Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Ninety-five percent of the people who use iPads use them as media-consumption devices only. Once the next generation of Kindle Fires are released with front and rear facing cameras why would anyone buy an iPad? Save the $300 and spend it on books, movies, and music. Suddenly, Microsoft's strategy of wanting Windows 8 tablets to function like an iPad (simply touch interface) and also like a full-desktop/laptop makes a lot of sense. Business and productivity users are Windows 8's market niche. Media consumption is the Kindle Fire's niche. Where is the iPad's niche? Does it have one anymore?

Have you ever used an Android tablet? The Apps stink or non existent. Same situation for the fire. I also heard that its possible that tablet Apps built for Ice Cream Sandwich wont work on the fire, so it will be up to Amazon to make compatible Apps. The Fire is a limited media device. Sure it will sell well for Amazon but not in the same class as the ipad.
 
read this *Over 100,000 movies and TV shows, including thousands of new releases and your favorite TV shows, are available to stream or download, purchase or rent - all just one tap away. Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows*

It doesnt say you need Amazon Prime to use the fire ! It just states the benefit of having Amazon prime. You can still streaming and buy without it. Amazon prime members get unlimited streaming.

hence my "require" in quotes. I wasn't pushing the issue that it was required. I was responding to the posters in this thread who were insisting that to get content - you HAD to pay $79 a year...
 
Two different discussions. Some people are insisting that Amazon is not being forthcoming about content delivery since it will "require" a $79 subscription for the streaming stuff + purchases. They base this on the fact that they assume the Fire will not be able to stream netflix, hulu, etc. But there's no evidence.

The iPad comes in both 3G and WiFi. I personally have the WiFi version - so this would be no different. And for many - no different.

Again - two separate discussions and both the iPad and Fire have different +s and -s.

I responded to because someone misunderstood what I meant. Even if Netflix is offered - and I agree that it would potentially compete with Amazon's service and therefore might not make it on there - I can't watch it "on the go." I live in a rural area with fairly good 3G coverage, will not get 4G for quite a while here though. There almost no hot spots. WiFi would be limited to my home and fast food places I scarcely visit.


Fire can use a mobile hotspot with the carrier of my choice. I can also upgrade my 3G hotspot to 4G without having to toss out the Fire. I can also share the data plan of my mobile hotspot with my iPad. :)

True, but that was not the point I made. I have a plethora of devices and I could purchase tethering off my iPhone but that is running on LTE and my iPad is AT&T. This way, I have better coverage for internet - as I mentioned, I live in a rural area. 4G is not even thought of here at all. And after you hooked it up to you tethering device or you sit at Starbucks using a hotspot, you are back to be either limited in content or you jailbreak it and lose warranty.
In the end, it depends what you want and you get what you pay for. I make no secret of loving my iPad and if you want to know the reasons why I would still make that choice even ot cost me around $1k with warranty extension, you can look up my older posts on this threat. :)
 
Last edited:
read this *Over 100,000 movies and TV shows, including thousands of new releases and your favorite TV shows, are available to stream or download, purchase or rent - all just one tap away. Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows*

It doesnt say you need Amazon Prime to use the fire ! It just states the benefit of having Amazon prime. You can still streaming and buy without it. Amazon prime members get unlimited streaming.

Amazon Prime stinks. Its worse than Netflix and Netflix streaming is very limited.
 
Have you ever used an Android tablet? The Apps stink or non existent. Same situation for the fire. I also heard that its possible that tablet Apps built for Ice Cream Sandwich wont work on the fire, so it will be up to Amazon to make compatible Apps. The Fire is a limited media device. Sure it will sell well for Amazon but not in the same class as the ipad.

How many apps have you tried on your Fire? Please give us some detailed feedback on them and also all of the Android apps you used for more than 10 seconds. Thanks.
 
read this *Over 100,000 movies and TV shows, including thousands of new releases and your favorite TV shows, are available to stream or download, purchase or rent - all just one tap away. Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows*

It doesnt say you need Amazon Prime to use the fire ! It just states the benefit of having Amazon prime. You can still streaming and buy without it. Amazon prime members get unlimited streaming.

It also does not say how to acquire Movies and TV for the Fire without Amazon Prime too.
 
I responded to you because you misunderstood what I meant.

No I didn't. Especially since most of your post was edited/updated after I posted. But I still understand you and your point.

And my point is - millions of people own iPads without 3G and love them all the same. Does this limit the Fire's appeal to people like you and those that want to stream elsewhere. Sure.
 
Have you ever used an Android tablet? The Apps stink or non existent. Same situation for the fire. I also heard that its possible that tablet Apps built for Ice Cream Sandwich wont work on the fire, so it will be up to Amazon to make compatible Apps. The Fire is a limited media device. Sure it will sell well for Amazon but not in the same class as the ipad.

