I see even darker clouds in the horizon for all these iPad killers, or better yet wannabe pretenders. Sure they will sell a few. But Apple will continue closing the noose around their necks.
What do they think it means when Apple asks and expects 10% break from their suppliers.
They are definitely making enough money as is. Waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Thinking Apple might shave off a few dollars for the new and improved iPad 3
That is the only real competition.
P.S. Can anyone please tell those Wall Street guys that Apple really is worth a little bit more
When Ice Cream Sandwich is released, that's going to open up the floodgates, as app developers begin to make universal apps that work with tablets or smartphones, on-the-fly, just like iOS. Then, the Android tablet market app count will increase, especially if there's a big name tablet out there, like one from Amazon.
First, Ice Cream Sandwich is going to really help minimize fragmentation, and hardware specs among tablets are already pretty similar. Secondly, have you seen the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet? It's pretty thin and light, and if the Amazon tablet can come in competitively priced to the iPad 2, is similarly small and light, and Ice Cream Sandwich is available, the Amazon tablet will be compelling to a lot of people, especially current Android phone users who want an equal user experience among phones and tablets.
Let's be realistic for a minute. I'm excited about ICS, but for pete's sake, Gingerbread has been out since december and phones released today are STILL getting Froyo. Only in the 2nd half of the upcoming year are we looking to finally see Gingerbread baked phones.
If Google doesn't backhand the OEM's about updates or Version shipping, fragmentation may very well remain a problem. The updates on the tablets though seem to be very quick, as most 3.0 tablets have already been updated to 3.1 and some are on their way to 3.2 so there is always hope.
The one most likely to be in an Amazon tablet would be the OMAP 4430, which is a 1 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 chip with PowerVR SGX540 graphics. It's very similar to the iPad 2, spec-wise. In fact, it may even be more power-efficient than the iPads, because the OMAP's have circuitry not found in the A5, which reduces power consumption when idle.
It will be a big mistake if Amazon try to match, or even jump ahead of, iPad performance. That would mean more expensive, or not much less expensive, than iPad. No one in their right mind will buy a pad at more or less the same price as iPad. If Amazon is smart they would pick any hardware that will allow them to sell their pads real cheap. And by cheap, I mean less than $350. That's the only way it could be extremely successful, like iPad.
if the Amazon tablet can come in competitively priced to the iPad 2, is similarly small and light, and Ice Cream Sandwich is available, the Amazon tablet will be compelling to a lot of people, especially current Android phone users who want an equal user experience among phones and tablets.
Android users only get stuff for free, according to many posters. Or they hate Apple. Or they are total geekazoids.
Android users only get stuff for free, according to many posters. Or they hate Apple. Or they are total geekazoids.
Is that really a big enough market?
1. In case you haven't noticed, Amazon has been having it's "free game/app of the day" Rampage for some time now.
2. Apple haters and Geekazoids are for the most part the same thing, and that means Amazon will make a killing off of non apple Appliances and hardware(PC parts and all that good stuff.)
and 3. Android as an OS is free and has the largest market share(which may not lead to more $$$ itself, but see point 2.)
and 3. Android as an OS is free and has the largest market share(which may not lead to more $$$ itself, but see point 2.)
Wrong. Android as an OS is still far behind iOS as an OS in term of market share. (sound like too many people are brainwashed by the number of Android vs iPhone from Google to make Android look better than it really is.)
I'd guess 500,000 sales a year maximum and that's being generous.
It's not a question of IF it will flop compared to the iPad, it's HOW MUCH it will flop compared to the iPad. Oh well Amazon, big company, big ideas, a lot to lose and a long way down.
I see a number of respondants here claiming platform parity between Apple and Amazon. Amazon is going to be crippled by the continuing "it's going to be better next release" mentality that plagues Android to date. IF Google stops messing around and gets serious about bringing stronger coherence to the Android OS and the support structure that enables it, then you can argue that Amazon has an iPad killer. IF Amazon underwrites a substantial part of the cost of the tablet and under-prices it to try and erode the iPad marketshare, then there is a chance. Everyone has called various aspects of the Amzaon project as being equivalent to Apple's corresponding aspect. The key here is whether Amazon can successfully bring all of those elements together and make them work well enough to make their tablet interesting to potential iPad buyers. As several bloggers and commeters have noted, there seems to be an iPad tablet market, not a tablet market as such, based on market perfromance to date.
