JP Morgan: Kindle Fire is 'noise,' won't compete with Apple's iPad 2 - Page 4

..and you don't have the slightest clue about business manufacturing or economics... but I'll give ya the point anyway re: ANALysts.

Who the hell thinks they shouldn't pay taxes across state lines knows nothing about the Interstate Trade and Commerce Clause in the US Constitution.

+1. The price point for a 7" device has now been set... even if the other manufacturers "pimp" the device with everything including the kitchen sink... um... Flash sink.

How ironic would it be, if :

a) Amazon's tablet is proof in the court case against Samsung, that a tablet CAN run Android and NOT copy Apple;

b) if future devices from any manufacturer are graded on whether they will have full access to the Amazon Store and premium content... instead of Google's offerings.

I think it will be interesting to see how Google deals with this "fork" of Android... and what ideas it gives other manufacturers to "bake their own". Also considering that Microsoft is extracting licensing fees from HTC, Samsung and a few other manufacturers, at what point do these manufacturers start to cozy up to MS, and start offering Bing, etc. in able to get preferential treatment when Win8 is ready to go.

I'm still betting that Google will eventually pull the plug on active development of Android... or at the very least, stop releasing their code to play and develop around.

That's a funny one. But yes, I agree. They will stop active development of Android eventually..around year 2080.

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7 inch screen I'll agree with as a big reason not to get one. As for camera, GPS and microphone, I don't think anyone will care that it hasn't got them.

Ultimately I think it will come down to the adverts. The Kindle has good adverts which is a posative, but it really depends if they can match the iPad adverts which people have not gone a week without seeing for well over a year now. So far no other tablet has had any decents ads and as a result nobody thinks of it as a product that they "want"

If the ads work then I think people will be looking at the iPad and Fire and basing the judgement on do I want the bigger screen and if I do, do I want to pay that much more for it.

Unless an "Android hotspot" is somehow different from any other WIFI connection, then the answer is yes.

Do you think that Android phones transmit some kind of aberrant WIFI signal?

I'm thinking along the same lines, namely that for Apple the best response to this sort of challenge is to make a larger iPod Touch. The size of the screen is the one aspect of my Touch that I don't find to my liking. Not sure if the first step would be to move past a five-inch form factor but I definitely think that 3.5 inches is not the sweet spot for such a device. I think something more in the 4.7-inch range might be that spot, namely the point at which the device remains pocketable for most yet offers enough screen real estate for a lot of what it's used for.

I really don't see what the downside would be to offering a 4.7-inch Touch. Such a device would certainly be a viable response to the Fire, trading off some screen real estate for functionality at roughly the same price point. While going from 3.5" to 4.7" doesn't sound like much, it is a significantly larger screen percentage wise but in terms of the actual dimensions, the device would remain easily pocket-friendly. More pocket-friendly, certainly, than the 7" Fire and yet not that much less enjoyable to use.

It is true that such a Touch device might impact iPad sales somewhat but a lot of those sales would be lost to devices like the Fire just the same so this would still work as a net gain for Apple.

It's hard for me to imagine that Apple hasn't considered this option and certainly if it hasn't considered it seriously to this point, with devices like the Fire emerging, now would be a good time to take it seriously. Even if the Touch receives a minimal upgrade next week, there is no reason why such a revision to the Touch would have to wait until next Fall to come to market. As soon as the revised Touch was available, Apple could continue selling the existing Touch at lower prices and bring this new model out, slotting it in at the Touch's current price point.

This seems to me a logical way for Apple to go but I have to say that as a long-time shareholder, whatever Apple decides to do, I'm sure they have it all figured out. The company has been on an incredible run since I first bought shares back in 2003.

Still, I have this gut feeling that the time has come to rethink the Touch.

Stick with Apple. They aim like an arrow towards customers like you, and there are millions of them. Nothing will confuse you if you stick with Apple products.

I thought that a seven-inch screen would make a lot of sense but then I tried the Playbook and the iPad, back-to-back in-store and it's no contest. That extra screen real estate matters.

I think for the most part Apple has it right in that the focus should be either on a screen in the 10-inch range ala the iPad or something portable like the Touch. The 7" size is far less convenient than the smart-phone grade of device and far less enjoyable to browse on than the iPad size.

The one change I would make, though, is to make the Touch range a little larger. Keep the portability but dial down the compromise of using a much smaller screen.

Completely disagree, by the way, that the iPad is mainly successful because Apple's ads are better. The iPad is just that much better than the other tablets and the price is roughly the same. Why would anyone buy one of those other inferior products. It would be like having a BMW 3-series and the Chevy Malibu offered at the same price and a significant number passing up the BMW. Not gonna happen.

