iPod touch Kindle fire an iPod Touch killer?

Gregintosh · Sep 28, 2011

Over on the iPad forums everyone is talking about how the Fire stacks up to the iPad (well, at least they were until the mods decided to forbid any mention of the Fire anywhere except 1 thread on the whole site).

But in reality, I am thinking this could be more a of an iPod Touch killer than anything else.

At $29 LESS than an iPod Touch, you get a larger display, good battery life, better browsing experience (largely due to the size) with flash support.

If anything, maybe this will push Apple to drop the price on the touches to $149 or less as I don't see anyone paying more for less.

Sure, the apps are an issue but the Fire will have the android app store which has many good apps too. And the Amazon ecosystem will be tightly integrated (and its a good ecosystem that is plentiful with media content, similar to iTunes) so you don't miss out on things "just working" out of the box.

Nicolas4ever · Sep 28, 2011

yes but it doesn't run ios

Gregintosh · Sep 28, 2011

True, but it also doesn't run the ugly Android either. It runs Android with a fancy interface instead, which may be less offensive and just as fun to use as iOS (we won't know until it launches or we get some significant hands on reviews).

Of course it still won't help anyone who needs pocket portability, but for an around the house or on the plane or in car media device, the Fire is going to be very hard to compete with.

Firestar · Sep 28, 2011

Over on the iPad forums everyone is talking about how the Fire stacks up to the iPad (well, at least they were until the mods decided to forbid any mention of the Fire anywhere except 1 thread on the whole site).

Because there is already a thread in the News forum, and there doesn't need to be more than one thread about the fact that it's being introduced.

But in reality, I am thinking this could be more a of an iPod Touch killer than anything else.

At $29 LESS than an iPod Touch, you get a larger display, good battery life, better browsing experience (largely due to the size) with flash support.

If anything, maybe this will push Apple to drop the price on the touches to $149 or less as I don't see anyone paying more for less.

Sure, the apps are an issue but the Fire will have the android app store which has many good apps too. And the Amazon ecosystem will be tightly integrated (and its a good ecosystem that is plentiful with media content, similar to iTunes) so you don't miss out on things "just working" out of the box.

I doubt it would make them drop their price considerably (possibly make the base model back to $200).

I think it's pretty obvious that they're trying to compete with Apple's line up, with their free 3G, touch screen, and apps. It might reduce Apple's profits, but I doubt it will be anything dramatic.

Nicolas4ever · Sep 28, 2011

and yes it's true.I may give it a try when it comes out but as a tablet for a mobile device i'll use my iPod touch 5G (i at least hope so)

Gregintosh · Sep 28, 2011

Firestar said:
Because there is already a thread in the News forum, and there doesn't need to be more than one thread about the fact that it's being introduced.

Virtually none of the threads were just "hey the Kindle fire is here!" Many of them were similar to what you still get today on various forums legitimately comparing the two, talking about possibilities, and discussing specs, and many discussing other opinions or observations.

Its not unlike the threads over on the MacBook Air forums about Lenovo or Sony laptops where people announce they bought a Lenovo or ask if the Lenovo or Sony are better than the MBA.

I don't see why every topic thread concerning the Kindle Fire MUST be on the news thread ONLY, forever. That'd be like saying anyone who wants to mention a MacBook Air competitor must do so on the thread that announced its introduction ONLY. That's just crazy.

But anyway, I think you may be right about Apple not dropping the price too much, though I think the smart move would be to move the iPod touches to $179 at least so that its easier to justify over a Kindle Fire (to compensate for the smaller screen). At $199, the exact same price as the Kindle, I'd still have to say the Kindle Fire would be the better value for most people.

DeaconGTG · Sep 28, 2011

I think if you compare the Fire to an iPod Touch with iOS 4, the Fire wins.

But give the iPod Touch iCloud and iTunes Match and it wins hands down.

Compare the base model of the iPod Touch to the fire. Both have 8 GB of storage. You also get 5 GB of Cloud storage free from both. But iTunes doesn't count any of your purchased music, apps, books, and TV Shows as part of that storage. With Amazon, it only doesn't count your music purchases.

Add an iTunes Match subscrption, and suddenly I can store all my music in the Cloud and access it with my iPod Touch. With the Fire, all my non-amazon music can be stored, but it counts against my free 5 GB, and then I have to purchase extra space.

Larger screen size for videos? Who cares? I'm streaming content from my iPod Touch to my TV via AirPlay. Amazon has whispersync for videos, but again that's only their content.