Amazon has to take each element that has been commented on herein and weld them all together into a substantial ecosystem that can go toe-to-toe with the iOS ecosystem. In spite of the rosy picture mikemikeb paints for Android Ice Cream Sandwich, it once again is that promise of something better that still is not quite there. That will hamper Amazon in the user experience arena, even though it will be better than Honeycomb - which was touted as the best Android tablet experience before it was released. Amazon has to absorb the cost of producing these tablets at fair market prices, where Apple is leveraging long-tern component contracts that allow them to get much better parts pricing - which could make the Amazon tablet a loss-leader for them - something you sell at below cost in order to attach sales of suporting items (like their content). So in just these two things Amazon is facing (not insurmountable) challenges. There are a bunch of others but let's stop here. Amazon can potentially bring a successful challenger to the iPad market if they are capable of addressing all these challenges. Much in the same way Michael Dell was able to sell lots of PCs - because that's all Michael wanted to do. Amazon is in this not to create an ecosystem, but to sell content and they'll create devices to drive that if they have to.
But they do have a very deep 1:1 relationship with their many customers. And for some of them (like me), they probably know they clients better than the clients know themselves.
Yes, so deep that they routinely recommend that I buy things from that that I ALREADY BOUGHT in a slightly different form.
So good at marketing that they offer me a 'buy these together' option which entails ZERO saving so making me wonder what exactly their point was.
Quote:
I do not work for them, but if they don't get it right, nobody will.
Plus name any other player (Google excluded) with the server farms in place. Even Netflix runs on AWS....and they migrated there from THEIR DC....
But it doesn't matter that Samsung haven't got a huge media selling server farm because you can take your Samsung 10.1 tab and buy from Amazon. Are you saying that Amazon won't support other Android tablets? That would be an enormous gift to Apple if they tried that. Amazon has no experience competing with real hardware makers outside of the world of ebooks and ebooks are a unique product because except for a few publishers like Baen you can really only buy them with DRM from your ebook hardware maker.
What they ought to be doing is investing some money in a native store App for iOS and Android that allows people to browse their huge catalogue of products both digital and physical without dealing with their geriatric web interface. If they don't they risk losing their status as the premier eBook vendor to Apple, because Apple actually seems to understand what people want in a shopping experience.
I really don't get why Amazon feels they need to get into the hardware business.
I think what has happened here is that the division responsible for Kindle has seen that the iPad is exploding and threatens to relegate the kindle to history. The first law of management is not to let your job become irrelevant, so the guy in charge of that division will have gotten amazon set for a kindle tablet.
It really doesn't make any sense though - even if I close my eyes and concentrate on the idea of buying an android tab the names that spring up are HTC, Moto & Samsung. The name kindle brings to mind a slowly refreshing eInk screen and a full qwerty keypad on an eReader (what was that about?).
They have zero retail presence outside the US, and it took how many years for them to get Kindle into retail channels there? 3?
Did it "take" them 3 years or did Amazon wait 3 years to put the Kindle at retail outlets?That's kind of an important difference. Selling the hardware directly means more profit and having another retailer take a portion of that profit might not have been a viable option when the Kindle launched. I really can't imagine Amazon having any problem getting retailers to sell a tablet for them.
I really can't imagine Amazon having any problem getting retailers to sell a tablet for them.
It's not enough to just get them to stock it, you need to get them to actually display it, promote it, demonstrate it. This is where the Apple store does such a good job for Apple, they control the display - but even when Apple launched the iPhone in the UK they made O2 stores fit a big pine table for the Apple produts.
Amazon don't have that kind of pull with other retailers, not compared to Samsung or Sony, nevermind Apple.
Comments
Yeah, sure.
