It should come as no surprise that Amazon is looking to compete better with Apple’s iPad, especially given the recent MacMillan issues. It looks like the company’s move now is to acquire other companies that could help bring Amazon’s products closer to Apple’s. It looks as if Amazon has acquired the New York-based startup Touchco to help.
According to the New York Times, Touchco may have been acquired by Amazon to be folded into Lab126, the Kindle hardware team. Touchco’s main product is a thin, flexible touch sensitive surface. The technology is called interpolating force-sensitive resistance, which sounds like a fancy way of saying multitouch resistive screens. It uses resistors to determine the pressure applied to any number of points, and is designed to be easily integrated into LCD screens.
Obviously we can’t yet know what Amazon is planning on doing with Touchco, though a touchscreen Kindle seems logical. Although, the big appeal to many people for the Kindle is the fact that it uses the e-ink display rather than the LED-backlit screen that the iPad will use. If Amazon can use the Touchco team to create it’s own touchscreen e-ink display, and sell it for less than the Que, it might be worthwhile. A Kindle 3 with an LCD screen just doesn’t seem like the right way to go, and could end up losing more faith than it lost after last weekend’s MacMillan debacle.
If Amazon are planning to compete with Apple – it's a gutsy move. I can't see it succeeding though – without Apple's brand ubiquity, what's Amazon's hook? Much depends on what Touchco contribute.