The Kindle Fire is $200 and backed up by Amazon and its content. The apps will be coming by the truckload. Once the apps are there, the Fire's price will be a significant advantage over the iPad.
 
Yep, I'm using my iPad for business and so are others. But all we are doing at my firm is reading email and document attachments (Word, PDFs, and occasionally Excel spreadsheets). I suspect the Fire will be able to do this, though reading on a 7 inch screen will not be as nice as on the 9.7" iPad screen.
However, for my work purposes, the cost between $200 and $500 is meaningless. And for travel purposes, the lack of 3G makes the Fire a no go, even if there is WiFi in a lot of places, including at my work.

Well, you can always tether using your phone... just saying. Must say though, i know quite a few of my colleagues has an ipad. I really only see one guy using it to any extent really, and those who use it for something other than browsing and reading seem to rely on external keyboards and such... so, yeah. If it werent for that Apple logo and the coolness, im quite sure sales would be different*.

* not saying that its a bad device, i'm sure its snappy and wonderful. in fact, i know it is.

----------

Man those Mach 3 razors aren't exactly free. They are about $8 with just two blades. But yes, the main point is Amazon expects to make money off of book sales. I just bought a book on the Kindle for convenience. It was only $1 less than the hardcover. Think about how much more profitable that sale must have been for Amazon.

Its an analogy, and a prime example of skewed pricing schemes. Why the need to nitpick? And, i know for a fact that they do give these things away. For example, where i live every (male) 18yo gets one in the mail. Other companies are doing similar things to suck people into buying expensive blades for the rest of their life. Smart business.

More on point, not only books. Various types of content, and - perhaps more importantly - services.

(and yeah, e-book prices are ****-silly. sometimes e-books even cost MORE than the physical copy. if that isnt laughable i dont know what is...)
 
I disagree. For many (especially in this economy) saving $100 (or more) is significant. And if all they want is to read books - they won't spend more money on the Fire. Amazon's product RANGE attacks from all sides offering various budgets and use cases whatever they want at a solid price point.

I'll have to disagree on your disagreement...lol Apple is making record breaking sales all during the bad economy. Have to agree will the original poster that the fire is is not a direct competitor to the iPad, but to Android tablet devices.

Right now - Apple can't hold a candle to the amount of eBooks that Amazon sells. Not even remotely.

Apple can't compete with Amazons books, but can compete with its music store, which is the largest seller of music right now.

Assuming the Kindle Fire has full access to the Amazon App Store for Android, which is what has been implied so far, I don't see how it is "more curated and locked down than an iPad". LOL!

Key word being AMAZON android app store. Meaning you can't access Googles android store. So you have to use Amazons version of apps. So the Google android apps you paid for cannot be used on the kindle fire. Meaning you might have to repurchase some of them.
 
Based on this page:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Color-Multi-touch-Display-Wi-Fi/dp/B0051VVOB2

Amazon is learning from Apple.

Just like the iPad marketing, the kindle fire has:

1. No specs listed on it's official page for the CPU speed. They just say "Fast, Dual-Core Processor". Just like Apple, Amazon are advertising the Kindle by what it can do and not it's specs. The other tablet makers never got this. Most people don't care what the specs of a tablet are, as long as it's zippy in the things they do with it.

Apple understand this. And I believe Amazon understand this too.

2. Trying to advertise the tablet as "a place that has huge amounts of content to experience. Apple know without content a device is very boring. Lots of good content is king. And I think, Amazon realise the iTunes eco system is selling the iPad partially and is trying to get their own content ecosystem up and running too.

3. Cloud storage and sync. If Apple or Amazon originally did this first is not the point here. The point is they are advertising their cloud storage and sync loud and clear with the tablet just like Apple is.

4. Easy to understand language in the advertising.
The average joe will understand what the iPad can do. And Amazon did the came with the Fire advertising. Every average joe will understand what it does and can do.

5. Price per spec.
Amazon understand what kind of product for what kind of price people want. And are trying to deliver this. Just like Apple are. How much profit the Fire makes Amazon per unit we don't know. And I'd like to know this actually.

Things Amazon have not learnt from Apple.

1. Make the SSD size inside of the product very visible to the public. Amazon has not done this. You need to go to the tech specs at the bottom of the page to find out it's only 8GB.

The savvy user will know whether they want a fire or not before they hit the amazon page and nothing said there will change their mind. But the average joe might not read or even understand the tech specs. I think this is not a good thing. They need to say in big letters like the iPad page does, the size of the Fire SSD. Being 8GB.

2. How to deal with a small SSD inside the tablet.
With the iPad you can send stuff to and from your Mac to the iPad. And anything downloaded to the iPad is not lost or in need of re-download if you run out of space on the tablet. Just move some stuff to the Mac and then keep using the iPad.

