Yes but you specifically bought an iPad to have an iPad. This isn't an iClone. This is a Kindle, these things practically sell themselves by name alone. People aren't looking at this saying "oh this is cheaper than the iPad." People can do a little more than the orignal Kindles can do. It's no threat to Apple as they have even stated. I can't recount how many people on the train and bus use eReaders over iPads. It's no biggie. Hell I love my iPad but this is for a whole other area of consumers.
I disagree. This is a tablet competitor just like iPhone was for blackberry even though Apple said it wasn't targeting the BB market. It's the same scenario but the Amazon Kindle isn't as good as the iPad. Where as the iPhone was the best game in town when it arrived.
It would seem that an App that allows you to stream or download your content to your iOS or Android device would have made more sense for Amazon. Why build a tablet and sell it at a loss when they could have just built an app?
You are probably right but Apple's terms probably scared them. Amazon doesn't want to be reliant on Apple for business so it released it's own hardware.
First it isn't Amazon's content. It is their marketplace. Second you are paying $500 to use Apple's marketplace when you buy a low end iPad 2, so what exactly is your point?
I am an Amazon user. They have great deals on a lot of tangible items and with Prime membership it is a deal no one else in the marketplace can match. There will be plenty of satisfied Amazon users more than willing to spend $200 on this device with all that Amazon offers.
Get your head out of the Apple tunnel and open your eyes a bit.
Actually you don't have to use Apple's marketplace. You can go on safari and download what you want directly to your iDevice.
What 15" laptops are selling w/ARM processors? Netbooks have had shrinking sales for awhile now. How is the MBA a netbook? Netbooks used shitty Atom processors and XP, Linux or Win 7 Starter. The MBA has Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 processors and SSD drives, plus a full modern OS w/o limitations. How is that at all similar?
It's similar to people who don't know what they are buying or in this instance comparing.
Still, there's no question that the Fire is a really terrific tablet for its price. The amount of content you have access to — and the ease of getting to that content — is notable to say the least. The device is decently designed, and the software — while lacking some polish — is still excellent compared to pretty much anything in this range (and that includes the Nook Color). It's a well thought out tablet that can only get better as the company refines the software. It's not perfect, but it's a great start, and at $200, that may be all Amazon needs this holiday shopping season.
You left this part out of the Verge review: "If you're thinking about getting the Fire, you have to decide not just whether you want a tablet, but what kind of tablet you want. This isn't an iPad-killer. It has the potential to do lots of things, but there are many things I have yet to see it do, and I wonder if it will get there given the lean software support."
Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you’re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon’s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I’ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too.
You left out this part from the Mashable review: "This is a product I wanted to love...Instead, now I’m discovering it’s a somewhat flawed gadget — a product that literally does not always know which way is up."
And Mashable calling it "highly polished" is a direct contradiction to what Engadget said (not that either is the end-all be-all authority).
So yeah, we can take snippets from various reviews and make it look like they love it or look like it's no big deal.
The only flaw with that theory is that buyer's of the Amazon Fire who are too cheap to buy an iPad will have never used an iPad extensively and thusly won't realize that the Fire's experience is comparatively poor. Just as people bought up Windows PCs in the 90's in droves, despite being a poor imitation of the Mac, people may buy out of sheer ignorance or favoring cheap over quality.
I disagree with this. I don't think you can make strong parallels between the burgeoning tablet market and the history of PC trends.
PC uptake and lockin were driven by business adoption, not consumer cheapness. Once business standardized on cheap PCs the Mac never had a chance, market share wise, since many people's first exposure to these machines was at work and consumer buying followed from that familiarity.
The iPad has it the other way around-- business is following consumer demand. That means a completely different dynamic is in play, with the iPad benefiting from both broad consumer exposure and enterprise lock-in. While cheaper products are and will be available, consumer choice is more likely to follow the general consumer electronics trend of perceived quality commanding higher prices with a great slew of cheaper products satisfying bargain hunters-- something like the current situation in LCD TVs. Many people go to Best Buy aware that Samsung or Panasonic are the "good" choices, if you can spend a little more, and Vizio, Westinghouse or some house brand are the cheap "settle for" brands if you can't.
