Amazon announced today (or maybe it was yesterday in the U.S. – I didn’t know about it here until this morning) that they’ve reduced the price of the Kindle to $259 and, perhaps more importantly from my perspective, beginning on October 19th you’ll be able to download books wirelessly in over 100 countries. (I think what this means is that, in addition to Amazon’s proprietary WhisperNet cellular network (which is really Spring), you’ll be able to download books over 3G networks as well.) That doesn’t mean a whole lot in Vietnam yet, as there will not be 3G networks here until later this year or 2010, but it may have been the case up until now that you couldn’t even download books to a Kindle in Vietnam over a wired connection (i.e. download them to your computer and then transferred them to your Kindle). I’m not sure if Amazon had geographic restrictions like that in place or not – I know that for a long time Apple’s iTunes store was unavailable in Vietnam, but they opened it up a while back – meaning I can download podcasts, etc., which is sweet.

The international version is $279 – and I assume the extra $20 is to pay for the 3G card. Not sure.

Anyway, does this mean that I am going to go buy a Kindle now? Nope. Despite all of the generally good reviews, despite the fact that my friend Melissa swears by hers, and despite the fact that it would be sooooo awesome to be able to just download books here in Vietnam instead of relying on people to mule them to me from the U.S. when they visit, I’m going to hold out for at least a few more months. Why?

Because the long-rumored, longer-awaited (by me at least) Apple tablet is really, really, really rumored to be announced sometime later this fall and to ship sometime in Q1 2010. I envision this thing as being a larger version of the iPod Touch – with around a 10-inch capacitive touchscreen, super thin, super high-resolution (at least 720p), and with at least wi-fi if not also 3G connectivity. (Not sure if it will have phone functions and so be more like a larger iPhone than iPod Touch, but I doubt it will – it will at least likely be able to handle phone calls over VOIP over wi-fi.) While it won’t have the non-backlit e-ink screen like the Kindle – and so will probably have poorer battery life, etc., I think the things it will have that the Kindle doesn’t have will be enough to make up for that. Color screen, multitouch navigation, camera, built-in iPod and so will play video and music, will run iPhone/iPod Touch apps, etc., etc., etc.

Plus, even though I am sure Apple will try to lock it down like everything else they make, this thing will be cracked/jailbroken within a month, which will then open up all kind of additional possibilities for it.

I don’t think it will be powerful enough to replace people’s primary computers – and that will not really be the purpose – at least not with this first generation. But for a lot of people, it basically could replace their primary computer – especially if Apple includes bluetooth connectivity and you’re able to hook up a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, making it much easier to seriously type on than with a virtual keyboard.

Anyway, this is a long post to say that I am not yet buying a Kindle – at least not until after January when I see what (if anything – as this is still all just conjecture at this point) Apple comes out with. But I suspect that the very reason for Amazon’s announcement today/yesterday about the price drop and international availability was made knowing that Apple is about to take its first shot across Amazon’s bow. I sure hope so.

Yes, today was officially tech day here at Orangwutang. Thank you. Really, thank you.