Given Apple makes no profit on iTunes, why does Bezos think that they can make profits on their content?
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Amazon Set to Unveil $199 'Kindle Fire' Tablet
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Agree they have no big margin on HW/SW. BUT no loss either. there is very little HW/SW dev costs as the HW is a RIM system reuse, SW middleware is Android 2.3 based .. and this is the only way in the iPad dominated area to gain some market share and customer recognition for further releases with updated HW (when they can get some more $$ )
Yep, reading the same thing.
Now, if that were anywhere close to being true, 15 million by 2013 could very well happen. Now do I personally think that's going to happen? Probably not. I really dont think Amazon launched it to be an Ipad killer. I think it's 2 separate markets.
The KF is not a rebadged PlayBook. The dimensions don't match the PlayBook.
It shares the same manufacturer, hence design similarities, but it pretty much ends there. We won;t know about the internal components until a proper inspection is done (iFixIt).
The OS is Android 2.1, not 2.3.
It is.
An example, involving... (drumroll) ... Amazon:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/140525/amazon_no_more_free_delivery_in_france.html
Granted, it's a complicated legislation to enforce.
The case of game consoles you mention was probably not infringing because the distributors did not sell at a loss, but the source took the loss overseas.
Theres a difference between selling at a loss (to knock out competition), or utiizing mixed/skewed pricing schemes though*. I truly hope the French gets this too (you never know with the French though. They're strange).
p.s. as for why gaming industry hasnt been stopped the answer is probably as simple as: there is no gaming industry in french, thus no union striving to keep prices up. ;- )
A lot of people are interested in the Kindle Fire including Apple enthusiasts. The number of comments on an Apple fan-site about a non-Apple product and story demonstrate that.
But they do, well.. not sure if its good, but they have one (e.g. in playstation store, and whatever-theyre-calling-their-video-service-that-they-use-to-sell-their-tablets). Either way, its way easier to distribute content than to gain access to content. Especially if said distribution is purely digital.
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i hear you. i dont even live in the states so i wont be able to even use it properly and still find it to be a sweet deal. probably picking up at least one in Jan. when im visiting the states.
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If no one could make profit on content, why would anyone produce content? Apple is actively choosing not to make profit on content (excluding apps) so that they can push hardware. Amazon is doing the opposite. Both are valid routes to take.
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Its two, clearly distinct, separate products - but they have great overlaps. By comparison, the ipad is not a pc-tablet killer. Still, Apple obviously did something right, and in doing so they have more than likely had a negative effect on pc-tablet sales. Similarly, the KF could easily be another "did it right"-product, effectively hindering further ipad growth due to the massive overlap in use (and competitive pricing).
KF surely isnt an ipad, but frankly, most people probably wont care. Chances are, Amazon will turn out to be the one who finally popularized tablets, not Apple (i have always believed that the ipad was launched prematurely, in terms of getting a massive reach. If KF succeeds, despite a worse offering, they'll prove my point, and show that the ipad simply was too much ahead of its time*).
* that said, with the iphone out in the open, and others looking at utilizing the "new paradigm" in the tablet space, Apple didnt really have that much of a choice. As such, im not really questioning their move, but rather reflecting upon the effects of having to go down that road pre-maturely.
What do you mean? The people who produce the content are making money. The people who resell that content (Amazon, Apple) don't make very much money from it. Amazon can't choose to make a large profit on content without pricing their content higher, which of course no one would pay.
The problem is when you come to the states, where will you buy one? Right now, can only be bought online. Not in any stores as of yet, and no mention that they will be sold in stores.
I see where Best Buy is going to reduce the price of the HTC Flyer by $200 starting saturday. So the 7 inch 16gb version will be down to $299. love the price wars. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393972,00.asp#fbid=BIQk1_0-pHv
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Yes, they do have a PlayStation Store, a music store, a movies store and maybe a games store for their portable gaming consoles. But... they are terrible!
They had been this way for a long time. Sony has been in the cell phone business for a long time, and in all this time, they have been unable to make a decent app store.
Look at Google, they quickly made something more functional and useful. Amazon also made in a couple of years a great user experience in buying books, and I suppose the same stands for music and movies.
Even BlackBerry has made something more user friendly.
And I think we disagree in "distributing content being more easy than acquiring it". Because, if you have a good distribution channel, developers and publishers will come running to your online store to profit from it. This is the real advantage Apple has right now to other companies.
