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Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

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Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#11
This could become a potential nightmare for app developers. Assuming they don't break public APIs in their custom fork, developers are still going to need to worry about backward compatibility and not being able to provide advanced features for their apps on Android devices. Couple that with problems with payments/in-app purchases and this is just a nightmare waiting to happen for Android developers.

If the forked-OS stuff is true, this feels like a bad move by Amazon.

Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#12
post #3

If Amazon are going to maintain an Android fork, I wonder how well Android apps will be able to play with it. It would be a huge disappointment if 2.2+ apps were unavailable (or installing Google Market for that matter). I can see why Amazon has gone down this path, but I do wonder if it's the right thing, rather than doing everyone's favorite/most hated carrier-specific bolt-ons instead. I also hope that Amazon does…

The Nook actually already does the same thing. No Market, but a vibrant hacker community based around it.

Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#14
post #7

I think it's interesting that everybody is attempting to differentiate on top of the Android kernel, and are forced to build their own skin to compete. Free Prime memebership (for life?) is interesting. Amazon has a big content catalog, and it makes a hell of a lot more sense for them to go this alone and not be forced to use Google's shit app store. Overall, I think they'll have trouble differentiating between them…

Prime membership is a genius move by Amazon. Since getting Prime I buy things at the drop of a hat. I literally think I order about 10x more product from Amazon now than before Prime. The fact they can give this away as a benefit is a double win for them.

Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#15

In certain ways, this "post-PC" era that Apple's brought us into with the iPad seems like a step backward. We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. These tablets just keep getting more and more optimized for that. I suppose it's somewhat natural, given the way the market works, but it seems our…

Whut?

I just happily browsed the web, listened to podcasts, checked my RSS feeds and flicked through my Twitter stream for six hours during a train ride on my iPad. All tasks for which the iPad – or more general the tablet form factor – is ideal.

I think your argument is incoherent.

Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#17
Google's applications are not part of Android.

Putting a skin on Android and not shipping it with Google apps is NOT a fork. Even if you want to consider it one in a technical definition, it's not a significant one. It's as much a fork of Android as CyanogenMod is. (CM does not come with Google Apps, though they can be added after-the-fact).

Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#18

In certain ways, this "post-PC" era that Apple's brought us into with the iPad seems like a step backward. We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. These tablets just keep getting more and more optimized for that. I suppose it's somewhat natural, given the way the market works, but it seems our…

> our tools for consumption are advancing at a significantly greater rate than our tools for production

Our tools for production have advanced as far as they can—what major changes have the desktop and laptop PC had over the last five years?

Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#19
post #15

In certain ways, this "post-PC" era that Apple's brought us into with the iPad seems like a step backward. We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. These tablets just keep getting more and more optimized for that. I suppose it's somewhat natural, given the way the market works, but it seems our…

Whut? I just happily browsed the web, listened to podcasts, checked my RSS feeds and flicked through my Twitter stream for six hours during a train ride on my iPad. All tasks for which the iPad – or more general the tablet form factor – is ideal. I think your argument is incoherent.

All the things you just listed are forms of consumption, not production.

The argument seems coherent enough to me. I'm not entirely convinced about the "centralized authority" part, but the "tools for consumption advancing faster than tools for production" seems true (and inevitable).

Re: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.

#20

In certain ways, this "post-PC" era that Apple's brought us into with the iPad seems like a step backward. We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. These tablets just keep getting more and more optimized for that. I suppose it's somewhat natural, given the way the market works, but it seems our…

Can you explain how a tablet-form Kindle is more centralized and passive than one with physical keys? I don't follow.
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