The Kindle on the other hand, with it's "no need for a traditional computer" to use has a problem. if you fill the 8GB up with content, and I think many many users will, how do you remove content off the device without deleting it to get more space for other content? Sure there is the cloud. Apple has that too. But that means streaming or re-downloading to the Fire. So if at home, that's more of your expensive bandwidth spend doing this.

The amazon page says nothing about connecting the Fire to a traditional computer. i'm sure it's possible. But all the page says is "it's not needed". The average joe might confuse "not needed" with "should not ever be" connected to a traditional computer. This is something Amazon need to work on.

3. Does not say what to do with it's USB port.
Apple tell you exactly what you should be doing with the iPad's proprietary port. Which is good cause a lot of people will not know. But the Fire on the other hand. It has a USB port. But what can I do with said USB port? Amazon does not tell me.

4. Pre-pushing web pages.
"Machine Learning"

This means when you access a webpage on the Fire browser, the browser automatically loads up next page before you even get to it. This next page is usually a popular link on the current page. That's all nice and good. But what if you don't want to move to the next most popular link/page, but instead elsewhere on the net? Then the Fire's browser has accessed the next popular webpage and cached it all for nothing and wasting the bandwidth to do so.

Sore if this happens once it don't matter much. But if this happens on a lot of webpages which is likely, that's a lot of precious expensive bandwidth (if at home) being wasted. I do not like this idea at all. If bandwidth was cheap world wide then sure. But it's not. It's dear as poison in some places. And if I ever got a Fire, I'd hack it and turn this feature off.

5. How is one to get access to movies and TV shows on the kindle without Amazon Prime? Amazon does not say this. The savvy user will work it out. But the average joe might not. And will think they are forced into a $79 a year just to get the content.

So $199 + $79 a year.
Amazon don't advertise the Fire like this. But they should. Cause a lot of people will be using the Fire like this. Sure you have to pay to get get content at iTunes too. But they don't exactly advertise the + $79 a year on the Fire page. You have to go to another page to see the $79. The + $79 should be on the Fire page.

When I think of more I'll post them up.

Just gonna comment on point 1. What you fail to recognize here is that the key differentiating factor for the OEMs are speccs. To sell, they need to stand out from the crowd. This is key reason for the spec-race, and the spec-promotion. Services is coming in now, as well as software, but they're still very reliant on hardware. After all, that is usually where their core business lies.

Also, regarding your last point 4. This happens server-side and doesnt harm the client side at all, thus having no negative impact on the end-user as use of Amazon cloud is free of charge anyway.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Pre-ordered the Fire with leather case and 2-year warranty. I'm going to enjoy Mad Men and Japanese soft-porn!
 
The Kindle - or the Fire. Because the Kindle doesn't need nor would it benefit from having metal. It would only add weight.

As for the Fire - wouldn't you have to actually USE one to know whether or not it was garbage or would benefit from the use of other materials?

It is plastic and will feel like a toy.
 
No one knows if there will be netflix and other services on the Fire. So any discussion of what is a "better deal" is moot right now

Why in the hell would they put netflix or hulu or any other service on there? The whole point of the fire is a direct, handheld portal to amazon for their content.
 
It is a US-centric toy. Nobody outside of the US will buy the Kindle Fire because the media service just are not there outside of the US for Amazon whereas Apple has been smart to role out as much of their ecosystem as possible when entering new markets around the world.
 
Why in the hell would they put netflix or hulu or any other service on there? The whole point of the fire is a direct, handheld portal to amazon for their content.

Why does Apple allow apps from Amazon, Hulu and Netflix.

You (nor I) have any idea what will and won't be allowed. So why make it a bullet point?
 
Why does Apple allow apps from Amazon, Hulu and Netflix.

You (nor I) have any idea what will and won't be allowed. So why make it a bullet point?

Good point. But I bet you find that it will not offer those services.
 
Who else besides Microsoft is going to make a credible tablet and promote it? It must cost 10s of millions of dollars just to get something like that going. Then you have ad costs. Then you have to make that money back, but you need to compete against a company that has shown you they will sell for less than cost on a similar item. You can't undercut Amazon's price and still make a profit. Wait until the component break down happens, you will see. There is no profit margin in a $200 7" tablet.

If you had a company, like Sony, would you start the year long process of making an Android tablet to compete against iPad 4 and Kindle Fire 2? What happens if Apple drops its prices by $200? What happens if Amazon drops its prices by $100? These companies could do that. Where would a Sony be then?

I think Tablet plans are getting scrapped all across the world today.

Sony actually is one of the more viable competitors in this game as they have both content and software in their genes. What we're really seeing here though is that the device itself is not as important as the services that surrounds it. This is what enables added revenue streams. This is what allows for differentiation and thus higher margins.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.