That's very different from a defacto standard like the PC market, wherein network effects made the PC the apparent only choice for many consumers. In fact (as we see now), the "post PC" world with its loosening of those very effects allows for accelerating sales of the Mac itself, as consumers prove willing to spend more on the MacBook Air to get what they want. People will spend more to get what they want, provided they trust the value is really there and the extra amount isn't completely daunting, as long as there aren't compelling factors (such as near monopoly network effects) limiting their perception of choice. You could argue that the iPad is actually the device enjoying that perception of near monopoly, at least for now.
Quote:
This is very true and I truly hope Apple isn't too full of themselves to not use this approach. If they trim the storage of the iPad 2 to 8GB I believe they could sell it for $299 when the iPad 3 hits for $499.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the same strategy Apple is using with the iPhone, wherein last year's iPad becomes the cheaper model.
You left out this part from the Mashable review: "This is a product I wanted to love...Instead, now I?m discovering it?s a somewhat flawed gadget ? a product that literally does not always know which way is up."
and you left out the most important paragraph
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you?re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon?s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I?ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you?re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon?s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I?ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
[s]summary: the Kindle Fire is a great product.[/s]
Summary: It's a good product for $199. Price matters because the price is the selling point. Apple is selling the whole experience.
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you’re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon’s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I’ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
summary: the Kindle Fire is a great product.
I've talked about this before, but this kind of review suffers from the group think that has been insisting that the iPad was only for "consumption" all along, first as a way to dismiss it as a legitimate heir to traditional computing, and lately as a way to grade the competition on a curve.
"Consumption", the thinking seems to go, is all a tablet can ever be good for, so if any rival to the iPad can get that more or less right it's more or less as good.
This, of course, ignores Apple's actual ambitions for the iPad, which is to provide a true post PC device. Apple is clearly not satisfied for the iPad to be merely a consumption device, and I think as time goes on you're going to see some cognitive dissonance as the consumption ghetto becomes a kind of self-fulfilling trap for the competition. Reviews like this will be left celebrating "frictionless consumption" with a "what more could you possibly want" attitude while Apple ably demonstrates exactly what more is possible.
absolutely. as such, insecure folks don't need to repeatedly justify their Apple purchases and simply accept that many, many people will enjoy the Kindle Fire.
Interesting reviews. Sounds like it will be popular for kids but adults may be disappointed with the performance, even with low expectations. And I'm still not convinced that this is a better choice than an iPad touch, is there any other advantage besides screen size?
And what's the return policy for the Fire, is there a restocking fee if you send it back?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody
The Kindle Fire (once the bugs are shaken out), is potentially a great product for a certain group of people...
I'd say IF the bugs are shaken out. People should have lower expectations based on the price. But if this can't do simple stuff like page turns and zooming magazines smoothly, something is wrong. Especially if it's dual core processor at the same speed as iPad 2, and same ram. Missing features are known but performance really has no reason to be laggy. Same goes for web browsing, especially after Amazon raised expectations by hyping their supposed acceleration.
Quote:
Originally Posted by troyp
It would seem that an App that allows you to stream or download your content to your iOS or Android device would have made more sense for Amazon. Why build a tablet and sell it at a loss when they could have just built an app?
Because this way lets them put their store front and center, and hide other ways of getting content onto the device.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theoneaboveall
People can do a little more than the original Kindles can do.
Sure, but I'd argue for someone who mainly wants to read books, this device does it worse than the cheaper kindles.
I dare say NONE of you guys are product marketing managers.
If you guys think Apple is ignoring any of this stuff you are mistaken.
Take a peek at the survey ZDNet posted last week below.
$499 will buy you TWO Kindle fires that do 80% of what an iPad will do.
That's what an average consumer will think about. Not UI, not pretty slick... but the $300 price difference that 20% makes up.
And who cares about 3G? A ton of iPad users still use good old Free WiFi.
---
To buy a Kindle Fire or an iPad? That is the question on the minds of many consumers this holiday season, according to new research from consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo.com.
