Check out the Nook ($199), Kobo ($199), or some other Android powered tables that sell for $199.
They all run Android. I do not see anything compelling in Fire.
BTW, anyone question why Amazon choose the name "FIRE"?
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Amazon gets BURNED, or iPad puts out Fire's fire
- Thread starter PracticalMac
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Check out the Nook ($199), Kobo ($199), or some other Android powered tables that sell for $199.
They all run Android. I do not see anything compelling in Fire.
BTW, anyone question why Amazon choose the name "FIRE"?
The Microsoft division that produces the XBox 360 makes a profit because for some reason they created one division and put both XBox 360 and all their Mac software into the same division. The reason is probably because someone high up at Microsoft doesn't want to admit how much money the XBox is losing, and that Excel, Word and Office for Mac are like printing money.
Laptop provides a slow trickle. More like a laptop holds the iPad at it's current battery level more than anything.
A laptop will likely charge a Fire better, since the fire has less power requirements and a smaller battery. But this also defeats the purpose of travelling light. With the Fire you need a laptop to do any work, so this means carrying a heavy laptop with Your Fire to do anything. Fail.
Depends on when and where, and for how long, you do your reading. If you're a casual reader or you want an e-reader for PDFs, comics, kid's books or anything with pictures or color, then the iPad is definitely the way to go. If you want to get immersed in text (e.g. a novel) with minimal distraction, the Kindle is far better. The e-ink screen is easier on the eyes, the Kindle is lighter and easier to hold, and the battery life of a Kindle is measured in weeks, not hours.
In extremely bright or extremely dim situations, the Kindle's screen acts much more like a paper book, whereas you'll be fighting either glare, a washed-out LCD, or an LCD backlight that's way too bright (in a dark room) and hurts the eyes.
For me the hidden killer app of the Kindle 3 was the free 3G browser access which works out-of-country. I wouldn't dare turn on 3G data on my iPhone in the same places, for fear of getting hit with ridiculous data charges. Unfortunately this is a feature that won't be on the Fire.
cool. So 178 cities out of 20,000 in the US. And 110 millions customers? Verizon only lists have 106 million customers, but even so, this means that Verizon has 4G on ever single tower it owns, which is not the case. Something doesn't add up here!
And LTE has claims of only 12mbps? Didn't Apple claim HSPA+ does over 14mbps? I though 4G was faster? Or is that on Verizons network?
Sorry, but with the iPad I need a laptop to do any serious work. It all depends on the kind of "work" you're doing. The context of the question in this case was options if one is on a long flight. In my case (and that of many if not most business users) I'll be carrying a laptop in addition to my iPad or Fire. The fact that the Fire weighs 30% less than the iPad actually provides a benefit compared to an iPad.
Thanks, I have and will...but it seems to me any ~$200 tablet comes with serious limitations and trade-offs...
Apple goes with jungle cats, Android desserts and Amazon apparently goes into flaming imagery: Kindle, Fire and, if they stay on course, the "Inferno" (or maybe the "Paul Lynde"/"Liberace").
The numbers refer to potential users, just as every such estimate does. Even so, I don't know about you but I buy technology that I'll be able to use in the foreseeable future. Verizon began rolling out its 4G/LTE technology to markets with a heavy concentration of tech users and is now covering the rest of the country. Sorry if you're not in that group. Perhaps you should move to South Dakota or Birmingham, AL, places that have just be brought online.
As for Apple's claims of 14mbps for HSPA+....well, that appears to be utterly bogus. See the url below for a real world test.
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/10/downloadspeeds_01.jpg
A few ounces of weight isn't significant. The size of the Fire compared to the iPad is more of a selling point, especially when travelling as space in my bag is a premium. That said, I again come to the point, that when travelling at 33,000 feet how many movies, games, books or music can you hold on that 6gb of free space on that 10 hour flight? If you need to use the laptop, kind of defeats the purpose of having the Fire, eh?
I just flew from Heathrow to LAX and I would have been hurting had I been stuck with a Fire. Assuming you are in business, do you use cloud storage for your presentations, or email them ahead? What can't you do on an iPad, that requires a laptop. I've found an app for just about everything out there. Just curious.
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Yeah, I knew Apples claims were inflated. Probably why 4G claims such a wide swath of possible download speeds. In reality some people buying a 4g phone will have slower download speeds than those with iPhones on 3G. I would be pissed if I was paying for 4g and got such slow speeds. and having been on O2’s network in the UK, anything is considered fast here in the US.
By the way, I trade in for a new phone every two years. I don't buy a phone to keep for 5-10 years, so this notion of buying tech for the future is crap. And most people do the same as me.
And ironically, I lived in Birmingham nearly a decade ago. Nice place.
() I think the question is not how many "movies, games, books, or music" you can hold in 6gig, it's how many you need on a 6-10 hour flight. Personally, 200 songs and 100 books is fine for me and that doesn't come close to 6 gigs. It's certainly true that the iPad afffords me the luxury of not planning ahead at all since I can carry 5000 books and 2300 songs but with only a little planning I could get along with much, much less storage.
