Apple Saw No Change in iPad Sales Following Kindle Fire Introduction

no surprise. apple doesnt go after low-quality, price-conscious, walmart-loving consumers

I don't think he was talking about Kindle Fire when he said "limited function" tablets.

This is largely because they aren't really competing, which is what a lot of people here said before the Fire even dropped. Its kind of like saying "BMW saw no change in 7 series sales when the Fiat 500 went on sale". Uh yeah, big shock.

The Kindle what?

Cue LTD

d4rkc4sm said:

no surprise. apple doesnt go after low-quality, price-conscious, walmart-loving consumers

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Yet, Apple sells their iDevices and other accessories at Walmart.

Not all Walmart-Loving Consumers, as you put it, go for low quality.
I am price-conscious, and sometimes shop at Walmart, but I would choose an iPad over any other tablet without second thoughts at this time.

$99 HP, $199 Fire's... people looking for iPad don't bother comparing a color ereader with the iPad. Two entirely different tablets, and from using a Fire over the holidays it's clear the $199 hype is why they sold some. It's the same jittery sad Android experience I've seen and used on the Xoom, Tab, Transformer etc... It's a shame someone besides Apple doesn't build a quality OS, because Android is becoming more and more of a joke every time a new quad core, +++ memory, video etc... chip comes out and it's still a turd on a tablet.

iPad sales will drop when Apple stops making them. The rest of the hardware manufactures need to find a new OS as Google will just lay the blame on the hardware or continue to label it "beta" for the rest of it's life. I don't know if Win 8 will help the other manufacturers but right now with a new tablet or phone coming out weekly, it's apparent they just keeping throwing $h@t at the wall hoping to sell a few thousand gadgets and not go broke in the process.

d4rkc4sm said:

no surprise. apple doesnt go after low-quality, price-conscious, walmart-loving consumers

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That's funny because I bought my iPad 2 at Walmart.

DakotaGuy said:

d4rkc4sm said:

no surprise. apple doesnt go after low-quality, price-conscious, walmart-loving consumers

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That's funny because I bought my iPad 2 at Walmart.

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Then you're clearly a low-quality person.

While the Fire is a nice, little, inexpensive device, it is NO iPad.

It's like getting half an iPad for half the price. The focus of the Fire is also a bit different than the iPad. No surprise in this "rumor".

Now, the interesting thing to see is if the Fire sales drop when the iPad 3 surfaces on the market. If that happens, then perhaps there is a palpable cross market.

Don't mess with Apple. They will destroy u!

Well, iPad sales rate is rapidly increasing, so it's hard to say if there is no effect from Fire tablets. There HAS to be some amount of people who bought a Fire instead of an iPad. That amount wasn't large enough to cause Apple to sell fewer iPads, clearly they still sold a ton, but who is to say they couldn't have sold some amount more, had the Fire not been in the market? You're telling me not one of the millions of Fire owners would not have bought an iPad instead, if the Fire didn't exist? I don't believe it.

HiRez said:

Well, iPad sales rate is rapidly increasing, so it's hard to say if there is no effect from Fire tablets. There HAS to be some amount of people who bought a Fire instead of an iPad. That amount wasn't large enough to cause Apple to sell fewer iPads, clearly they still sold a ton, but who is to say they couldn't have sold some amount more, had the Fire not been in the market? You're telling me not one of the millions of Fire owners would not have bought an iPad instead, if the Fire didn't exist? I don't believe it.

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Kindle Fire is only on sale in one country - once it is available in all of Amazon's markets then we will likely see some effect on iPad sales.

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d4rkc4sm said:

no surprise. apple doesnt go after low-quality, price-conscious, walmart-loving consumers

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Lemme guess, you're a Barista...

At best, competitors might be able to match Apple's technical specifications and price point in the 10" tablet category. But that is less than half the battle. Because without high-quality apps and a thriving ecosystem, a tablet simply becomes a limited-use toy.

Please, don't tell us how how wonderfully Icecream Sandwich or DeathbyChocolate scales Apps. Because it doesn't. And even if that were true, where is the Android version of Pages, or Garageband, or any one of a thousand fantastic full-screen iPad apps?

If Google were really serious about challenging Apple in the tablet marketspace, they would have taken steps to address this shortcoming. But since Google makes its money selling Ads, rather than hardware or Apps, they have no motivation to do so. So they haven't.

