Demand for Kindle Fire collapses as Apple's iPad continues to dominate - Page 2

Really? If Kindle is such a success, why do all reports say that sales plummeted after the first of the year?

And, btw, it will be interesting to see where you came up with Amazon having 40% of the tablet market for 2011. if you're going to make up numbers, why not make up something believable? Heck, if you want to make up numbers, why not say Amazon had 250% of the market in 2011. Why not a gazillion percent?


Funny, that's what everyone has been saying since the iPad first came out. The figures cited in this article say that it hasn't happened yet. Please wake me up when it happens.

And feel free to tell me where I can buy a 'faster, cooler tablet" for $299.


Other than, of course, the fact that the boxes contain power adapters for US power. And the fact that electronic devices need approval before being sold in most other countries.

BTW, your doubt about Kindle Fire sales dropping isn't of any interest. What EVIDENCE do you have? Most published reports say that sales dropped dramatically after the first of the year. The most favorable (for Amazon) report I've seen said that sales 'only' dropped by 50%. Most of them say that sales dropped by 75% or more.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2012/05/amazons-kindle-fire-sales-fizzle-in-2012-market-share-slips-to-third.php

No, not likely. Amazon can't simply transfer US audio, video, and e-book permissions other countries. If you can't access those three things, the Fire's a brick.

 

Add: I see that a couple of others have provided a similar response above.

Yes, that and all those Chinese workers that get exploited by Apple that leads them to commit suicide, all those US jobs that Apple won't bring back, the overheating-gate, the 4G-gate, the size gain-gate, the weight gain-gate.... what am I missing?

 

An actual response?

 

  - Foxconn/Honhai contract out for a lot more customers than just Apple.

 

  - The suicide rate for F/H workers is at or below China's national rates.

 

  - You think that increasing the price of everything they make is going to make customers happy? High-volume manufacturing isn't coming back to the U.S. The only exception seems to be european car makers reducing their costs by setting up non-union manufacturing in the U.S. because european costs are even higher.

 

  - Overheating-gate? Yeah, that turned out to be a major problem... 

 

Don't give up your day job.

 

No matter what you're perceived needs might be, a smaller screen = a diminshed experience. End of story. It is simply impossible to provide as enjoyable an experience with a screen size significantly smaller than the current iPad. Make the iPad less satisfying to use and Apple's reputation takes a hit. Considering the overwhelming success of the iPad, including the percentage of satisfied customers, there is no reason to mess with that formula. I can tell you exactly what would happen if Apple did make a smaller iPad available. There would be some sales, yes, but then when satisfaction surveys were conducted, instead of a majority of customers for that model expressing their satisfaction with it, the satisifaction rate would drop below 50 per cent. Some of the sales would come at the expense of the current iPad and a percentage of those would regret buying the device that would otherwise have been thrilled with the current iPad version.

What's in it for Apple?

Jobs often talked about the importance of what the company decided to not make and I suspect this notion of a smallish tablet that's really not much more portable than the existing iPad is a good example of that.

Other manufacturers woudln't have had the guts to forsake Flash. Other manufacturers would have rushed to bring a 7-inch version of the iPad to market. In fact, considering how easy it would have been to do so, if Apple hasn't already done so, why would anyone think they intend to. What technical problems could be holding Apple back from offering a 7-inch version of he iPad? Apple hasn't made such a beast available because it doesn't see the point. Neither do I.

I think these two experiences are fairly typical. Many were probably returned but I suspect an awful lot are simply gathering dust. I have an Asus Netbook (used half a dozen times) gathering dust in its box somewhere. A hopeless pos that we were given. It - too useless to use, me - too lazy to return it.

 

Come on guys, you're sounding like a bunch of fanboys.  When the media talks about iPhone sales "collapsing" ahead of a new product launch everyone screams about the outlandish headlines that misrepresent reality.  Yet here is the same report for someone else's product and you're eating it up!  I know this is an Apple site, but come on, have some perspective.  It is widely known that the Kindle leveraged what was already outdated hardware so that they could capitalize on the Christmas sales rush, and had always planned a 2nd gen model for the Spring/Summer time frame.  That time is here and savvy consumers know that the Kindle Fire isn't worth their time until the new product launches.  Amazon has built a very good cloud service, and got much of it in place before Apple did.  Their music locker catered more to users than the music industry, and Amazon took some heat in the press for that.  At the end of the day though, they thought about customers first and made a pretty good product.

 

Is the Kindle Fire an iPad killer?  No, clearly not.  They'll need to be innovative to compete at the low end against previous gen iPad's, but they are by no means out of the game.

 

EDIT:  I've only seen a Fire in use once and was thoroughly un-impressed myself.  I'm not willing to pin my thoughts on the future of the Kindle Fire based on what Amazon did with surplus Playbook hardware.  They should get kudos for figuring out how to re-deploy all of that worthless waste manufacturing effort, if nothing else.

