Kindle Fire Will Be Hotter Than iPad This Holiday 258
zacharye writes "Amazon's upcoming Kindle Fire could be the hottest tablet on the market this holiday season, with demand that may even surpass Apple's blockbuster slate, the iPad 2. Results from a recent survey published by electronics shopping guide Retrevo.com suggest that more consumers are interested in purchasing Amazon's upcoming tablet than Apple's tried and true iPad. As a result, the site speculates that the Kindle Fire represents Apple's first real competition in the tablet space."
could = will? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when are "could" and "will" synonymous?
Price is low because of subsidy, not size. (Score:5, Insightful)
A 7" iPad would cost about $400.
The Fire is cheap because it is essentially a subsidized POS terminal for Amazon store.
Apple is not going to follow that model.
Re:Price is low because of subsidy, not size. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:iPad already on sale (Score:2, Insightful)
> Amazon has great PR.
Yup. Bad deal on this sucker. Little internal storage and no slot to add more because they want you tightly tied to them forever. So unless you have a Prime account and can use their cloud save your pennies and pay the extra $50 for the B&N tablet or sacrifice a little CPU grunt and go for the Kobo for the same $199.
Kindle is still America centric. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Kindle fire is largely a non-starter outside of the US because the ecosystem outside of books is largely US centric whereas the iPad offers music, games, movies and TV for iTunes users in many countries around the world.
In other news..... (Score:5, Insightful)
"ABI Research Survey: 58% of iPod Owners Planning Another MP3 Player Purchase Will Consider Microsoft's Zune"
http://www.zunegy.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=ABISURV110106&Store_Code=Z [zunegy.com]
How did that turn out?
Re:What I want (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the Apple marketing team continues to roll on the floor with laughter ever time they hear this. When will it become clear that the mindset you espouse is but a rounding error on some spreadsheet?
Re:Maybe Apple should make a smaller one? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except Apple does change things up. They've sacrificed product lines with the introduction of new products.
The iPod is nearly dead, despite just half a decade ago, being one of the most popular devices on the planet. Killed basically by smartphones, and the iPhone. Apple's low-end computers are taking a beating because people realize they just needed an iPad over the "complexities" of a computer.
Hell, even within a product line - the iPod mini (remember that?) was one of the most popular iPods in the lineup, killed by the Nano. The iPod Shuffle's currently dying, since the current Nano is basically better in every way. It and the Classic are only surviving because they're fulfilling niches (Shuffle - cheap ($50). Classic - carrying your entire library with you).
Hell, the only strategy they haven't changed was "make it feel premium and charge healthy margins" rather than race to the bottom. Mostly because they know their competitors are doing the race to the bottom thing. When the iPad came out, everyone was thinking it was a $1000 failure and got their $700 competitors just about to hit the market. When it came out at $500, it basically took a year for them to come out with a viable competitor.
Now, the biggest problem with the Kindle Fire is it's US only. Outside the US it's relatively useless - you can't access the Amazon App Store (unless you have a US billing address).
And yes, the iPad and Kindle Fire will be competitors (more than "iPad and everyone else"). But Android tablets need to take note - because the Kindle Fire is basically pushing them to the wayside. And the biggest thing is - the Amazon Android ecosystem isn't exactly sitting easy with a lot of Android developers. But if the Kindle sells well enough, it makes the Amazon App Store a tempting place to sell. Walled garden and app approvals a la the Apple App Store model.
This is a stupid submission (Score:4, Insightful)
So the summary says it could be hotter than the iPad. Then you see that the source is just some survey from an electronics shopping guide nobody's heard of. And somehow, the headline definitively becomes "Kindle Fire Will Be Hotter Than iPad This Holiday." Another stellar prediction from the site that brought you predictions of the failures of both the iPod and iPod mini.
No access to Google Market - NO THANKS (Score:4, Insightful)
I was really excited about this thing until I read that you could only use the Amazon App Store.
That's not terribly surprising, this is Amazon after all, but it is still very very disappointing.
Amazon App Store is terrible, both for consumers (try using apps offline), and developers (too much to even start mentioning.)
This is the same reason I didn't get a NotionInk tablet when they came out either.
Yes, I can root the thing (and will likely be able to root the Amazon device) but I shouldn't have to and I try to avoid supporting companies who force me to hack their devices to use them the way I want.
The reason I don't have a personal iPad/iPad2 is because I detest the Apple walled garden, and Amazon is planning on doing exactly the same thing here. Don't be surprised if there is dedicated "trusted computing" hardware in the thing ;)...
The site's wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
The Kindle Fire isn't the first serious competitor to the iPad. That's why Apple are going arse over tit after Samsung all over the damn planet.
Re:What I want (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. Apple = #1 market cap in the world. Apple #1, Exxon #2. $350B+ and growing.
People can complain all they want about Apple's policies, UI, features, etc, in regards to their personal opinions or tastes (and I agree with many of those complaints, actually). But claiming they don't understand their customer is absolutely absurd. They build what people *want*, and they do that better than any corporation ever has in the history of corporations. It doesn't matter if it's engineering or marketing that gets that done, in the end. Though clearly in their case it's a (very effective) combination of the two...
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What I want (Score:4, Insightful)
Ford was also pretty good at it. People wanted a faster horse that could carry big loads or lots of people. He built them an affordable car. People didn't even know they wanted that before it got on the market but it sold like crazy.
Re:This is a stupid submission (Score:2, Insightful)
You forgot iPhone and iPad. Actually, if it's from Apple, then /. will predict failure.
That's necause there is no good logical reason for Apple's success from a slashdot nerd's point of view. If you compare the iPhone or iPad with a good Android equivalent, there is not really a lot of difference in the technical specs.
But Apple have got the general public believing that they are cool and work perfectly with no technical knowledge needed, so everyone buys them.