in SA thanks to Amazon’s partnership with AT&T and its international roaming agreements. This is a great feature and I have often used it to buy books directly on the Kindle while on holiday – even in the bush. I also used the service while traveling in China.

Whispernet now also allows you to tweet from the Kindle while reading and supports other social networking functions.

At $139 for the WiFi-only Kindle and $189 for the 3G and WiFi version, this is the ultimate device for reading books as far as I’m concerned. I love my Kindle and also think it makes the perfect gift – delivered to whoever you’re buying it for directly from Amazon.

So ignore the bull being spouted by grey importers and misinformed individuals who think the South African Post Office has sabotaged our chances of shopping online forever. Go get yourself a Kindle. And no, I am in no way affiliated to the company – Amazon is just pure awesome and the Kindle is a great product.

Google Search is one of the last major international internet services accessible in China after the government in that country banned Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and several other sites in 2009, making them inaccessible to local internet users.

Google begrudgingly agreed to play ball with the great firewall of China in order to officially operate in the country, but after some of its users’ accounts were hacked – apparently from within China – Google said it had had enough and would pull out of the country if internet filtering was not relaxed.

I travelled to Beijing last year as a guest of Lenovo and got to experience the Great Firewall firsthand. It was eery not being able to access Twitter or Facebook, but I soon found ways around this. One method was to use SSH tunneling and apparently VPN access works well too – some companies are even making money out of selling this kind of access to internet users in China.

Another less obvious method was to use the browser on an Amazon Kindle. The Kindle connects wirelessly to cellular networks around the world thanks to roaming agreements with AT&T – Amazon’s network partner. Using the Kindle Browser I could hit Twitter, Facebook and other banned sites. The Kindle experimental browser is terrible – but it worked. And it’s free.

Obviously there are ethical issues with content filtering and I don’t believe governments have any right to apply such controls, but the reality of internet usage in China is that the filtering isn’t a big deal for users. I’m reminded, again, of infamous libertarian and computer scientist John Gilmore’s quote – “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

Google will still be accessible from China, but will not have a dedicated Chinese service, which is the gist of this latest news. This will provide new incentive for the Chinese to provide their own services, just as they have come up with their own alternatives to Twitter and Facebook.

I live in a country with problems-a-plenty, but at least freedom of speech and censorship laws are progressive and protected by the constitution.

With 2.5 times the surface area of Kindle’s 6-inch display Kindle DX’s larger 9.7-inch electronic paper display has more area for graphic-rich content like newspapers and magazines. The larger and more competent  E Ink screen and more memory (3.3GB) are the only real differences between the DX and regular Kindle, however.

Amazon says the international launch of the Kindle has been a huge success with a number of orders already delivered in 130 countries, including South Africa, since the launch in October 2009. The Kindle faces growing competition in the ebook reader space with many new releases approaching the market, including Barnes & Noble’s Nook, existing devices from Sony and a looming tablet device from Apple.

The Kindle Store now has more than 400 000 books, including 96 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers, which are typically $9.99 (around R75). More than 50 000 books have been added to the Kindle Store in just the last three months.

Cost and ordering
The international Kindle sells for $279 (around R2100) and shipping to South Africa is billed at an additional $20 (about R130). Delivery to SA, says Amazon, should take 2 to 7 days. However, be aware that you are likely to be billed for VAT and customs duties when the device lands in your country. The total price of the Kindle is therefore likely to be around the R2600 mark once everything has been factored in – Amazon says it should not cost more than that.

The only way to get a new international Kindle is to buy it from Amazon and have it shipped to you.

Wireless delivery of books, newspapers and other content is included in the price of publications (about $9.99 or R75 for newly released books) and will work in any country that supports it, so you can buy books while traveling and not have to worry about data costs. This is exclusive to international Kindle users – the American, CDMA-version Kindle’s wireless connection only allows for free delivery in the US. An additional $1.99 is charged elsewhere.

Here is an interactive map of countries that have support for Kindle Wireless.

Localisation
The international Kindle ships with a US plug adapter, so you will need a converter to use this in South Africa. However, the Kindle also ships with a USB cable that is used to both transfer data to and from the device and charge it. The Kindle uses a standard USB ‘micro-b’ adapter, so you can also use any standard-compliant third-party plug or adapter.

At time of writing the Kindle is only available with an English user interface, but you can transfer files in any language that supports the Roman alphabet (more on transferring files below).

The US Kindle uses CDMA technology for its wireless connectivity, while the international version uses GSM with 3G. If you have an American Kindle account and you purchase the international version of the device you will get all of the features of the American Kindle on the GSM version (including web browsing). Americans therefore have the choice to buy either, but nobody outside of the US should want the US version. The Kindle does not have Wifi – it’s connectivity relies on AT&T and partnering cellular networks.

Books, subscriptions and files
The Kindle stores around 1500 ebooks. There are currently over 350000 books available for the Kindle, of which about 230000, including most bestsellers, are available outside of the US. Books are priced between $5.99 and $11.99 (R35 to R90) and most new releases are $9.99 (R75).