According to the survey, more current and non-current tablet owners replied that they are planning to buy a Kindle Fire over an iPad in the next couple of months. Here?s the breakdown:
20 percent of tablet owners said yes, an iPad
10 percent of people said yes, an iPad
27 percent of tablet owners said yes, the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet
12 percent of non-tablet owners said, yes, the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet
I've talked about this before, but this kind of review suffers from the group think that has been insisting that the iPad was only for "consumption" all along ...
the review is about the Amazon Kindle Fire and it's not a strike against Apple iPad.
People have short memories. You forget that iOS devices have had issues. Apple has come a long way with iOS 5 (and even then, after the upgrade, my iPhone often drops me to the home screen while using Safari or the App Store).
My iPhone absolutely never does this. Antidote to your anecdote.
Quote:
There's no way the brand-new Kindle Fire is going to be as polished as the iPad 2 out of the gate. Heck, it may never be as polished. Nonetheless, Amazon is going to continue to refine, fix bugs, etc., you know... the same thing Apple has been doing for years.
Except Apple has fundamentally different aspirations for the iPad than Amazon does for the Fire. All Amazon needs is a reasonably functional window onto their store. That's what it's for. In fact, to the extent that it does anything really well it's a loss for Amazon, since a consumer using a Fire to do anything but consume Amazon goods and services is a Fire that isn't earning back its subsidized price.
Quote:
If the Amazon Fire can surf the internet, then the millions of people who buy one are likely going to be satisfied. Would they like an iPad even more? Perhaps. But since they purchased a Kindle Fire instead, and considering most won't own an iPad 2, they won't know the difference.
Sure, maybe for now. But pretty soon "tablet" is going to stop being a novelty and start being a standard computing device. At that point more people are going to be interested in what else it can do beyond surf and email and looks at videos. That's what I imagine what most people are using their laptops for most of the time, but I don't think you could sell a machine that is explicitly limited to that, even if was cheap, because we all know what computers are capable of and would prefer to at least have the possibility of that functionality at our disposal, even if we don't use it all the time.
Quote:
I mean... if I ever owned a Jaguar, I'd probably never want to drive anything less. But since I've never owned or driven a Jaguar, I don't know or care what I'm missing.
Except a few hundred dollars isn't remotely the differential between a luxury and economy car, and that few hundred dollars gets you actual functionality, not just luxury trappings and bells and whistles. That sub-Jaguar would be a lot tougher sell if it was only thousands less than the Jag, couldn't go over 40 MPH, and had no trunk. Maybe if cars were brand new and people were still digging the whole idea, but not after the market had matured a bit.
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you?re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon?s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I?ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
summary: the Kindle Fire is a great product.
If you go back to post #66, you'll see that I had edited it to include that original text from Caliminius' post. I didn't include it originally because Caliminius had already posted the excerpt in his/her post. I was simply trying to keep it short.
the review is about the Amazon Kindle Fire and it's not a strike against Apple iPad.
I'm not saying it's a strike against the iPad, I'm saying it's buying into lazy assumptions about what tablets are for and concluding some things that may not be true.
if, in fact, "all anyone wants" is easy consumption of media and services, then a device like the Fire will no doubt be very successful. However, if there is a growing perception that tablets should rightfully be PC replacements, than something like the Fire becomes a bit of a cul-de-sac, similar to certain limited computing appliances from the early days of desktop machines.
That's a fundamental distinction that doesn't have much to do with championing the iPad or dismissing other approaches, and time will tell what's true.
He's just shameless and relentless. We think he gets paid on a per-reply basis by the likes of Google nd Samsung.
And he claims to be paid on a per-reply basis by AppleInsider because they're the "only ones who would benefit from such an arrangement". Never mind that mindshare is more important than a single website's views.
I'm not saying it's a strike against the iPad, I'm saying it's buying into lazy assumptions about what tablets are for and concluding some things that may not be true.
people will use a device in whatever manner they see fit as value to them. enjoy your iPad and while others enjoy their Kindle Fire.
Comments
Yes but you specifically bought an iPad to have an iPad. This isn't an iClone. This is a Kindle, these things practically sell themselves by name alone. People aren't looking at this saying "oh this is cheaper than the iPad." People can do a little more than the orignal Kindles can do. It's no threat to Apple as they have even stated. I can't recount how many people on the train and bus use eReaders over iPads. It's no biggie. Hell I love my iPad but this is for a whole other area of consumers.