() Not sure I agree with the insignificance of weight. Personally, I'd agree with you, but I know for my wife, the entire form factor of her Kindle, both weight and size, is a strong selling point compared to the iPad. I think that's true for many women. And it may be as much a gender preference developed over a lifetime as much as a truly significant difference.
() I need my laptop for a number of reasons. The Office documents I edit (Word and Excel) simply overwhelm the limited iWorks versions available for the iPad as well as the various emulators (e.g. Documents to Go) due to their complexity and size. Furthermore, I work with web-enabled applications that run only in IE (and in some cases Firefox.) Finally, I cannot live with a single window environment. I'm actually pretty constrained when using a 15" screen compared to the dual 20"+ monitors on my desk but I can make it work. On the iPad that's impossible.
I realize though that I wasn't clear in a previous post. I carry the laptop in my carry-on bag along with my iPad. (I'd never consider checking the laptop.) I seldom bring it out of the carry-on when I'm on a plane but if I need to charge another device with it, I can pull it out of the overhead and do so. The fact that the Fire could actually be recharged from the laptop while the iPad cannot means that whatever charge is on the iPad is all I have. The Fire, on the other hand, could be recharged if I had to do so.
Ah..awesome...thanks!
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Thanks! I had an idea it may be the screen and battery. But I honestly don't know the battery life of a Kindle/e-Reader, so I wasn't too sure.
Makes sense though. Again, thanks!
I agree. Schools are laying off teachers left and right. Schools will always go for what they can afford and the Fire seems like a sure hit over the iPad. 90% of what students should be using a tablet for at school can be done with the Fire just as well as the iPad. Surf the web, read books, listen to podcasts, watch educational videos online via streaming and so forth. With Flash support any level of secure DRM video for education can be streamed on demand or live to the Fire's. The kids who want to play games like Angry birds can do so. Many IOS developers now publish Android apps as well. I have an iPad and a Android phone and most of my apps I can buy for both platforms.
I read your original post. I was responding to the people foaming at the mouth after you that the Fire is pathetic and stupid and will fail.
And the personal attacks can stop. The crankiness is over the top in this thread.
I really enjoy Apple products. That does not make everything they do perfect, however. Remember the "No one wants apps on their smartphone" phase of the original iPhone?
By the way - I thought your original post was well thought out. It's the posts after yours that left the tracks.
ADDED - And as you've noted in posts later in your thread, these products aren't really meant for the same market. The iPad is a fully capable tablet computer, while the Fire is just a fancy e-reader.
If the price of both products was the same - the Fire would sell about as well as the touchpad before it's fire-sale price blowout. The Fire is competing with the color Nook and other fancy e-readers.
I would highly doubt Amazon is going to loose money on every piece of Fire hardware. The parts that make up the Fire are really just off the shelf crap assembled together in a fancy piece of plastic. Amazon's margin is going to be no where near Apple's margin, but it doesn't have to be.
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You are wrong. Flat out. Period. If it weren't for the fact that I have no room in my life to use two devices (I already have an iPad and afterward sold my Kindle DX), I'd want a Kindle Fire myself.
The Kindle market IS the foundation of the ebook finally coming into its own. Amazon's Kindle fans are as rabid, loyal, and as numerous by now, as Apple's fanbase, since the two are not (I repeat, ARE NOT) in direct competition, even though people keep trying to insist that they are. I learned intimately about the Kindle market right at the beginning, which is why I bought one so that I would have personal knowledge of it when I published my books on it. The only way Amazon could possibly lose on this new venture is if the Fire is simply a lemon, and I assure you, Jeff Bezos (Amazon's closest thing to Steve Jobs, and a fairly decent substitute at that) will see to it that the Fire is not a lemon.
They will not challenge the iPad because they are not in competition with iPad. And like iPad in the tablet market, they will dominate the ereader market, and will make a butt load of money doing it.
If that's true, I think that they should have just bumped the price up $20-30 higher, then they wouldn't take a loss.
In general, I agree with your points. I would say, however, that the definition of the "tablet" and "ereader" product categories is not nearly as rigid as they are sometimes treated; especially in the media where ginning up "death matches" between the iPad and the Fire and between Apple and Amazon is a cheap hook on which to hang an article.
You're largely correct, I think, that the two devices appeal to different market segments. And I don't expect the Kindle Fire to take many sales from the iPad, much less to convince current iPad owners to switch horses.
On the other hand, the iPad has succeeded to some extent by providing a device for a market segment that prior to its introduction was forced to "overbuy" overbuy laptops to meet their requirements. The same, I think, will happen with introduction of the Fire. Those who want most of the media consumption features of the iPad in a slightly more portable form factor and at a significantly more affordable price will have that option. Will that hurt iPad sales? To some extent, yes. But only among those who would purchase an iPad if no other option existed. Most of the Fire's sales will come from those who wouldn't buy the iPad.