Edited by triggs - 6/5/12 at 11:36am

This should surprise no one.  The Fire was never anything other than a cynical device aimed at tricking customers into buying a glorified Amazon kiosk. The fact is that the tablet is not so much of a market segment as the iPad is a fantastic, singular consumer item that continues to delight and surprise. Stripping away it's functionality in the name of lower cost doesn't so much create a tablet people can finally afford as it does create an item that isn't really worth owning.  I would bet that even those who claim to be satisfied would qualify that statement with "for the price." But, regardless, people bought the iPad because once they put it in their hands they didn't want to leave it on the shelf.  It's that good.  Until rivals make a product that offers a similarly fantastic user experience the tablet market segment will remain the iPad and all that other crap.

 

Fans of Apple products? On an Apple website? Who could have possibly thought that?!

 

 

And yet you're complaining that we're glad sales have nearly flatlined?

 

 

Hmm. Source?

iPod numbers will start trending downwards now that the Zune is available.

The difference, of course, is that Kindle Fire shipments have been accurately represented and are much larger in magnitude than Apple sales drop before a new model. Typically, iPhone sales might drop 10% before the release of a new model. The Fire shipments dropped by around 80% - and there's no new model in sight. See the difference?


Even if the first part of your statement were true (that a smaller screen means a diminished experience), that doesn't mean that it's impossible to make a product that is a good, enjoyable, well-received product that's smaller than the current iPad.

By your logic, Apple shouldn't sell anything but a 17" MacBook Pro and 27" iMac. They also shouldn't sell the 3GS and iPhone 4 at the same time that they sell the iPhone 4S. And there should be no iPod except the highest capacity one.

After all, the 11" MBA, 13" MBP, 15" MBP, 21" iMac, iPhone 3GS, iPhone4, and other products can't possibly offer every bit as much experience as their larger siblings, right?

 

Not surprising at all.  The Fire simply doesn't have enough power to do more than act as a really fancy e-reader.  An app like Garage Band would bring it to its knees.  And now everyone knows that.

 

This is both good news and bad news for Apple, but mostly good.  Good news in that any potentially serious competition to iPad has vanished.  Both good and bad news in that demand for a smaller pad form factor has also vanished.  This means that Apple may not need to release a 7" - 8" iPad any time soon.  Keeps the product lineup simpler, which tends to work to Apple's advantage.   But no doubt Apple has spent significant time, effort, and money on developing an iPad mini.  To delay or cancel it now means that Apple may never recoup that investment.

 

This is also good news for Google.  Larry is probably relieved that Fire sales have plummeted.  Because the Fire runs a forked version of Android 2.3.x, which together with the "main" 2.3.x fork comprises 65% of the total Android installed base.  The latest, greatest version of Android, 4.0, has only been installed on 7.1% of all Android devices.  After a full 7 months of availability.  Developers are looking backward to the most popular version of Android, a legacy version.  Forked, no less.

 

Google is stuck in the past (December 2010 to be exact) with that huge boat anchor of Android 2.3.x devices out there.  And the fewer Kindle Fires that Amazon sells, the smaller the legacy, forked 2.3.x installed base will be.  So the fewer Kindle Fire sales the better for Google.  Too bad Amazon is about to release a new Kindle Fire.  Should boost sales dramatically.

 

How about:

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/amazon-kindle-fire-2-to-get-spring-2012-launch--1041028

 

or

 

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/amazon-kindle-fire-2-set-for-january-2012-release-1029917

 

Both from the same site I know.  I didn't want to spend a lot of time digging up last fall's news.  Note the dates on the articles.

 

 

 

I'm not complaining, just trying to remind folks to maintain some perspective and avoid the herd mentality.  The Fire had a very well publicized purpose (use Playbook hardware to get a product to market fast and capitalize on holiday spending.  Monitor acceptance to gauge the market for this type of device).  Seems like it was a raging success by those metrics.

 

 

 

I wasn't aware of any exact numbers on Kindle sales, though I know they've seen a big drop.  The Fire is being hit by lacklulster performance and a depressed market due to (a) all of the pre-owned iPad's from us upgraders and (b) the fact that Apple kept the iPad 2 around at a lower price point.  Personally, I expected a big drop (maybe not 80%), and I am more interested in seeing what the Fire 2 brings as that will really be Amazon's first "real" product where they got to control all aspects of the design.

 

The bottom line (IMO) is that Amazon is a great company who knows what their customers want and is willing to go to bat for them.  Amazon Prime started out as a fairly lame service but has developed into a position to take on Netflix with minimal additional effort if Amazon so chooses.  Their locker service and cloud player are good offerings, as is the Amazon App Store.  Kindles are excellent, and they've even done an end-around Apple with their HTML5 software that loads on the iPad and bypasses Apple's store altogether.