Why not 40 million.
I predict sales of 137,000 units. There are certainly that many Apple-haters out there.
What do they think it means when Apple asks and expects 10% break from their suppliers.
They are definitely making enough money as is. Waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Thinking Apple might shave off a few dollars for the new and improved iPad 3
That is the only real competition.
P.S. Can anyone please tell those Wall Street guys that Apple really is worth a little bit more
money.
When Ice Cream Sandwich is released, that's going to open up the floodgates, as app developers begin to make universal apps that work with tablets or smartphones, on-the-fly, just like iOS. Then, the Android tablet market app count will increase, especially if there's a big name tablet out there, like one from Amazon.
First, Ice Cream Sandwich is going to really help minimize fragmentation, and hardware specs among tablets are already pretty similar. Secondly, have you seen the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet? It's pretty thin and light, and if the Amazon tablet can come in competitively priced to the iPad 2, is similarly small and light, and Ice Cream Sandwich is available, the Amazon tablet will be compelling to a lot of people, especially current Android phone users who want an equal user experience among phones and tablets.
Let's be realistic for a minute. I'm excited about ICS, but for pete's sake, Gingerbread has been out since december and phones released today are STILL getting Froyo. Only in the 2nd half of the upcoming year are we looking to finally see Gingerbread baked phones.
If Google doesn't backhand the OEM's about updates or Version shipping, fragmentation may very well remain a problem. The updates on the tablets though seem to be very quick, as most 3.0 tablets have already been updated to 3.1 and some are on their way to 3.2 so there is always hope.
Yes; it's called the OMAP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_OMAP
The one most likely to be in an Amazon tablet would be the OMAP 4430, which is a 1 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 chip with PowerVR SGX540 graphics. It's very similar to the iPad 2, spec-wise. In fact, it may even be more power-efficient than the iPads, because the OMAP's have circuitry not found in the A5, which reduces power consumption when idle.
It will be a big mistake if Amazon try to match, or even jump ahead of, iPad performance. That would mean more expensive, or not much less expensive, than iPad. No one in their right mind will buy a pad at more or less the same price as iPad. If Amazon is smart they would pick any hardware that will allow them to sell their pads real cheap. And by cheap, I mean less than $350. That's the only way it could be extremely successful, like iPad.
if the Amazon tablet can come in competitively priced to the iPad 2, is similarly small and light, and Ice Cream Sandwich is available, the Amazon tablet will be compelling to a lot of people, especially current Android phone users who want an equal user experience among phones and tablets.
Android users only get stuff for free, according to many posters. Or they hate Apple. Or they are total geekazoids.
Is that really a big enough market?
Android users only get stuff for free, according to many posters. Or they hate Apple. Or they are total geekazoids.
Is that really a big enough market?
1. In case you haven't noticed, Amazon has been having it's "free game/app of the day" Rampage for some time now.
2. Apple haters and Geekazoids are for the most part the same thing, and that means Amazon will make a killing off of non apple Appliances and hardware(PC parts and all that good stuff.)
and 3. Android as an OS is free and has the largest market share(which may not lead to more $$$ itself, but see point 2.)
I'd say that's a pretty big market.
and 3. Android as an OS is free and has the largest market share(which may not lead to more $$$ itself, but see point 2.)
Wrong. Android as an OS is still far behind iOS as an OS in term of market share. (sound like too many people are brainwashed by the number of Android vs iPhone from Google to make Android look better than it really is.)
It's not a question of IF it will flop compared to the iPad, it's HOW MUCH it will flop compared to the iPad. Oh well Amazon, big company, big ideas, a lot to lose and a long way down.