I disagree. This is a tablet competitor just like iPhone was for blackberry even though Apple said it wasn't targeting the BB market. It's the same scenario but the Amazon Kindle isn't as good as the iPad. Where as the iPhone was the best game in town when it arrived.
It would seem that an App that allows you to stream or download your content to your iOS or Android device would have made more sense for Amazon. Why build a tablet and sell it at a loss when they could have just built an app?
You are probably right but Apple's terms probably scared them. Amazon doesn't want to be reliant on Apple for business so it released it's own hardware.
First it isn't Amazon's content. It is their marketplace. Second you are paying $500 to use Apple's marketplace when you buy a low end iPad 2, so what exactly is your point?
I am an Amazon user. They have great deals on a lot of tangible items and with Prime membership it is a deal no one else in the marketplace can match. There will be plenty of satisfied Amazon users more than willing to spend $200 on this device with all that Amazon offers.
Get your head out of the Apple tunnel and open your eyes a bit.
Actually you don't have to use Apple's marketplace. You can go on safari and download what you want directly to your iDevice.
Source? I have yet to see that from anyone.
What 15" laptops are selling w/ARM processors? Netbooks have had shrinking sales for awhile now. How is the MBA a netbook? Netbooks used shitty Atom processors and XP, Linux or Win 7 Starter. The MBA has Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 processors and SSD drives, plus a full modern OS w/o limitations. How is that at all similar?
It's similar to people who don't know what they are buying or in this instance comparing.
From The Verge review:
Still, there's no question that the Fire is a really terrific tablet for its price. The amount of content you have access to — and the ease of getting to that content — is notable to say the least. The device is decently designed, and the software — while lacking some polish — is still excellent compared to pretty much anything in this range (and that includes the Nook Color). It's a well thought out tablet that can only get better as the company refines the software. It's not perfect, but it's a great start, and at $200, that may be all Amazon needs this holiday shopping season.
You left this part out of the Verge review: "If you're thinking about getting the Fire, you have to decide not just whether you want a tablet, but what kind of tablet you want. This isn't an iPad-killer. It has the potential to do lots of things, but there are many things I have yet to see it do, and I wonder if it will get there given the lean software support."
From Mashable.com's review:
Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you’re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon’s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I’ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too.
You left out this part from the Mashable review: "This is a product I wanted to love...Instead, now I’m discovering it’s a somewhat flawed gadget — a product that literally does not always know which way is up."
And Mashable calling it "highly polished" is a direct contradiction to what Engadget said (not that either is the end-all be-all authority).
So yeah, we can take snippets from various reviews and make it look like they love it or look like it's no big deal.
The only flaw with that theory is that buyer's of the Amazon Fire who are too cheap to buy an iPad will have never used an iPad extensively and thusly won't realize that the Fire's experience is comparatively poor. Just as people bought up Windows PCs in the 90's in droves, despite being a poor imitation of the Mac, people may buy out of sheer ignorance or favoring cheap over quality.
I disagree with this. I don't think you can make strong parallels between the burgeoning tablet market and the history of PC trends.
PC uptake and lockin were driven by business adoption, not consumer cheapness. Once business standardized on cheap PCs the Mac never had a chance, market share wise, since many people's first exposure to these machines was at work and consumer buying followed from that familiarity.
The iPad has it the other way around-- business is following consumer demand. That means a completely different dynamic is in play, with the iPad benefiting from both broad consumer exposure and enterprise lock-in. While cheaper products are and will be available, consumer choice is more likely to follow the general consumer electronics trend of perceived quality commanding higher prices with a great slew of cheaper products satisfying bargain hunters-- something like the current situation in LCD TVs. Many people go to Best Buy aware that Samsung or Panasonic are the "good" choices, if you can spend a little more, and Vizio, Westinghouse or some house brand are the cheap "settle for" brands if you can't.