Initially there will be a lot of interest in the Fire but once customers start using the product day-to-day, if the experience is inferior to living with an iPad, word will get out and all the slick advertising in the world will not save the Fire. Apple does user experience far better than any other company. It's what has turned it into this century's most impressive success story.

According to technology reports and reviewers, FLASH content runs fine on the device. In fact it runs fine on just about all of them. With newer hardware models that are more capable, the argument that FLASH is just bad is pretty much gone. In fact on NPR many reporters complained about the frustration of owning an Apple iOS product and unable to view any FLASH content. Right on national news. Once again, Apple will be left behind. \

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Note to JP Morgan: While not a direct competitor to the device known as the iPad 2, the Kindle Fire will affect sales of the iPad. It will not change my purchase plans for an iPad for myself, but it already has changed my purchase plans for the kids.

At the $199 price point I can afford to buy a device to entertain the kids and not have to care that it will probably be destroyed in short-order. I won't be buying into Amazon's $80/year service, but I will be looking to get the device itself. Too bad for Amazon they chose to price it at what will be a loss.

Other than all the actual arguments that prove it's pretty darn terrible and the wrong way to go in the future of web content.


In other news, millions of iPads and iPhones are sold every quarter, Apple dominates the market, and no one gives a frick about Flash not being there.

We must remember the "many" reporters at NPR...

The first iPad didn't need a camera or microphone to sell spectacularly well, so that doesn't seem like an argument that it's necessary. To get an iPad with GPS, you need the cellular data models, so the "no GPS" argument really compares a $630 and up cellular data iPad to get the good AGPS performance, against a $200 device that lacks GPS.

Isn't the Touch an option, then?

If not, then why.

"iOS powered devices generate more revenue than all of Microsofts products put together" -asymco market comparison

iOS alone has more value than the entire MS company in revenue. How is Android at turning a profit? How are those Android phone sellers doing there? That working out good for 'em? Making it up on volume are they?

I suspect Apple is crying all the way to bank...

To reach the success of anyone buying the product you need decent ads. People arn't going out thinking they need a tablet and choosing the iPad. There watching ads for iPads every week and then feeling like they want one. The same way millions of people bought iPod's during constant advertising that went on for years, they wern't replacing another portable music player, the ads just make them want one.

So far every other tablet has had a half arsed ad campaign that might be enough if people we're going to buy a tablet and comparing them but there not. People don't even know what a tablet is, all they know is iPad.

Apple does not need to advertise much. All the secrecy and hype in the news is the best free advertising. You cant buy advertising like that. Just you watch come Oct 4th.. you wont be able to escape the media blitz.. the same goes for the next iPad.
Even grandma will hear about it in the retirement home. "That Apple, I hear they have a new and improved product that everyone is fighting over to get'.

there are so many iPhone and iPad in the market already, you see them everywhere and people LOVE apple product once they buy them. Word of mouth is also very powerful.

If the Fire is "loved" by its owners in the same way then it will succeed. The fact that we no one has actually been allowed to handle a Fire prevents us from figuring this out. Kindle eInk readers are certainly loved by their owners. Amazon has a great eBook store.. much better then Apple's (more selection and better prices in my experience).

However, extending Amazon's book reach to other content is questionable. If I was looking for on-line Music, Movies and Apps I would not be picking Amazon, personally. There are better options. As a eBook reader, the Fire is not as good as the Kindle eInks. It will be interesting to see if people are willing to trade optimal eInk reader capability in-conjunction with a rich eBook store for access to online Music, Movies and Application stores which are not market leading. If the Fire allows you to access you iTunes purchases and stores, NetFlix and the general open Android marketplace then it would stand a better chance of acceptance. Not sure Amazon will ever let that happen.

Heck they even control what you see on web sites via the Silk architecture. Oh I am sorry, you are saying you can't read the New York Times web site very well? Oh I am sorry.. have you considered buying a subscription to NYT via our Newspaper App?
I dont rule that out. You dont have access to the web from your browser... all you access is the Amazon servers. Think about it. They have this thing so locked down. All content comes from them. Amazon's books, music, video, and even the web.

Its the same game companies like Comcast/NBC-Universal are playing. The next step is for Amazon to merge with Comcast/NBC/Universal in order to realize the dream of Buy-N-Large Corporation (reference to Wall-E). "No need to adjust your TV set, we now control all you hear, see and buy"

No, they will lead the way towards the future. HTML 5.

Do you still use floppy disks?

Steve disagrees:

Apple's advertising budget for fiscal 2010 was $691 million, up 38% from last year's $501 million and a much larger increase than in previous years.

