Competition is good. Choice is good. I have found some book titles available on Kindle for less than iBooks Store. Since the Kindle Reader app is pretty nice on iPad, I can enjoy shopping around, electronically
I'm also glad to see Kindle hardware survive and specialize as a great eBook reader. It needs a built-in lamp and a higher contrast screen, but it's otherwise nice for what it's designed for.
Good luck with that. Just because Apple makes 'success' look easy, everyone thinks they can do the same!
Spot on. Wait till they have to start dealing with component suppliers, inbound logistics, outbound logistics, quality control issues, R&D to stay on top of hardware/materials technologies, retailer, telephone service providers, after-sales service, environmental/sustainability issues, warranties, phone banks for tech help, a new category of employees (engineers), and on and on.
They'll scream 'uncle' and drop this in no time, just as Google did.
Apple took decades -- and nearly went belly-up -- to get to where it is today.
I'm not sure this really means anything. When a successful company competing in an industry is threatened by another company they will do whatever they can to retain their position. In the case of a product which is competitive with theirs, they will try to retain their advantage by adding or improving features and capabilities so their product remains dominant. ...
Or, for example, by dumbing it down and/or cutting prices, which may or may not be good for consumers (although, they may mistakenly believe it is). Often the results of competition, especially when narrowly viewed, may be good, which is why the view of "competition is always good for consumers" has become the common wisdom, but there is no necessity that it will be. Has the competition among American companies that drove most manufacturing jobs overseas been good for consumers or not. In some ways yes, but in other ways -- e.g., fewer jobs; remember, consumers are usually workers first -- decidedly not.
Lack of competition is almost always a bad thing, but, we shouldn't just pat ourselves on the back and declare that all is well, and everything will be even better soon, every time we see some competition going on.
What on earth are you on about? Amazon's music store is available in the UK, drm free and less than half the price of iTunes on the most popular songs and cheaper overall on all music. What's more you don't have to download a crappy bit of bloated apple software - i.e iTunes to use it! You lot are so wrapped up in your fan boy fantasies.
Well, Amazon's MP3 store isn't in Canada (where I am), and I'm guessing not in many of the countries iTunes has expanded to; thanks for the confirmation that Amazon loves the UK more than Canada, though, as I've long suspected..... I've used eMusic as well, so I'm not solely iTunesing, and in fact I would love for Amazon to get into Canada, as the competition would be great (eMusic is okay, but, case in point, they recently added the Sony/Columbia back catalog, of course US only, so we canuckleheads get hosed again, eh). The general problem remains here: Amazon (and Android, and others) has a pretty spotty record for getting into other countries and fully supporting them. My guess is any Amazon phone, should they be crazy enough to do one, would be limited in market and scope for quite some time, and that's problematic, because Apple is almost everywhere at this point, and is thinking globally, if not quite acting it.
Comments
I'm also glad to see Kindle hardware survive and specialize as a great eBook reader. It needs a built-in lamp and a higher contrast screen, but it's otherwise nice for what it's designed for.
Good luck with that. Just because Apple makes 'success' look easy, everyone thinks they can do the same!
Spot on. Wait till they have to start dealing with component suppliers, inbound logistics, outbound logistics, quality control issues, R&D to stay on top of hardware/materials technologies, retailer, telephone service providers, after-sales service, environmental/sustainability issues, warranties, phone banks for tech help, a new category of employees (engineers), and on and on.
They'll scream 'uncle' and drop this in no time, just as Google did.
Apple took decades -- and nearly went belly-up -- to get to where it is today.
There are a lot of things Amazon 'could' do, they obviously have the resources, but probably wont.
I'm not sure this really means anything. When a successful company competing in an industry is threatened by another company they will do whatever they can to retain their position. In the case of a product which is competitive with theirs, they will try to retain their advantage by adding or improving features and capabilities so their product remains dominant. ...
Or, for example, by dumbing it down and/or cutting prices, which may or may not be good for consumers (although, they may mistakenly believe it is). Often the results of competition, especially when narrowly viewed, may be good, which is why the view of "competition is always good for consumers" has become the common wisdom, but there is no necessity that it will be. Has the competition among American companies that drove most manufacturing jobs overseas been good for consumers or not. In some ways yes, but in other ways -- e.g., fewer jobs; remember, consumers are usually workers first -- decidedly not.
Lack of competition is almost always a bad thing, but, we shouldn't just pat ourselves on the back and declare that all is well, and everything will be even better soon, every time we see some competition going on.
Exactly: Amazon has no experience selling music, books, or anything else.
Tell me the name of their own OS and I'm willing to take my words back
What on earth are you on about? Amazon's music store is available in the UK, drm free and less than half the price of iTunes on the most popular songs and cheaper overall on all music. What's more you don't have to download a crappy bit of bloated apple software - i.e iTunes to use it! You lot are so wrapped up in your fan boy fantasies.
Well, Amazon's MP3 store isn't in Canada (where I am), and I'm guessing not in many of the countries iTunes has expanded to; thanks for the confirmation that Amazon loves the UK more than Canada, though, as I've long suspected..... I've used eMusic as well, so I'm not solely iTunesing, and in fact I would love for Amazon to get into Canada, as the competition would be great (eMusic is okay, but, case in point, they recently added the Sony/Columbia back catalog, of course US only, so we canuckleheads get hosed again, eh). The general problem remains here: Amazon (and Android, and others) has a pretty spotty record for getting into other countries and fully supporting them. My guess is any Amazon phone, should they be crazy enough to do one, would be limited in market and scope for quite some time, and that's problematic, because Apple is almost everywhere at this point, and is thinking globally, if not quite acting it.