So are the iPad competitors in the "tablet" market or do they exist in two different market categories. You say "tomaytoes" and I say "tomahtoes." It depends upon one's objective in defining those categories.
My apologies then.
I did not understand what context or how your reply was addressed.
It is probably so the estimate is off, but I am sure the estimate included many other factors, not just hardware.
And yes, the crankiness is strong in this and many recent posts.
Yes, shows you how knee jerk some reports are about comparing anything to iPad and saying its a killer.
All those reports saying Fire is the iPad killer really hurts the Fire, high expectations dashed by low performance reality = another win for iPad.
No problem.
I hope both products do well.
Good competition makes all products stronger. If you could only buy one brand of car, there would be no reason for innovation and improvements to that brand.
It's not a win for the iPad if that happens, just like it isn't a win for iPad when iPod sales drop. I know a lot of people see consumer goods as some kind of Thunderdome death match, but I think it is a lot more complicated. Low sales for Fire doesn't necessarily mean anything wins, especially if Amazon is trying to generate demand for a product that (arguably) no one needs.
The categories do cross because most tablets can act as an ereader as well, and most ereaders have at least some level of a tablet'S capabilities. But I also think the two markets are more individually defined than the marketing departments and media outlets portray. Most people who love the Kindle really didn't want it to do anything else but be an ereader. As you'll note, Amazon could have just discarded the eInk Kindles and put all of their eggs in the Fire's basket, but they didn't. I'm sure that's because they recognize that there is still a huge audience out there who don't want "tablet in their ereader", so to speak. There is a segment of the marketplace who will choose either a Fire or an iPad, but there is also a segment who buy both because they either can foresee usage for both, or are just tech junkies and will buy pretty much any cool gadget.
So I think the two will coincide very nicely. Who I do think the Fire will hurt most is not only all the other ereaders, but also all the lesser iPad competitors. The fire could very well dominate the second position behind iPad, even though they won't come close to catching the iPad, and that spells doom for the Playbook and all the other iPad wannabes.
It's all about building an Amazon ecosystem. Sure, you could buy your content elsewhere and import it to a Kindle Fire. But why would you, when shopping right from the Kindle Fire is so easy, and offers advantages like free cloud storage? It's the same model Apple used with iPod + iTunes. Make it easy, and people will buy their content and hardware together.
Now, Amazon reverses the way they go after profit, but it's the same concept. Tie the hardware and the content closer together.
This is just an assumption. And one I disagree with. Yes, the regular Kindle will remain popular. But for an extra $100, you can get a Kindle that does double duty as a music/video player, gaming machine, web browser...
And for a lot less money than an iPad.
Amazon's video distribution is arguably better than Apple's. Similar content, but Amazon Prime gives you the option to stream video. Unlimited streaming beats 64GB of internal memory.
I just had to highlight this because you seem to contract yourself. So, will the Kindle Fire sell, or won't it?
In general terms, I agree it's not a "threat" to the iPad. For as much as they have in common, they're also very different devices with different audiences. I think the Kindle Fire will be bought by people who like the concept of a tablet, but were turned off by the iPad's high price. It will be bought by people who primarily want to consume content, a case in which the iPad's better specs are irrelevant. The iPad will continue to be bought by people invested in the Apple ecosystem, people who want the larger screen, and people who want to do more than just consume content. Oh, and Apple fan boys, of course.
Lots of room in the market for both devices, imo...
I am not talking about importing stuff into Fire.
I am talking about buying stuff on Amazon and play it on NON- Kindle stuff.
(Kindle app for iOS and Androids, maybe even BlackBerry's, as well as Mac/PC's)
Buy a song from iTunes, it is linked to iTunes (I think their is a way to break it, but not easy)
$100 more for a device that will not play in bright light, and need to be recharged a few times before you finish reading the book.
And it is a bit small for reading magazine articles.
Unless you are at 30,000 ft.
iTunes lack of streaming will probably go away with iCloud
I just had to highlight this because you seem to contract yourself. So, will the Kindle Fire sell, or won't it?
In general terms, I agree it's not a "threat" to the iPad. For as much as they have in common, they're also very different devices with different audiences. I think the Kindle Fire will be bought by people who like the concept of a tablet, but were turned off by the iPad's high price. It will be bought by people who primarily want to consume content, a case in which the iPad's better specs are irrelevant. The iPad will continue to be bought by people invested in the Apple ecosystem, people who want the larger screen, and people who want to do more than just consume content. Oh, and Apple fan boys, of course.
Lots of room in the market for both devices, imo...
I did not contradict myself.
"Strong sales", maybe a couple million units, which is pretty good.
HOWEVER, if the profit margin is razor thin, or even a small loss, it is bad for Amazons bottom line (but they survived negative profit before).
Netbooks are a good example of a very popular product being bad for a company, becuase of tiny profit margins.