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. I'll be playing around with it, getting google play store & such but even in it's stock configuration this device offers just about everything that normal people want to do with a tablet.

How do you get to google play store in a Kindle fire HD?? You have to root the Kind Fire HD to bring that in. More likely you played with the Aamzon App store.

It is a complex licensing agreement for Android that force Amazon to have their own app store instead of using Google play store. Amazon apps stores has about 50K+ apps while Google plays stores has about 500K+. Amazon fork the android os instead of using it as is. The cost is that Google won't let them have access to Google play. The benefit is that they can sell the default search engine in Kindle fire to Msft (bing is the default search engine in Fire HD). Fire HD also try to save money by removing a lot of sensor (no accelerometer, barometer, GPS, or gyroscope). So apps that require those external sensor will not work (i.e. no map, can't rotate the device, no game that require sensing the motion of the tablet itself)...


http://www.androidauthority.com/kindle-fire-hd-7-inch-install-google-play-store-123353/

http://tablets.techcrunch.com/compare/64-135/Motorola-Xoom-Wi-Fi-Only-vs-Amazon-Kindle-Fire-HD

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/7/3301112/kindle-fire-hd-search-engine-microsoft-bing
 
People are extremely insecure to need to pit one against the other or declare one or the other "doomed". The Kindle and the iPad aren't really in the same category, although the Kindle does try to be iPad like. For those who want real ereaders the Kindle will remain king. How the Fire fares, who knows, but if one only wants an ereader with some tablet capabilities, it might do fine. The iPad will always be the epitome of the tablet, and it's foolish to think Amazon doesn't know that by now. There's plenty of room for iPads and Kindles because they have different target audiences. The crossover element isn't enough to kill either one.

Y'all need to step away from the PC and go drive your midlife crisis sports cars and stop worrying about the size of your tablet. :rolleyes:

Nail on the head. Too many people miss the fact that competition is GOOD for them. They have this stupid blind allegiance to products they own 'beating' the competition.

I want Amazon, Samsung, Google, Nexus and Apple to all create top notch great products and fight it out tooth and nail for our business. That means the best products at the lowest prices.

My would hate a market where any company dominated it to the point they had no real incentive to innovate.
 
Apple will never doom Amazon when it comes to e-books. They tried with the awful iBooks store. Can't compete.

This.

Even before I got a Kindle, I used the Kindle app on my iPhone/iPad. Really dislike iBooks. I did buy a kindle shortly after because reading on an iPhone and iPad feels awkward and have not looked back. But all my books work on all 3 devices + my Mac.

So if the mini does come out, I may buy it but all my books will still come from Amazon.
 
I love the actual ibooks app but I refuse to consider buying books from them. I did so once and the formatting of the book was atrocious. When I buy from Amazon or B&N, at least there are ways of removing DRM so that I can adjust the format to my liking and read the books on whatever device I choose via calibre. Also wasn't a fan of how the price-fixing mess went down, so it's also a principle thing.
 
I love the actual ibooks app but I refuse to consider buying books from them. I did so once and the formatting of the book was atrocious. When I buy from Amazon or B&N, at least there are ways of removing DRM so that I can adjust the format to my liking and read the books on whatever device I choose via calibre. Also wasn't a fan of how the price-fixing mess went down, so it's also a principle thing.

That's funny, because their guidelines for ebooks are strict. But sites like Smashwords feeds ebooks to them in a generalized file format churned out by the "Meatgrinder" system of theirs, and the results are usually pretty crappy.
 
if they make a hybrid IGZO display that could be read in direct sunlight

killer feature, even without retina
 
if they make a hybrid IGZO display that could be read in direct sunlight

killer feature, even without retina

IGZO is a transistor technology. The benifit to displays is that they are smaller than the conventional transistors, allowing more space for other pixel elements. (such as the aperture that allows light to pass through on an LCD)
 
Assuming there will be a kindle app for iPad mini, then bam. Problem solved.

That is, unless Amazon chooses not to support the iPad mini with their app, seeing as it might be the only way to save themselves.


And how is Amazon screwed here? haha

They seem to say, they make no money off hardware (Kindle devices). When an iPad user uses Kindle app, they are still using the Amazon ecosystem and kindle editions of their books. Everybody wins here! :D
 
Amazon has too much of an ecosystem apart from e-ink for them to be doomed by Apple. ;)
 
If the mini really is a hybrid with e-ink like readability, I would be in heaven.

I just need to figure out how to buy ebooks from Amazon without having to use vpn.
 
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