 

There is a lot of bashing going on, but I'm just trying to point out that only some of that is probably justified.  Full disclosure - I own both Apple and Amazon stocks, own 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, 1 iMac, but buy most of my music from Amazon.  I have an Amazon Prime account though I don't really use it much for video streaming, and don't use either service for movies.  They both have their gaps, but Amazon has made a pretty good push for the low end, and it's hard to say how successful they will be based solely on a cluged-together gen 1 Fire.

Edited by triggs - 6/5/12 at 1:20pm

Hmmm.... January is officially over. So second of the two articles can be discounted right away.

 

The first one -- the one that says "Spring" -- will be discounted in two weeks, I am sure.

 

And, btw, since you seem to be something of a Fire expert: what's up with the vaunted Amazon 10-incher? Wasn't that supposed to out too?

As I said I didn't feel like looking up old news. Some sites said Spring, some said summer. Feel free to do your own Googling if you really are interested. Dates change - why didn't the original iPod touch have a camera as planned? Is the Fire 2 still going to be 7"? I don't know, maybe it'll be a 10 incher. I'm no expert on the Fire, but it doesn't take much to look like one around here, apparently.

The V.1 Fire was real sucker bait. came out at right time for the Holiday season, and got lots of hype. so a lot of people who don't know how to assess gadgets but thought a tablet gift for their family would be neat, and are used to buying things on Amazon, fell for the low price and bit. the real satisfaction level is probably a lot less than 46% - all those poor kids that got one of these instead the iPod touch they really wanted.

 

but that doesn't mean that Amazon's V.2 Fire, probably including a full 10" model too, won't be much improved. we'll have to see what Amazon can deliver at such a low price now with the benefit of experience. but if it's weak, they're toast.

 

RIP Zune.

 

Being that you came to the defense of the Fire (seemingly), we figured you must know something that we don't.

 

I understand what you're saying.  I was really just trying to counter the blind Apple fanaticism, though.  This thread was a bunch of Amazon-bashing without mich thought behind it. Love for Apple's products/design doesn't mean that nobody else can fill a niche in the market.  All said and done, I wouldn't buy the Fire that launched last fall for any price.

 

 

 

Now that's the real story.  Amazon got a pass on v.1, held up largely by all of the great work they did to build up their ecosystem.  v.2 has to be a real knockout though, or they're toast.

Edited by triggs - 6/5/12 at 4:37pm

 

The Fire has a bit more ooomph than the iPod Touch but squanders quite a bit of it under Android.  For a $139 it's decent enough.

 

The TI OMAP 4430 is a 1Ghz Cortex A9 dual core with 512MB RAM and a PowerVR SGX540.  That's kinda halfway between the A4 and the A5.  An app like garageband should work about as well as on the original iPad with the A4 and a 256MB RAM if both devices were running iOS.  The Android in the Fire is a good bit slower than iOS though.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amazon-kindle-fire-review,3076-9.html

It is possible to make an enjoyable device with a smaller screen.  Check out the regular Kindle.  Or an iPhone.  But a multi-purpose, interactive device that is good for reading and basic word processing and gaming and watching video content and making music etc is simply not as enjoyable on a screen the size of the FIre.  I think that is the argument.  Amazon cobbled together the Fire with whatever parts they could afford or get their hands on and with the prime design goal being a price point, not a user experience. And voila! users don't like it.

"not as enjoyable" doesn't mean that it's not possible or useful.

Lots of people surf the web or watch movies on their iPhone with a 3.5" screen. What makes you think that they wouldn't enjoy doing that even more on a 7" iPad?

For some people (maybe even most people), a 7" iPad would be too small. But not everyone. There are apparently plenty of people who prefer the smaller tablet. Consider, for example, that Android tablets are available in both 7" and 10" sizes. By most reports, they two roughly split the market - that is, about 1/2 of the market is 7" and half is 10". So, when given a choice, roughly half of the people choose the smaller version. Yet your same argument (it's not as enjoyable on a smaller screen) applies to Android, so apparently, there's something that makes up for the 'not as enjoyable' factor. It may be portability, it may be price, but the smaller model also has some advantages, as well. In the end, when you give people the choice (as in Android), about half choose the smaller screen. I don't see anything that suggests that the same thing wouldn't be true for the iPad.

Cost is also a factor.  For many people buying a smaller device at a lower cost is a "good enough" alternative.  That may be a fine approach for a company entering the market and needing to differentiate itself from the dominant player but for a company that's doing well on a profit-per-unit basis, introducing a lower-priced alternative isn't necessarily the best approach absent some serious differentiation between products.  So if, for example, I'm selling as many $100 items as I can make, it's not necessarily good business sense to compete with myself at a lower price point.