To be fair, I would much rather browse the web on a Fire than on an iPod Touch.

I'll admit, if I was more invested in the Amazon ecosystem (as opposed to the iTunes market) I would love the fire (I have both a 2nd Gen and 3rd Gen Kindle and love those). But, in my opinion, iPod Touch beats Fire.

palpatine · Sep 28, 2011

as we all know, there is only room in this market of 6 billion + people for one kind of electronic device

i would take kindle at its word. the tablet is first and foremost a device for content consumption, with books being high on that list. i don't know many people (besides myself) who have actually read a whole book on the ipod.

it seems entirely possible that someone would prefer not to go on a run with a kindle fire strapped to their chest in place of the ipod, or not to buy specially made jeans with seven inch pockets to accommodate the kindle fire.

in my opinion, the iphone is the ipod killer.

Fresh Tendrils · Sep 28, 2011

Gregintosh said:
But in reality, I am thinking this could be more a of an iPod Touch killer than anything else.

I'm sure that the new kindle will attract some first time buyers who might otherwise buy an iPod, but the thing is that tens of millions of people already have ios devices and therefore have already paid for, and partially played, ios apps. Most people looking to upgrade their old iPod Touches aren't going to jump ship to Amazon and start all over again. Also if a parent is going to buy their kid a present, and the parent already owns an iPhone, or another member of the family owns an iPad or iPod Touch, they will most likely buy an iPod so that they all work together. The new kindle will eat into iPod sales, but its far from an iPod Killer. Also you can't put a kindle in your pants pocket [unless your MC Hammer].

Invincibilizer · Sep 28, 2011

Doubt it, the iPod touch is still a mobile device where as the fire is more of a tablet.

Camera, retina display, app store, dedicated music player

I don't see how the fire can top that.

The pricepoint of fire will fight with iPad sales but iPod touch sales will decrease from iPhone buyers not fire buyers.

hcho3 · Sep 28, 2011

Was planning on buying iPod touch this fall, but I am having second thoughts. If apple doesn't drop the price of iPod touch down to at least 149 dollars. I am skipping ipod touch to go to the kindle fire.

199 dollars is too awesome to pass.

iPod touch for 229 dollars look like rip off.

Retina display... blah blah. Kindle fire has nice screen with IPS display and iPod touch is not IPS display.

iPod touch price needs to go down.

HighDesert50 · Sep 28, 2011

Interesting thread and my immediate response after reading about the introduction of the Fire was that it could likely have a huge impact on the Touch domain. Apple has been very lax regarding innovative Touch updates and the hardware parallelism with the iPhone has continued to widen. Regarding apps; well, the same software used to convert HTML/Javascript/etc to create a native IOS app can be used to create an Android app. But, now there is a less expensive competitor in the game that begs experimentation. Unless there is something really compelling regarding the next expected Touch update, I may just forgo the next generation and instead play with Fire.

rgarjr · Sep 28, 2011

hcho3 said:
Was planning on buying iPod touch this fall, but I am having second thoughts. If apple doesn't drop the price of iPod touch down to at least 149 dollars. I am skipping ipod touch to go to the kindle fire.

199 dollars is too awesome to pass.

iPod touch for 229 dollars look like rip off.

Retina display... blah blah. Kindle fire has nice screen with IPS display and iPod touch is not IPS display.

iPod touch price needs to go down.

The touch doesn't have any competition, which is why it doesn't go down.

vitzr · Sep 28, 2011

Comparing these two products is like expecting a dairy cow to run faster than a race horse.

It seems like some are so obsessed with the thought of comparisons, they'll compare a vegetarian pizza with a tire.

My guess is the tire is the pizza killer ... Ha!

BlizzardBolt · Sep 28, 2011

hcho3 said:
Was planning on buying iPod touch this fall, but I am having second thoughts. If apple doesn't drop the price of iPod touch down to at least 149 dollars. I am skipping ipod touch to go to the kindle fire.

199 dollars is too awesome to pass.

iPod touch for 229 dollars look like rip off.

Retina display... blah blah. Kindle fire has nice screen with IPS display and iPod touch is not IPS display.

iPod touch price needs to go down.

149$ will not happen

Dropping them to the price of 8GB nano is just absurd

Yes 229$ is overpriced but JBing can offset costs

Losing many features to get a 199$ fire (save 29$) is not worth it

TheMacBookPro · Sep 28, 2011

vitzr said:
Comparing these two products is like expecting a dairy cow to run faster than a race horse.