You can also subscribe to magazines, newspapers and other publications that are automatically updated on the device using its wireless connection. New publications are added all the time and Amazon says that it is in talks with some South African magazines and newspapers that should soon be added to the store.

You can also send and read any PDF or Word document to the international Kindle by either emailing it to the device or transferring it with the USB cable. Each Kindle has a unique email address and you can only send it files from approved addresses that you add yourself, which prevents spam. Emailing files to your Kindle is billed at $1 per megabyte.

Everything else
The American Kindle has experimental web browsing support which is provided free of charge, but the international Kindle will not support this feature. It does allow for notes to be taken and includes experimental text-to-speech that will read books to you, as with the American version. Amazon says it might add web browsing to the international Kindle at a later stage, but there are no plans at present.

The international Kindle is also an mp3 player and you can email or transfer audio files to it for playback, including audio books and music.

If you have an American iTunes Store account and you download the Kindle app for your iPhone or iPod Touch it will sync with your international Kindle account. However, the app is not available in Apple app stores outside of the US.

The Kindle will also allow you to download the first chapter of books for free so you can read them before deciding to buy the rest of the book.

The Kindle DX, that has a larger screen than the normal Kindle, is not available internationally, but Amazon says it plans to release the DX to international customers soon.

Can I drop it in the bath?
Surprisingly, this is the first question I get from many of my friends and colleagues when discussing the Kindle. The answer is “you shouldn’t drop it in the bath”. However, the Kindle is water resistant (not proof) and is powered off most of the time while you’re reading, only turning on when you turn a page or do something else requiring the battery. So if you do drop it in the bath take it out immediately, make sure it is off and leave it to dry for two weeks and it should survive. That said, I accept no responsibility for anyone who actually tries this. Keep your Kindle dry!

Can I read it on take-off and landing?
When you are reading a static page on the Kindle it is actually powered off, leaving the imprint on the special e-ink screen for you to read. So you can absolutely read it on take-off and landing. If the air hostess tells you to turn off your Kindle, simply tell them that it is already off and you’re just looking at it. Which is perfectly true. Of course, it is virtually impossible for devices like mobile phones and Kindles to interfere with any part of an airplane’s electronics – but that is a discussion for another time. Paper’s killer application is still reading during take off without being bothered.

And that covers most of the facts about the international Kindle. If there’s something I haven’t added please ask about it in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer your question.

The truth is that Amazon did not stop shipping to South Africa. While its US store temporarily stopped shipping to the region using standard delivery, you could still make use of expedited shipping. Amazon’s UK store always has shipped to South Africa using standard postal delivery.

The US store has now changed its policy again and will once again ship to South Africa using standard shipping, affirming what I said in the first place: there is nothing wrong with the South African postal system.

Funny how the media (especially internationally) were quick to jump on the story of Amazon stopping its shipping, but is yet to report on the fact that it has started again. And that, in fact, it never stopped. As a journalist I find it worrying that none of my counterparts seems to have applied due diligence on this one.

Amazon does still post to South Africa. Just not from Amazon.com – the American version of the store. The British Amazon.co.uk will still use normal post to deliver packages to South Africa, however (click on the image for proof of this).

So if mail theft at the South African Post Office is the real reason for the decision by Amazon, then why is it still offering postal services to the country from the UK? Eh?

Having spoken to two local online retailers who deal with Amazon on a daily basis, Simon from Have2Have and Justin from WantItAll on the latest episode of ZA Tech Show, I have realised that while the South African Post Office really is more reliable now than ever before it is still a dodgy system to use for the likes of sending iPods and high-end cameras. Those will be stolen, if they aren’t broken. Not that anyone with half a brain would consider posting an iPod in South Africa via conventional channels. Or anywhere in the world for that matter.

This is why god made priority post and couriers. I asked my friend Steve in the UK if he would send an iPod to Liverpool using the British postal system and his retort was, “What?!? Are you $#&%ing mental?”

Steve is a real Brit. Not some kid who moved over to the UK because he planned to make millions as a street sweeper and now refuses to come home.

While the SAPO (South African Post Office) is pretty reliable in general, it is not consistent in its delivery times. This was affirmed by both Simon and Justin, who both say that Amazon deliveries have probably suffered many delays, precipitating the sending out of follow-up packages. The perception was that mail was lost, when really it was just late.

Justin from WantItAll also has an interesting theory concerning fraud. He says that some people in South Africa probably receive their packages from Amazon and then lie about them being lost, abusing Amazon’s policy to replace lost items. While this theory sounds plausible I find it hard to believe that this would happen more in South Africa than anywhere else in the world. There is also no evidence to back it up.

I don’t doubt for a second that the South African Post Office is not the most reliable in the world. I just haven’t had any problems myself and can’t find anyone who has had the likes of books and DVDs go missing. I also have no reason to doubt the organisation’s claims of a 99 percent success rate at recovering stolen parcels thanks to its new camera system at depots.

