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."
Putting one on pre-order for my wife (Score:4, Informative)
2 vs 5 (Score:5, Informative)
The Kindle Fire is $200 the iPad starts at $500 and goes up to $830. They are competing at different levels of the market. And Apple's hardware margin is about 50% while Amazon's is around 10%. Which means people are getting a better hardware value.
Why would it be a shock if given those sorts of numbers the iPad was outsold?
Re:Maybe Apple should make a smaller one? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple doesn't get into prince wars. They give away market share against competitors that are willing to lose money and focus on profitable segments of the market.
Re:could = will? (Score:5, Informative)
The sad thing is that when there's dupes - one with a sensational (and inaccurate) headline and the other with an unsensational (and accurate) headline - the sensational headline makes it to the front page whereas the other gets buried as a dupe. It's not that the community actively works to create inaccuracies and sensationalism, it's just that those are better at catching people's attention.
'Could' transformed to 'will' is probably the most common headline error on /. 'Could' stories aren't interesting - that word usually indicates an opinion piece (usually in the form of a blog) or some shoddy survey (such as this article). People tend to glance over them. 'Will' stories tend to be either a conclusion with legitimate research to back it up or a bait and switch of 'could.' So we look for 'will' and overlook 'could.'
I only post this nuanced examination into the phenomenon in hopes that it inspires others to bury these could = will stories before they can escape the firehose.
Re:SNL summed it up well (Score:4, Informative)
Watch it here. [youtube.com] People who use excessive scripts should be fed to the sarlaac.
Re:Kindle's biggest strength is it's biggest weakn (Score:5, Informative)
The Kindle App is the single app I use most on my iPad (but far from the most used app as I am not the only user), but it is far easier to get an epub or PDF onto an iPad (and into the Apple iBooks) than it is to do the same on a Kindle device.
With Calibre it's every bit as easy with a Kindle as with an iPad. You tell it where your books are, you tell it what device you have, and it figures out the best format to use, then converts on the fly.
Aside from that, the iPad is a better device for technical documentation, if you're going to be flipping around a lot and looking at diagrams. The Kindle is a better device if you are going to read something straight through.
Re:Maybe Apple should make a smaller one? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple made a 7" tablet. You know what happened to it? They killed it when they decided that the experience of using it was inferior to using a 10". Steve Jobs even mentioned that they intentionally chose 10" over 7" because the user experience was far inferior on the 7" screen.
Rumors indicate that Apple does batteries of internal product testing with a variety of fully-completed prototypes. Rather than putting them all out on the market and seeing which ones sink or float, which is what a lot of companies do, Apple pits them against each other to see which one they think is best, and then they bring that one to market. The benefit is that they can focus on one thing and do it well, and they have less costs associated with maintaining a variety of devices and their supply chains, allowing them to simplify.
Part of the reason you see so many 7" tablets from competitors is also because Apple has locked up a large chunk of the 10" supply from manufacturers, leaving their competitors to grab as many of the 7" screens as they can, then try to market it as an advantage over the iPad. There definitely are some advantages to 7", to be sure, but between the supply lock Apple has and the difficulty the competitors are having in matching prices, many of them had their hand forced on the 7" vs. 10" choice.
Re:Apple laughing all the way to the bank... (Score:5, Informative)
I can still buy new Macbooks with Core 2 Duo's
Apple hasn't sold those for some time. If you're seeing them for sale somewhere, they're old stock. All Macbooks are i5 or i7.
Your Acer isn't a substitute because it doesn't run OSX. Running the right OS is the prime requirement of a computer, way before worrying about what variant of CPU it has.