It seems like some are so obsessed with the thought of comparisons, they'll compare a vegetarian pizza with a tire.

My guess is the tire is the pizza killer ... Ha!

Your analogy of expecting a dairy cow to run faster than a race horse, when converted back to 'iPod touch vs Fire' terms, would be something like expecting the iPod touch to be able to display more text at a larger size than the Kindle Fire. Not a good analogy at all.

A more apt comparison would be, to use your cow vs horse thing: 'Is the cow a horse-killer? After all, the cow produces less waste to clean up, so is it better than the horse?'

BlizzardBolt said:
149$ will not happen

Dropping them to the price of 8GB nano is just absurd

Yes 229$ is overpriced but JBing can offset costs

Losing many features to get a 199$ fire (save 29$) is not worth it

The 8GB nano costs Apple ~$40 to produce. Given the rumors of them discontinuing the iPod shuffle I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the price of the nano to something like $99. They'd still profit from sales, and it would fill the 'cheap and small' void the shuffle would leave behind.

How does jailbreaking offset the initial cost, and what features (other than portability) do you lose?

lasuther · Sep 29, 2011

I think the Kindle Fire is very competitive with the iPod Touch. I've been recommending a $230 Touch to my 9 year old nephew this year. Now I'll recommend the $200 Fire over the Touch. Add a free texting/phone app and this will be perfect for him. The Amazon eco system is great with music, movies, and books.

I hope the Fire is a huge success this holiday season and forces competition with Apple.

mattg3 · Sep 29, 2011

Okay,the price is right but lets wait for some hands on user reviews.

batting1000 · Sep 29, 2011

Looks like another BB Playbook.

179202 · Sep 29, 2011

lasuther said:
I think the Kindle Fire is very competitive with the iPod Touch. I've been recommending a $230 Touch to my 9 year old nephew this year. Now I'll recommend the $200 Fire over the Touch. Add a free texting/phone app and this will be perfect for him. The Amazon eco system is great with music, movies, and books.

I hope the Fire is a huge success this holiday season and forces competition with Apple.

He'd be better off with the touch for sure. 9 years old? That means GAMES. Amazons App store has 10,000 apps. How does that stack up with Apple? Maybe he'll use it to take pictures and videos. It's 10x easier to get content onto the iPod Touch from your home computer too (doesn't require upload to any cloud and actually has a sync with wire ability).

The Fire does many things well. That is, it allows you to watch MOvies, TV shows, listen to music and read books. Beyond that, it's simply not built for it. The 'first looks' make that clear. People are gonna be pretty disheartened when they start getting their hands on this. Feel free to quote me on that. People are talking about this thing as if it's a $199 iPad, which it simply isn't. I'd put my money on version 2 being pretty awesome though.

Lesser Evets · Sep 29, 2011

I thought they would have done the smart thing last year and dropped the low-end iPT to $199 while shoving prices of Nanos down to $99+ Apple has had sluggish market growth in the past due to pricing, and they will let go a lot of ground if they don't step down the price ladder after this Kindle affair.

Granted, the Kindle isn't a pocket computer/mp3 and part of what is awesome on the iPT is that it isn't something bulky. You can write and edit and browse and email and still not need a special carry-bag--it's perfect for pockets.

And the cloud stuff is nice... if you have endless wireless service, which many don't. Cloud is still not a great system and limits available possible purchasers.

andrewlgm · Sep 29, 2011

I don't have an iPod touch, but I would certainly not buy one after seeing the kindle fire. I use my iPad mostly for web reading and kindle reading. This kindle fire has really made a believer out of me. I find this to be great news in the tech world, if the kindle fire turns out to be the true competitor - as it is poised to be with a good ecosystem at hand - then both companies will have to innovate and at the end - we win.

tjb1 · Sep 29, 2011

DeaconGTG said:
I think if you compare the Fire to an iPod Touch with iOS 4, the Fire wins.

But give the iPod Touch iCloud and iTunes Match and it wins hands down.

Compare the base model of the iPod Touch to the fire. Both have 8 GB of storage. You also get 5 GB of Cloud storage free from both. But iTunes doesn't count any of your purchased music, apps, books, and TV Shows as part of that storage. With Amazon, it only doesn't count your music purchases.

Add an iTunes Match subscrption, and suddenly I can store all my music in the Cloud and access it with my iPod Touch. With the Fire, all my non-amazon music can be stored, but it counts against my free 5 GB, and then I have to purchase extra space.

