U.S. Tablet Ownership Nearly Doubles over Holiday Season

[i.mac]

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But not everybody needs a car. Sometimes a bike is more suited to your needs.

True if you live all your life in a small country city in Cuba... And even then you'll need at least a horse to go work in the sugar cane and tobacco fields...

 

[LethalWolfe]

So what Amazon is doing is illegal?

No. Prices can competitive and products can be sold as loss leaders (both are common practices). What would be illegal is if Dominant Company A dropped prices on it products absurdly low for an extend period of time (like to the point that the whole company was losing money) for the specific purpose of driving its less wealthy competition out of business and the raised prices back to normal levels.

Like a lot of things, the difference between legal and not depends on the severity of the action and the situation. 1mph won't get your pulled over but 30mph over surely will. But if you are going 30mph over on the way to the hospital because the passenger in your car is bleeding to death and you are trying to save their life then you probably aren't going to get arrested.


Lethal

 

[JHankwitz]

If there were 200 million adults, this chart tells us that 24 million of them owned e-book readers on 5/11 and only 18 million owned them on 8/11. Hard to believe. Must be due to errors in the study. (Statistical or otherwise.)

The adults probably gave their e-book readers to their kids and purchased iPads for themselves. They ditched their junk and got the real thing.

 

[JHankwitz]

I'm just saying, if apple wanted to grab all that market share the kindle is stealing, they could very easily price match. It's not an opportunity most company's can afford even if they wanted to.

Screw market share. Companies, like all of us, are in business (or work) to make profit (get paid). Apple is doing a fairly good job of that.

 

[Renzatic]

The adults probably gave their e-book readers to their kids and purchased iPads for themselves. They ditched their junk and got the real thing.

If all I wanted to do was read books, I'd probably get a Kindle over an iPad. Why? It's considerably less expensive, and the screen is arguably better for reading text on for longer periods of time.

Hardly what I'd call junk. Rather, I consider it a more focused device.

 

[Ryth]

The trend I have personally seen is Parents buying the iPad for themselves but buying the Kindle Fire for their child. Being smaller, the Fire is easier to hold in the child's hands. The screen size with it's smaller finger target is no problem for a child's digits. The price is much easier to justify for such sophisticated technology.

I talked to one such parent recently and he explained that while he thinks the iPad is superior in just about every way, he couldn't even consider another $500 purchase for a Christmas gift for an 8-year old. The $199 was easier to swallow. Apps are cheap for the Fire, too. And he liked the fact that, because he is an Amazon Prime member, his son can stream movies and TV shows over wi-fi for free with the annual plan from Amazon.

Is it as fluid as an iPad? No. There are great limitations when comparing the two. However, the Fire software will continue to improve and become a better and better value, especially at the $199 price point.

When the iPad 3 hits, I think you'll have the ability to give the kids an iPad 1 or iPad 2. And who knows what Apple has up it's sleeve..maybe there will be a 7" factor.

Amazon won't be able to keep selling the Fire at a loss if the #s don't improve significantly for their return on the back end of it.

 

[jlhandy]

That graph is very interesting and it makes sense, the drop in e-readers during may and august seems predicable because its summer, I don't know how many people spend a lot of time reading over enjoy the warm summer weather... and before this winter I honestly thought the e-reader was going to die away but nearly everyone I know got a kindle or something similar for the holidays.

My prediction with 2012 is that 30-40% of the population will have some kind of tablet computer. I myself have been waiting for the iPad 3 to be released before jumping into the new marketplace.

 

[Old Muley]

My wife and I did our part this holiday season to boost this statistic.

 

[BeardedOrc]

Exactly...so why are they comparing a bicycle to a car then in these comparisons with the Kindle Fire and iPad. The Fire can't come close to doing what the iPad2 does in terms of quality, speed, ability, etc.

Because this bike owners were potential car owners. Extra cars that would have been sold otherwise. Kindle Fire, benefitting from Amazon brand name and ecosystem with lowered cost, made a pretty decent splash.

True if you live all your life in a small country city in Cuba... And even then you'll need at least a horse to go work in the sugar cane and tobacco fields...

Typical Apple elitist smug reply. If you don't have it, you can't afford it.

Maybe you've never lived in a big crowded city where everyday traffic would make you cringe, parking spot is never to be seen and costs a kidney in black market. Sometimes, you're better off with bike, public transportation and taxi combo... As usual, YMMV

 

[iEvolution]

You know if it wasn't for my kindle fire I wouldn't even consider getting an ipad now that I have the kindle fire I do want to upgrade to a full-fledge tablet with more features. If it wasn't for the kindle fire price point I wouldn't even be interested in the ipad at this point.

.. and some of you acting like the ipad is the only tablet out there is like someone saying windows is the only operating system out there, it may be dominant but that doesn't mean there isn't some good alternatives out there.