I’ll say it again: the SAPO used to be useless, thieving and unreliable. It simply isn’t any more. And the only people who say otherwise are ex-pats, who I have problems seeing eye to eye with on the state of institutions in our country at the best of times. Many, not all, left because they were negative about the state of the country – and now use any excuse to throw poo at South African service providers in an attempt to justify to themselves and the world that leaving was the right decision.

Amazon.com has not been available for comment. But the fact that the British version of the store still posts to South Africa is an interesting angle because there are huge differences in mailing things to and from the USA as opposed to the UK, in my experience. Packages I receive from the UK take between four days and two weeks to arrive, for me. But packages from the USA take at least two weeks, sometimes longer.

So my take on this for the time being is as follows; Amazon.com has had trouble maintaining its usually high-level of service to South Africa for the same reasons most other international companies do – we are far away from the developed world. Getting things to and from South Africa from places as far afield as the USA is challenging and processes are unreliable. The reason this isn’t the case in the rest of Africa is simply because no other country on the continent offers anywhere near the amount of business to Amazon as South Africa does.

I think the real reason Amazon.com doesn’t want to ship to South Africa is because it would prefer to divert all business to the region via its UK presence. And yes, that has something to do with “lost” mail, but not everything.

South Africans are prone to negativity. It’s not our fault – we have had a rough ride over the last year and a history of atrocious service in the country. So it’s easy to convince an already pessimistic population that our service providers are shite. Telkom, our banks and most other organisations still have a long way to go in terms of delivery and offering a level of service anywhere near what can be expected from first-world companies. But the Post Office is different. I urge you to look at the facts before making up your mind – and stop pissing and moaning about South Africa unless you have proposed solutions. Nothing ever gets fixed by whiners.

Today I was surprised to hear the news that online retailer Amazon.com has announced that it will no longer ship to South Africa using ‘standard shipping’ through the postal system. It will only send items to the region using courier services, which cost considerably more than conventional postage, citing theft of parcels as its primary reason. Is the South African postal system really that bad? I don’t believe it is, and I am developing a theory about the real reason Amazon has halted its postal services to SA.

I personally do a lot of online shopping, and have been doing so for at least eight years now. I have never had anything go missing in the post. I also refuse to believe that I am just lucky in this regard. So today I made a point of asking almost everybody I came across if they had ever lost post in South Africa. No one had.

The South African Post Office does have a horrible legacy of unreliable service. But it has since changed. The management of the Post Office over the last few years has effectively turned things around in the spirit of the organisation’s slogan, “We deliver, whatever it takes.” The SAPO is a success story and an example of how a company can be transformed. I have witnessed this first hand with all the packages I send and receive internationally, from vinyl records sent by Ninja Tune in the USA and UK to books and works of art from Canada.

The South African Post Office now boasts a 99 percent success rate of recovering stolen mail, in the unlikely event of it actually being nicked. Of the hundreds of thousands of mail items sent through the SAPO over the last year less than 700 have gone missing. Almost all recovered. Either the post office and its auditors are lying about these stats, or Amazon’s management are smoking something serious – unless there is another reason for the decision.

The SAPO today responded with surprise to the Amazon announcement. It was dumbfounded at the decision, given the organisation’s improved efficiency and reliability. A spokesperson for the Post Office said that they would be approaching Amazon to discuss the matter.

I also refuse to believe that missing packages really cost Amazon that much to begin with. Firstly, post hardly ever goes missing any more according to the SAPO. Secondly, while Amazon’s policy is to reship “lost” orders, I am sure a company of Amazon’s size must be insured against this occurrence. And the reshipping policy effectively creates an impression of good service, not bad – so it’s hard to believe that the advent of stolen packages does the company’s brand any harm either. It’s merely an organisational inconvenience, which I doubt it deals with in shipping to South Africa much more than it does anywhere else in the world.

Recently a company launched in South Africa with a vested interest in Amazon’s local affairs. This company is WantItAll, a local front-end for Amazon that facilitates orders from Amazon and other American providers into South Africa. From WantItAll’s website:

…www.wantitall.co.za was therefore born from the needs of South Africans wanting to purchase items from abroad. We facilitate the process of purchasing items off the internet on behalf of customers and then shipping the requested items to the customer. www.wantitall.co.za therefore handles all the purchasing, shipping, and insurance of the items � therefore reducing the problems previously experienced with internet purchasing.

WantItAll gleefully disseminated a press release today notifying all and sundry of the Amazon announcement – which obviously greatly benefits its business, which has ties to Amazon. I have heard someone accusing WantItAll of playing an instrumental role in the decision by Amazon. However, I am not suggesting this, as I have not seen any evidence that leads me to believe it.

But something is up – and I suspect it has nothing to do with stolen mail. I will be pursuing this story with all relevant parties over the next week in an attempt to sniff out the real reason Amazon made its announcement, whether local pressure or misguided international policy. I don’t expect to come up with much. But I must ask.

On another note, I hope we’ll soon be seeing a full-fledged retail service offering from Amazon.co.za.

EDIT: I was wrong about WantItAll sending out a release. This was something I was told from fellow journalists, which turned out to be bollocks.