Larger screen size for videos? Who cares? I'm streaming content from my iPod Touch to my TV via AirPlay. Amazon has whispersync for videos, but again that's only their content.

To be fair, I would much rather browse the web on a Fire than on an iPod Touch.

I'll admit, if I was more invested in the Amazon ecosystem (as opposed to the iTunes market) I would love the fire (I have both a 2nd Gen and 3rd Gen Kindle and love those). But, in my opinion, iPod Touch beats Fire.

You should read up before you start spilling nonsense and incorrect information.

"Free Cloud Storage

Forget about memory - Kindle Fire gives you free storage for all your Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud. Your books, movies, music and apps are available instantly to stream or download for free, at a touch of your finger."

Now for people who arent all over Apple and instead purchase everything from Amazon then they get exactly what they want. Remember, not everyone uses iTunes or purchases crap from it. Also, not everyone even has Apple. There may be some people who dont own anything Apple and wont get an iPad because of the price tag so they have nothing tied to Apple.

Picture proof below since you couldnt seem to find your way to Amazon.com.

DeaconGTG · Sep 29, 2011

tjb1 said:
You should read up before you start spilling nonsense and incorrect information.

"Free Cloud Storage

Forget about memory - Kindle Fire gives you free storage for all your Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud. Your books, movies, music and apps are available instantly to stream or download for free, at a touch of your finger."

Now for people who arent all over Apple and instead purchase everything from Amazon then they get exactly what they want. Remember, not everyone uses iTunes or purchases crap from it. Also, not everyone even has Apple. There may be some people who dont own anything Apple and wont get an iPad because of the price tag so they have nothing tied to Apple.

Picture proof below since you couldnt seem to find your way to Amazon.com.

1. Your response is incredibly rude. Learn some tact. I'm not "all over Apple" (whatever that means). I fully conceded the points where I thought the fire had the iPod touch beat. I don't know why you brought up the iPad at the end seeing that it wasn't in my post at all.

2. I did miss the graphic you listed. I was going off the Amazon Cloud Drive information, which listed this:

"And the best part? When you save or upload your Amazon MP3 Store purchases to your Cloud Drive, they don't take up any of your storage space and are always stored for free."

So my bad there. I bow to your wisdom in finding the correct graphic to defeat what I clearly stated was my opinion.

3. Please read the last paragraph of my post. Then read it again. In fact I'll post it below:

DeaconGTG said:
I'll admit, if I was more invested in the Amazon ecosystem (as opposed to the iTunes market) I would love the fire (I have both a 2nd Gen and 3rd Gen Kindle and love those). But, in my opinion, iPod Touch beats Fire.

I fully admitted that my investment in iTunes "crap" (as you put it) makes iOS devices more attractive to me. Emphasis on me. For as many people that don't buy things on iTunes, there's just as many that don't buy things from Amazon. And personally, I think iOS, with its library sharing, airplay, and iTunes match, will likely be the more friendly device to deal with third-party content.

BlizzardBolt · Sep 29, 2011

TheMacBookPro said:
Your analogy of expecting a dairy cow to run faster than a race horse, when converted back to 'iPod touch vs Fire' terms, would be something like expecting the iPod touch to be able to display more text at a larger size than the Kindle Fire. Not a good analogy at all.

A more apt comparison would be, to use your cow vs horse thing: 'Is the cow a horse-killer? After all, the cow produces less waste to clean up, so is it better than the horse?'

The 8GB nano costs Apple ~$40 to produce. Given the rumors of them discontinuing the iPod shuffle I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the price of the nano to something like $99. They'd still profit from sales, and it would fill the 'cheap and small' void the shuffle would leave behind.

How does jailbreaking offset the initial cost, and what features (other than portability) do you lose?

Free apps via jailbreaking

Thats the only way to justify the overpriced ipod touch.

tjb1 said:
You should read up before you start spilling nonsense and incorrect information.

"Free Cloud Storage

Forget about memory - Kindle Fire gives you free storage for all your Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud. Your books, movies, music and apps are available instantly to stream or download for free, at a touch of your finger."

Now for people who arent all over Apple and instead purchase everything from Amazon then they get exactly what they want. Remember, not everyone uses iTunes or purchases crap from it. Also, not everyone even has Apple. There may be some people who dont own anything Apple and wont get an iPad because of the price tag so they have nothing tied to Apple.

Picture proof below since you couldnt seem to find your way to Amazon.com.

Not everyone gets their music from iTunes, many of my friends get their music from somewhere else.

iPod touch Kindle fire an iPod Touch killer?

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