That's very different from a defacto standard like the PC market, wherein network effects made the PC the apparent only choice for many consumers. In fact (as we see now), the "post PC" world with its loosening of those very effects allows for accelerating sales of the Mac itself, as consumers prove willing to spend more on the MacBook Air to get what they want. People will spend more to get what they want, provided they trust the value is really there and the extra amount isn't completely daunting, as long as there aren't compelling factors (such as near monopoly network effects) limiting their perception of choice. You could argue that the iPad is actually the device enjoying that perception of near monopoly, at least for now.
This is very true and I truly hope Apple isn't too full of themselves to not use this approach. If they trim the storage of the iPad 2 to 8GB I believe they could sell it for $299 when the iPad 3 hits for $499.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the same strategy Apple is using with the iPhone, wherein last year's iPad becomes the cheaper model.
You left out this part from the Mashable review: "This is a product I wanted to love...Instead, now I?m discovering it?s a somewhat flawed gadget ? a product that literally does not always know which way is up."
and you left out the most important paragraph
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you?re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon?s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I?ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
summary: the Kindle Fire is a great product.
and you left out the most important paragraph
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you?re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon?s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I?ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
[s]summary: the Kindle Fire is a great product.[/s]
Summary: It's a good product for $199. Price matters because the price is the selling point. Apple is selling the whole experience.
and you left out the most important paragraph
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you’re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon’s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I’ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
summary: the Kindle Fire is a great product.
I've talked about this before, but this kind of review suffers from the group think that has been insisting that the iPad was only for "consumption" all along, first as a way to dismiss it as a legitimate heir to traditional computing, and lately as a way to grade the competition on a curve.
"Consumption", the thinking seems to go, is all a tablet can ever be good for, so if any rival to the iPad can get that more or less right it's more or less as good.
This, of course, ignores Apple's actual ambitions for the iPad, which is to provide a true post PC device. Apple is clearly not satisfied for the iPad to be merely a consumption device, and I think as time goes on you're going to see some cognitive dissonance as the consumption ghetto becomes a kind of self-fulfilling trap for the competition. Reviews like this will be left celebrating "frictionless consumption" with a "what more could you possibly want" attitude while Apple ably demonstrates exactly what more is possible.
Summary: It's a great product for $199.
absolutely. as such, insecure folks don't need to repeatedly justify their Apple purchases and simply accept that many, many people will enjoy the Kindle Fire.
And what's the return policy for the Fire, is there a restocking fee if you send it back?
The Kindle Fire (once the bugs are shaken out), is potentially a great product for a certain group of people...
I'd say IF the bugs are shaken out. People should have lower expectations based on the price. But if this can't do simple stuff like page turns and zooming magazines smoothly, something is wrong. Especially if it's dual core processor at the same speed as iPad 2, and same ram. Missing features are known but performance really has no reason to be laggy. Same goes for web browsing, especially after Amazon raised expectations by hyping their supposed acceleration.
It would seem that an App that allows you to stream or download your content to your iOS or Android device would have made more sense for Amazon. Why build a tablet and sell it at a loss when they could have just built an app?
Because this way lets them put their store front and center, and hide other ways of getting content onto the device.
People can do a little more than the original Kindles can do.
Sure, but I'd argue for someone who mainly wants to read books, this device does it worse than the cheaper kindles.
I dare say NONE of you guys are product marketing managers.
If you guys think Apple is ignoring any of this stuff you are mistaken.
Take a peek at the survey ZDNet posted last week below.
$499 will buy you TWO Kindle fires that do 80% of what an iPad will do.
That's what an average consumer will think about. Not UI, not pretty slick... but the $300 price difference that 20% makes up.
And who cares about 3G? A ton of iPad users still use good old Free WiFi.
---
To buy a Kindle Fire or an iPad? That is the question on the minds of many consumers this holiday season, according to new research from consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo.com.
According to the survey, more current and non-current tablet owners replied that they are planning to buy a Kindle Fire over an iPad in the next couple of months. Here?s the breakdown:
20 percent of tablet owners said yes, an iPad
10 percent of people said yes, an iPad
27 percent of tablet owners said yes, the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet
12 percent of non-tablet owners said, yes, the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet
I've talked about this before, but this kind of review suffers from the group think that has been insisting that the iPad was only for "consumption" all along ...
the review is about the Amazon Kindle Fire and it's not a strike against Apple iPad.