Kudos to Amazon. I think they did pretty much everything right leading up to this KF release. The customer service is top notch to start with. Secondly, they have the content, ebooks, magazines, newspapers, movies, music, apps, and games...as well as their cloud service. It was all in place prior to selling the KF. I would think if there was no money in selling content, they'd have stopped a long time ago and changed directions. While the KF won't replace the iPad, I think it will put a tablet into the many hands that probably never would have bought an iPad to begin with due to price. I don't see how they can lose at this point, they tested the waters selling content. Now they have the device to make accessing that content now even easier.
Wow, 50 pages in 2 days. I think Amazon raised some eyebrows here on MR.
I like Jeff B, and hope the new products do well for them.
I like Jeff B, and hope the new products do well for them.
Yes! It's amazing that their announcement caused Blackberry and HTC to reduce their tablets by $200.
I realize this is off topic, but I've been thinking about GoodReader myself since I deal with quite a few PDFs of a technical nature (see above). Is the resulting marked up PDF consumable outside of GoodReader? Thanks!
Yes -- the annotations made in GoodReader are standard PDF annotations and will show up in Mac OS X Preview and in Adobe Reader and many other PDF readers.
Realized that mistake but couldnt be bothered to change it. All in all, point remains. If there was no profit in distribution, entities like Amazon wouldnt exist. Yes, it is a high-volume, low-margin business, oft-times characterized by cut-throat competition, but none-the-less there are, evidently, profits to be made.
And, if AMZN offered a quality alternative - all in all - people would gladly pay more. Apple has shown that quite well over the years. Further, in ways AMZN has an even easier time here, as minor increases in price could generate vast increases in profits (due to the already highly pressured margins).
Ironically, this was the xkcd strip the other day; it fits this discussion quite well:
Yes, they do have a PlayStation Store, a music store, a movies store and maybe a games store for their portable gaming consoles. But... they are terrible!
They had been this way for a long time. Sony has been in the cell phone business for a long time, and in all this time, they have been unable to make a decent app store.
Look at Google, they quickly made something more functional and useful. Amazon also made in a couple of years a great user experience in buying books, and I suppose the same stands for music and movies.
Even BlackBerry has made something more user friendly.
And I think we disagree in "distributing content being more easy than acquiring it". Because, if you have a good distribution channel, developers and publishers will come running to your online store to profit from it. This is the real advantage Apple has right now to other companies.
First, from what i have read - which in all honesty isnt that much - the applications shop for the p800 (yes, it had an app store) was quite well received at the time. As for the others, i really have only used the ps store. Works fine for me. Then again, i dont really care. My point remains. You are far worse off not having access to content. Software is actually the commodity here, which says a lot giving the ever-increasing importance of software.
Second, we surely disagree. But i cant bothered to discuss it atm. Too late.
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Ill have it shipped to my hotel of course, ready for me to pick up at my arrival. Simple as 1-2-3, and'll cost me a 1 usd tip.
That's good news. Now I wonder who will get their fire first. Those that preorder through Amazon, or through Best Buy.
You can ONLY buy the Kindle Fire through Amazon. There isn't any margin in that $199 price to pay a retail markup.
Best Buy is discounting the HTC Flyer in response to the new Kindle because they figure (most probably correctly) that the market price for any tablet make by a company that doesn't rhyme with Grapple is now $200.
Congratulations are in order to Amazon for single-handedly destroying the Android-Tablet market!
I don't think Apple 'actively' chooses that but that's how the market is. As a consequence, Amazon is exactly under the same predicament. Apple and Amazon apply the exact same terms of a 30% cut for sales of eBooks under the Agency Model regime, with prices dictated by publishers. For video content, I don't know. Music seems similar too with Apple outrageously dominating the market and Amazon failing to make a dent on iTunes market-share.
Considering the sales volumes for iPad and the dearth of specific apps developed for it, it seems to be there at the exact right time.
And Amazon being the one popularizing tablets is a bizarre thought. There would be no Kindle Fire if the iPad didn't pave the way for this new category.
Wrong. Best Buy announced they will sell Kindle Fire.
http://tcbmag.blogs.com/daily_developments/2011/09/best-buy-to-sell-new-199-kindle-fire-tablet.html
How the hell can you say that when the modern day tablet market is still fresh with more improvement needed?
Is suppose that's what you said when the iPhone 1st come out?
There is no way apple will dominate the tablet industry like the iPod industry. why? Every major electronic company wants a slice of the market. There is going to be so much investment and competition because everyone wants a slice of the pie, much like the mobile industry.