Google hopes to dominate the world by putting their wretched Android on every device with an electronic pulse, from toasters to smartphones, refrigerators to water meters. Serving up a trillion impressions to five billion clueless lemmings, while quietly amassing a digital database of our browsing habits they can auction off to the highest bidder. Guess what? Either a) there aren't enough lemmings; b) what lemmings there are don't have enough spending power to be worth advertising to; or c) people don't need to see a display ad when they make toast or open their refrigerator.

Apple's not scared.

They know they'er the greatest.

The Kindle will even increase iPad sales: a lot of the people who try one—or even buy one—will end up wanting more. The Kindle will become a hand-me-down and they’ll get an iPad next time.

And Amazon will be delighted: that ex-Kindle-users Kindle books will still run just great on the iPad, and they’ve still got a customer who will likely buy more Kindle books—for reading on iPad—in future. Meanwhile Amazon didn’t have to take a hardware loss. Apple profits from hardware sales, but Amazon doesn’t; only from media sales. Apple and Amazon both win with the Kindle as a “teaser” and the iPad as the “real deal.”

imahawki said:

This is largely because they aren't really competing, which is what a lot of people here said before the Fire even dropped. Its kind of like saying "BMW saw no change in 7 series sales when the Fiat 500 went on sale". Uh yeah, big shock.

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That was my perspective ... there are buyers for a $200 device and not a $500 device.

Remember that poll where there was some high percentage of people saying they were considering a Fire over an iPad? I suspect they were never really a serious iPad buyer ... I think the % of folks who were cross shopping is pretty trivial, and funny enough, the 4 people I know who scored Kindle Fires (one of which was mine that I sold them) already owned iPads, and were buying this as sort of an "extra" tablet.

neiltc13 said:

Kindle Fire is only on sale in one country - once it is available in all of Amazon's markets then we will likely see some effect on iPad sales.

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"We sold a ***** boatload of a iPads even with with the Kindle," (paraphrased) and that I can accept as the gospel (n.o.m.) truth.

I feel bad for Android tablet manufacturers. The "killer" Tegra 3 looks to be headed the same way as the Tegra 2: Death at the hands of the next A# series chipset. The Tegra 3 is about 2.08% faster than the Apple A5 in processing power tests. The T3 is about 2.38X slower than the A5 in the GLBenchmark Texture Fetch test. The T3 is about 24% faster than the A5 in the GLBenchmark Egypt test. All of which is slightly depressing, because iOS needs much less processing power than Android (I've tried a Galaxy Nexus - ICS STILL lags). I can't wait to see what the A6 will bring, but it will undoubtably crush the Tegra 3 as the A5 crushed the Tegra 2.

Aduntu said:

Then you're clearly a low-quality person.

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Well thanks! I guess I didn't consider shopping at Walmart automatically made me a low quality person, but now I do. So any other people out there brave enough to admit shopping at Walmart? Come on there has to be at least one other person on here.

Question what exactly is the difference between an iPad bought at Walmart and an iPad bought in an Apple Store? Just curious.

nagromme said:

The Kindle will even increase iPad sales: a lot of the people who try one—or even buy one—will end up wanting more. The Kindle will become a hand-me-down and they’ll get an iPad next time.

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Do you have a source to back up "a lot of the people?" I know at least three people with the KF and they couldn't be happier. Believe it or not, some people will actually choose the KF because it best suits their needs, not because they don't know any better or can't afford an iPad.

DakotaGuy said:

That's funny because I bought my iPad 2 at Walmart.

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That wasn't meant for you. Hand it back.

The kindle fire, for its price point, is ok. Just ok. Honestly it functions as well as most of the overpriced android tablets I've seen. My gf got one for xmas and she loves it, but she is not a very tech savvy person. I would spend the extra $300 for a base model iPad any day. I will admit I like the size of the screen, but that's about it. She uses it for books and netflix and facebook. And it does those things well enough.

Like I said considering you can buy two fires for the price of one iPad (and still have $100 left) it's ok. It certainly is not even close to a threat to the iPad.

Although I'm sure at least half of the rumors are BS, I am really looking forward to the iPad 3. I probably won't upgrade until the 4 but it's still exciting to see whats next.