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/27/...margins-ahead/




Somehow, however, I think that responses will be logged that a 38% increase, amounting to nearly 3/4 of a Billion Dollars is the same as "not advertise much".

testing my new signature.

noted.. thanks.. probably also important to point out the 2nd sentence in the article you referenced. Dont you think?:

"Apple's advertising budget for fiscal 2010 was $691 million, up 38% from last year's $501 million and a much larger increase than in previous years. Even so, the report notes that Apple's rapidly-growing revenues allowed the company to reduce its percentage of revenues spent on advertising from 1.37% to about 1.06%. "

1%? seriously?? they get charged 4 times more money by Visa/Mastercard for the purchasing transactions fees than they spend on advertising. 1% is chump change.

Yikes! Way to miss the point.

Curbs you, Lion Otto-connect!

Here we go again... Troll, rinse, repeat.

Keep in mind that you're not comparing similar kinds of expenses. How does it compare to other companies? IBM's ad budget is roughly $500M. Microsoft is roughly at $1B. So maybe they're in the ballpark. Given how often Apple ads are played, I think they're doing fine. I'd hate to see an overdose of Apple ads just because some guideline suggests spending more when what they're doing clearly is doing the job pretty darn well. I don't want them to join the ranks of companies that air an ad on every commercial break, at that point, the return on investment goes down.

Software: Android OS is outselling iOS. However this is only on phones. What about tablets? Factor those and it would be a close race indeed.

Hardware: The Apple iPhone is outselling HTC/Samsung/Sony Erricson/Nokia et al. It is the worlds most popular phone, just like the iPad is the worlds most popular tablet. (You open up the Argos catalogue and the heading is "iPads and Tablets" ).

As for the "poor people" comment, thats going about it the wrong way - its more like they are selling to Tight Fisted people and those who don't care about what phone they have, not just those on a low income. QED: I bought a bedside table for £14.99 last week out of the catalogue, its of lower quality than the IKEA bedside I was looking at and not as pretty. I could've easily afforded the IKEA one, but I went for the £14.99 table because it was cheap and it was just... there. I don't really care as long as it was black to match the other furniture in my room and provided a place to put my glasses at night when I go to bed.

Which is exactly the reason I ordered a TouchPad. At $99, it's a great birthday present.


Given that sales increased significantly more than 38%, Apple's percentage of sales spent on advertising is actually decreasing. And on a percentage basis, it's less than most of their competition. So I wouldn't say that they 'don't advertise much', but their strategy is not all about advertising the heck out of an inferior product - which is what some of the competition does.


Yep. Leave it to ConradJoe to completely misrepresent the point of the article that he's quoting.

You're comparing Iphones to an OS used by bucketfuls of phone manufacturers yet Apple is the only one who can't keep up with the demand and still makes more profit than all of the other Android phone makers COMBINED.

1) No, it means that there are still plenty of people locked into Flash usage, but that doesn't change the fact that Flash is what is being left behind

2) If you need or want Flash just use something that plays well with it. Complaining about Flash on an iPad is like complaining about streaming HD video off a Windows phone via USB to a TV. Don't use it for the wrong job. Why be annoyed that a banana isn't crispy?

That Flash is all over the place doesn't mean Apple made the wrong move not supporting it. Until it gets completely overhauled and stops being the POS ancient format with hundreds of bandaids of code that require security patches regularly, it won't survive to the next generation of computing, whether billions use it or not.

It's very amusing that a single sound bite said once on a radio show could cause someone to jump up and rejoice to the downfall of IOS, despite the many in the field who do not concur.

The correct name is Flash. All-caps for emphasis is lame.


You guys think you're being clever, I think you're just being tedious and monotonous for doing that.

It's also probably 40% of the weight, which is something the 7" naysayers always leave out. The iPad is pretty heavy for its form, especially for holding freely. A tablet of any size that give a good browsing and reading experience that is notably lighter will have a niche, other shortcomings notwithstanding.

+1. Very good point.

+1. Another way to look at it. If you ONLY support flash, you are being left behind.
Remember the web is based on an open interpreted language standard called HTML. HTML is supported by EVERY architect and EVERY OS. Flash is an proprietary plugin extension to the web, that allowed you to do things that HTML at the time could not do. In other words, it filled a functional gap in HTML. Thank you Adobe. However, HTML has evolved and many of the things which HTML could not do prior to Flash is possible today. Thus the need for Flash going forward is diminished and web developers can leverage things which they can be assured will be supported by most all browsers going forward. This is because HTML and all future version will continue to be supported by EVERY architect and EVERY OS going forward as it is the natural evolution of the web language.

In summary, Its the safer route for web site designers, to update their website to the latest version of HTML and its capabilities, as it will support a wider audience than flash going forward (not just a subset of CPU architectures and/or OSes) So the question is not why don't you support Flash, the question is why don't you update your website support the latest version of HTML and determine if you even still need flash. If you can get duplicate the functionality of flash with HTML, then you stand a good chance to increase your visibility on all platforms.


crispy banana? funny analogy... made me laugh.

How about this one. Complaining you can't use a floppy in your new laptop.