People have short memories. You forget that iOS devices have had issues. Apple has come a long way with iOS 5 (and even then, after the upgrade, my iPhone often drops me to the home screen while using Safari or the App Store).
My iPhone absolutely never does this. Antidote to your anecdote.
There's no way the brand-new Kindle Fire is going to be as polished as the iPad 2 out of the gate. Heck, it may never be as polished. Nonetheless, Amazon is going to continue to refine, fix bugs, etc., you know... the same thing Apple has been doing for years.
Except Apple has fundamentally different aspirations for the iPad than Amazon does for the Fire. All Amazon needs is a reasonably functional window onto their store. That's what it's for. In fact, to the extent that it does anything really well it's a loss for Amazon, since a consumer using a Fire to do anything but consume Amazon goods and services is a Fire that isn't earning back its subsidized price.
If the Amazon Fire can surf the internet, then the millions of people who buy one are likely going to be satisfied. Would they like an iPad even more? Perhaps. But since they purchased a Kindle Fire instead, and considering most won't own an iPad 2, they won't know the difference.
Sure, maybe for now. But pretty soon "tablet" is going to stop being a novelty and start being a standard computing device. At that point more people are going to be interested in what else it can do beyond surf and email and looks at videos. That's what I imagine what most people are using their laptops for most of the time, but I don't think you could sell a machine that is explicitly limited to that, even if was cheap, because we all know what computers are capable of and would prefer to at least have the possibility of that functionality at our disposal, even if we don't use it all the time.
I mean... if I ever owned a Jaguar, I'd probably never want to drive anything less. But since I've never owned or driven a Jaguar, I don't know or care what I'm missing.
Except a few hundred dollars isn't remotely the differential between a luxury and economy car, and that few hundred dollars gets you actual functionality, not just luxury trappings and bells and whistles. That sub-Jaguar would be a lot tougher sell if it was only thousands less than the Jag, couldn't go over 40 MPH, and had no trunk. Maybe if cars were brand new and people were still digging the whole idea, but not after the market had matured a bit.
and you left out the most important paragraph
"Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you?re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services. It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon?s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you. It is the closest tablet I?ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption. This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too."
summary: the Kindle Fire is a great product.
If you go back to post #66, you'll see that I had edited it to include that original text from Caliminius' post. I didn't include it originally because Caliminius had already posted the excerpt in his/her post. I was simply trying to keep it short.
Why isn't it obvious to anyone that you are a very subtle troll. Just look at the post count
It's obvious, it's been pointed out, and most of the oldies here just move on.
He's just shameless and relentless. We think he gets paid on a per-reply basis by the likes of Google nd Samsung.
the review is about the Amazon Kindle Fire and it's not a strike against Apple iPad.
I'm not saying it's a strike against the iPad, I'm saying it's buying into lazy assumptions about what tablets are for and concluding some things that may not be true.
if, in fact, "all anyone wants" is easy consumption of media and services, then a device like the Fire will no doubt be very successful. However, if there is a growing perception that tablets should rightfully be PC replacements, than something like the Fire becomes a bit of a cul-de-sac, similar to certain limited computing appliances from the early days of desktop machines.
That's a fundamental distinction that doesn't have much to do with championing the iPad or dismissing other approaches, and time will tell what's true.
He's just shameless and relentless. We think he gets paid on a per-reply basis by the likes of Google nd Samsung.
And he claims to be paid on a per-reply basis by AppleInsider because they're the "only ones who would benefit from such an arrangement". Never mind that mindshare is more important than a single website's views.
If you go back to post #66, you'll see that I had edited it to include that original text from Caliminius' post.
yes, however, it doesn't change the fact that several prominent reviews online, thus far, are giving praise to the Kindle Fire; it's a great product.
I'm not saying it's a strike against the iPad, I'm saying it's buying into lazy assumptions about what tablets are for and concluding some things that may not be true.
people will use a device in whatever manner they see fit as value to them. enjoy your iPad and while others enjoy their Kindle Fire.