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Amazon Introduces 8.9-Inch and 7-Inch Kindle Fire HD at $299 and $199, Updated Kindle Fire Drops to $159
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400 iPad at even $400 = $160,000
What "value" does an iPad bring to a school that a Kindle HD could not?
Unless you have an article or facts to back up your statement, I'm calling...
Reading on LCD devices his a migraine inducing experience if you do so for more than an hour at a time. e-Ink is the only way to go for big readers. OTOH, web browsing on e-Ink e-readers is less pleasant than crawling over broken glass with your fly unzipped. Pick your poison.
I'd go with the Nexus 7. According to the specs, the Nexus is better than the Fire HD. And you won't have to root/custom ROM it for the full android experience. The original Fire was a piece of cake to root/custom ROM. If the 7 had been available when I'd brought my Fire, I would have gotten that instead.
As for me, I've go my eye on the Kindle Whitepaper... Not a fan of touchscreen e-readers, but better contrast AND lighted display. I won't mind to terribly much if my Kindle keyboard has an untimely accident.
Another thought I did have; Amazon knows the iPhone is due for announcement, along with (in the near future) iPad mini (or whatever).
Jeff decides to hold the event before to steal some thunder. Yet no devices are ready to ship. Same with nokia's announcement on the 920 & 820 lumia(s).
Someday, these companies will figure out Apples release schedules; and actually have a product ready for delivery before Apple.
will then of course change release schedules.
Perhaps Apple will also, given that the original iPhone and the original iPad were not available to buy for several months after announcement. I would hazard a guess the iPhone 5 won't be around on Wednesday next week either.
I won't debate you on the "value" as you put it, but here you go. The first link is a school near me, this was on the evening news recently. The second link is even better. 26,000 iPads for education.
Seems these people would know a bit more about it than you and I. And oh, it's 1,750 iPads, not 400. My apologies.
http://www.theipadfan.com/florida-school-giving-ipad-studn/
http://www.macnn.com/articles/12/06/26/deal.will.cost.city.15.million/
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They have the content, ebooks, movies, cloud storage, music plus easy to shop the entire Amazon store for physical products. They also have there own app store. So yes, they do have a pretty complete ecosystem.
um, other than apple devices or computers with itunes installed, no... i can't. Can you?
I hope they get their money's worth.
$700K is just for the iPads and doesn't include the iBooks, which I assume is not free.
They've got balls though to spend that much of tax payer money in hopes it will save money & be an educational benefit. I guess if it fails, they'll get an ear full from the tax payers but at least they'll now have iPads... well unless people drop them or personalize them so they can't be of any use.
"To purchase the 1,750 iPads, school officials will use capital funding to the tune of nearly $700,000. The school must report the costs and savings associated with the program at the end of the year, as well as how the tablets improved student learning."
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*2 examples/schools doesn't make this widespread adoption. More of a trial from looking at those articles
If the Kindle Fire had access to the Google Play app store, then it would be another story, but the only options for the Fire are the less than impressive Amazon app store and a few sideloadable applications directly from app makers Web sites, which don't always work. I'm referring to the important apps, not the endless junk apps in the iOS store (which the Amazon app store has it's share of as well). The problem is that Amazon's app store is not friendly to developers (Amazon sets the price not the devs), so the apps haven't been as forthcoming as they have been on Google Play. With the success of the Fire, more apps are coming, but it's still a far cry from what Apple or Google has.
I can list more examples, but i won't belabor the point. I'm not disagreeing that it's costly; is it justified? I'm not sure. But to my original point, which still stands, iPads are being purchased for education, in pretty large numbers.
Like you, though, I wonder about them being dropped, stolen, etc. Can you imagine??
...good apps.
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youre doing it wrong. you can listen to music purchased from itunes on any device; you dont need itunes installed.
I am referring to streaming. I don't want to put my books, movies and music into every device I might want to use them, I just want to have access to them everywhere. Again, apple has products and solutions to make this amazingly seamless within their own ecosystem. I'm just one of those people who doesn't want to be overly vested into one ecosystem. While amazon's approach is indeed an ecosystem of it's own, it offers me the flexibility to access it anywhere, from any device, at any time.
My wife and I stream the same library of a variety of media on iPhones, Androids, iPads, TV (which has amazon build-in), roku, stereo systems, vehicles, etc. That's important to me. One cloud based library, available everywhere, on pretty much anything.
Not saying anything is wrong with apple's system. Apple has solutions that are much more elegant and seamless. I am envious of that at times. They just don't provide me the freedom I want and strap me to an ecosystem that I don't want to be strapped to.
Don't count on it. Amazon sells these at cost so they make no money off the hardware. That is not and never has been Apple's business model. They want to make beautiful products without sacrificing quality (using plastics). Not saying the Fire or even the Nexus 7 aren't awesome, they're just on a different level.
Everyone on MR has been saying, "Oh all these tablets that are coming out are really cheap, Apple has to lower their price to compete!" And although it may sound good (for our own benefit) it's just not going to happen.
I think they will sell the iPad Mini at $349 and everyone is going to complain and say Apple missed the boat. It will still sell like hot cakes because of the quality hardware and software.
I agree with all of this except the price. I see it around 299. But you're spot on, on the rest.
Care to elaborate on which apps Apple/iPad can provide to a school in which the Kindle HD can not?
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At $299, it will cut in to iTouch sales unless the new mini is actually the new iTouch.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1435750/
Apple has shown a willingness to cannibalize itself rather than letting a competitor do it. I agree with you, and I can't offer more than a feeling and various rumors on the $299 price point, it's just where I think it will fall.
We'll see, soon enough! I hope it's around that price point, wouldn't mind picking one up for my oldest daughter for school.
Maybe, but the Kindle Fire HD 16gb is $299 with Ad support and no opt-out. That's why I was thinking the $349 price point.
And thank you, I am a little annoyed at all the $199 talk but I wanted to be thorough about my response instead of just saying 'No way you're all wrong'.
In the interest of an accurate comparison, I didn't count the e-ink Kindles because they really don't fit into the tablet category. If you want to discount color, capacity and wireless capabilities, it's simply 3 Kindles vs. 2 iPads (until a Mini is released). That's not really a big difference, compared to, say, OS X and Windows versions.
However, it's still a disingenuous argument to make because anyone buying an iPad has to make the decision. I like Apple's simple product line too. For the most part, it makes sense. But the fact is that Apple has a lot more SKU's for iPad than Amazon does for Kindle.