Amazon has to take each element that has been commented on herein and weld them all together into a substantial ecosystem that can go toe-to-toe with the iOS ecosystem. In spite of the rosy picture mikemikeb paints for Android Ice Cream Sandwich, it once again is that promise of something better that still is not quite there. That will hamper Amazon in the user experience arena, even though it will be better than Honeycomb - which was touted as the best Android tablet experience before it was released. Amazon has to absorb the cost of producing these tablets at fair market prices, where Apple is leveraging long-tern component contracts that allow them to get much better parts pricing - which could make the Amazon tablet a loss-leader for them - something you sell at below cost in order to attach sales of suporting items (like their content). So in just these two things Amazon is facing (not insurmountable) challenges. There are a bunch of others but let's stop here. Amazon can potentially bring a successful challenger to the iPad market if they are capable of addressing all these challenges. Much in the same way Michael Dell was able to sell lots of PCs - because that's all Michael wanted to do. Amazon is in this not to create an ecosystem, but to sell content and they'll create devices to drive that if they have to.
But they do have a very deep 1:1 relationship with their many customers. And for some of them (like me), they probably know they clients better than the clients know themselves.
Yes, so deep that they routinely recommend that I buy things from that that I ALREADY BOUGHT in a slightly different form.
So good at marketing that they offer me a 'buy these together' option which entails ZERO saving so making me wonder what exactly their point was.
I do not work for them, but if they don't get it right, nobody will.
Plus name any other player (Google excluded) with the server farms in place. Even Netflix runs on AWS....and they migrated there from THEIR DC....
But it doesn't matter that Samsung haven't got a huge media selling server farm because you can take your Samsung 10.1 tab and buy from Amazon. Are you saying that Amazon won't support other Android tablets? That would be an enormous gift to Apple if they tried that. Amazon has no experience competing with real hardware makers outside of the world of ebooks and ebooks are a unique product because except for a few publishers like Baen you can really only buy them with DRM from your ebook hardware maker.
What they ought to be doing is investing some money in a native store App for iOS and Android that allows people to browse their huge catalogue of products both digital and physical without dealing with their geriatric web interface. If they don't they risk losing their status as the premier eBook vendor to Apple, because Apple actually seems to understand what people want in a shopping experience.
What OS will it use? Is the Texas Instruments processor an ARM variant?
Android of course.
Why else would they be starting up an Andoid 'app store'?
which could make the Amazon tablet a loss-leader for them - .
Of course it will be a loss leader. That goes without saying.
They will also refrain from releasing any sales data to make it seem like they're selling more than they are.
I really don't get why Amazon feels they need to get into the hardware business.
To seed the market, ok.
But their business is selling dead trees and bits, which they do well.
As a little subdivision of their enormous company, their hardware and os will always be second rate.
They need to focus on getting their bits on the bounty of good readers that now exist.
They ought to do a Wade, James & Bosh deal.
Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Nokia, Samsung and all the other guys should call a secret meeting, pool their funds together and buy out Apple.
That might be the cheapest route. But they better hurry.
I really don't get why Amazon feels they need to get into the hardware business.
I think what has happened here is that the division responsible for Kindle has seen that the iPad is exploding and threatens to relegate the kindle to history. The first law of management is not to let your job become irrelevant, so the guy in charge of that division will have gotten amazon set for a kindle tablet.
It really doesn't make any sense though - even if I close my eyes and concentrate on the idea of buying an android tab the names that spring up are HTC, Moto & Samsung. The name kindle brings to mind a slowly refreshing eInk screen and a full qwerty keypad on an eReader (what was that about?).
They have zero retail presence outside the US, and it took how many years for them to get Kindle into retail channels there? 3?
Did it "take" them 3 years or did Amazon wait 3 years to put the Kindle at retail outlets?That's kind of an important difference. Selling the hardware directly means more profit and having another retailer take a portion of that profit might not have been a viable option when the Kindle launched. I really can't imagine Amazon having any problem getting retailers to sell a tablet for them.
the Amazon iBezos
I really can't imagine Amazon having any problem getting retailers to sell a tablet for them.
It's not enough to just get them to stock it, you need to get them to actually display it, promote it, demonstrate it. This is where the Apple store does such a good job for Apple, they control the display - but even when Apple launched the iPhone in the UK they made O2 stores fit a big pine table for the Apple produts.
Amazon don't have that kind of pull with other retailers, not compared to Samsung or Sony, nevermind Apple.