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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.

#141

Post by enjo »

achompas wrote: post #75

By far the most interesting quote from Siegler's article: Overall, the UI of this Kindle felt very responsive. You can flick through the carousel seamlessly. This is something Amazon has apparently been working on quite a bit, I’m told. And they continue to. If Amazon gets this right, they're a long way towards recreating the iPad UX. In fact, this entire article suggests that the Kindle tablet will be the first wide…

But we already have that. Why woud you buy it? Is it just that it's cheaper? Are developers going to want to build apps for it?

I think breaking away to complete Android incompatibility is a huge mistake.

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

#142

Post by nigham »

joebadmo wrote: post #128
chc wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has the means for production? Everyone has the means for production! It doesn't take some special equipment to write a book and publish it to the Kindle. People's ability to publish long-form writing is at an all-time high thanks to e-readers. The fact that the device used to create the content is different from the one people prefer to use to consume it doesn't really matter if everybody has both — which they do…

But my point is that if tablets, which people refer to as "post-PC" devices, in some significant measure replace PCs, then they only have consumption devices.

One reason for the popularity of these devices is that people are producing more content. Folks aren't watching CNN/BBC on an iPad but self produced Youtube videos and they're reading more than NY times bestsellers on a Kindle.

There is an assumption here that people with a PC will automatically become producers which I think is wrong. For people to become producers they need incentive and opportunity. These devices and the ease of content creation is means the opportunity bar is much lower (e.g. you don't need to get a publisher to agree on a manuscript to publish); and the incentive is higher (you can monetize content you produce whether its apps, books or videos much more easily).

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

#143

Post by swlkr »

sodiumjoe wrote: post #2

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…

I totally agree with this.

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

#144

Post by 6ren »

Won't be as successful as the Kindle, because the kindle is exceptionally tailored to its usage of buying and reading books - whereas this is android dragged half-way there. And android tablets haven't been doing well anyway (20:80), even the very best of them. The 3G kindle's tailoring is:

- free 3G (yes, free), to buy amazon books

- black and white E-Ink which is much closer to paper than colour displays.

- much lighter and slimmer (241grams; 8.5oz)

- long battery life (2 months - about x60 longer than a tablet), though this probably overshoots the need. i.e. they'd be better off using a smaller battery (or even AA batteries).

I'm so impressed with the Kindle because it resists trying to be the best at everything, but instead makes comprises that optimize it for its purpose. Whereas the Android tablet described here is much worse on all fronts and half-hearted as Android: neither fish nor fowl.

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

#145

Post by sgns »

Steko wrote: post #83
joebadmo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creation is much easier today, it's true. And for a while, it looked like the old model of a few rich broadcasting/production companies making things for the rest of us to sit at home and passivel consume was going away, replaced by a model where we all have the means to produce better and better stuff, where merit, originality, expressiveness, communication were rewarded more than the means to invest the necessary c…

I think the disconnect here is you're simply seeing the ipad as a pc replacement when the reality is the ipad is a new category that while partially replacing PCs also can partially replaces many other things: books, magazines, newspapers, the radio on your desk, the bedside clock, photo albums, etc. Someone like Ugh or myself sees you call all of this awesome a "step back" and laughs. I think you've sold the iPad sh…

Awesome take – it seems to suggest that what we're seeing is the creation of a new mobile nexus for people's work, slowly replacing the desktop as the center of our 'tool lives'.

EDIT: Replacing the desktop – AND drawing plenty of other old technologies into this new one.

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

#146

Post by achompas »

enjo wrote: post #141
achompas wrote: post #75

By far the most interesting quote from Siegler's article: Overall, the UI of this Kindle felt very responsive. You can flick through the carousel seamlessly. This is something Amazon has apparently been working on quite a bit, I’m told. And they continue to. If Amazon gets this right, they're a long way towards recreating the iPad UX. In fact, this entire article suggests that the Kindle tablet will be the first wide…

But we already have that. Why woud you buy it? Is it just that it's cheaper? Are developers going to want to build apps for it? I think breaking away to complete Android incompatibility is a huge mistake.

It's not just cheaper--it's 50% less than the price of a new iPad. That's a substantial difference.

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

#147

Post by sgns »

jccodez wrote: post #59
sodiumjoe wrote: post #2

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…

This whole thread is a great discussion. Commenting so I can come back and read the replies. I agree with many points regarding content creation vs. content consumption and the lines drawn between the two. I do believe the tablet is a great consumption device and that is a major function in the consumer market as well as business (even more so for business based on my experience with my software)

Yeah!

What's easily missed too is that the 'free creativity and production for all' ethos on the web – all the good stuff that got us here! - so far largely missed out on financing for most of the traditional cultural sectors. Much of what is most highly valued in our cultures has been woefully underfinanced for our entire lives.

The iPad/app model – positioned between all these previously-existing devices and media/content like books/mags/+ – at least makes a start for a venue, a potentially enormously widely available venue, for content producers where they can be discovered – consumed/networked and get paid for their work by a simply enormous audience.

This is not necessarily at all a boon for central distribution in the sense of the old massmedia institutions!

I'd say that Apple having a lock on it – to the extent that Apple IS the central distribution channel, even if Amazon's tablet is just around the corner! – is not as important as that they provide a relatively 'flat' market for distribution – as I perceive them to do right now. To my understanding, they're basically running their stores at break-even.

With Amazon coming into the picture, it's about to become SO interesting – there will be so many different business models: sellers of Gadgets, Content and Ads!

EDIT: typos

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

#148

Post by DasIch »

officemonkey wrote: post #131
estel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Against the baseline of an existing Kindle, email, web browsing, music, movies and Angry Birds are all apps.

Existing Kindles have email, web browsing, music, and games. True, there are limitations. Movies are the only "new" thing.

You can't seriously use any of them though, it's far to slow for that.

You buy a Kindle because you want to read books, if you really wanted all those other features you would buy an iPad which is actually good at them.

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

#149

Post by sgns »

joebadmo wrote: post #120
siglesias wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's try to clarify a little. There are two pillars to your argument, from what I can tell. 1) Content on post-PC devices is mediated through a central authority. You argue this is bad because presumably you cannot read whatever you want, but only what the central authority allows through. But reading whatever content you want is not enough, you also would have expected that any content you find out there that is op…

1) I actually don't have that much of a problem with the Kindle (the e-ink one), at least not as much as with the iPad, because it's not a replacement for the PC, which is a production device as well as a consumption device. The iPad, on the other hand, is a replacement for device for a large class of people, and it's optimized for the consumption of centrally mediated content. It's not strictly at odds with the web,…

Interesting perspective. I wonder how likely those for whom iPads are the only computing device today are to ever think of using the 'production tools' specific to the PC though.

Or is it simply that the iPad makes so much consumption so easy – on a PC NOTHING is very easy to do in comparison. It's a little bit like the idea that TV only is for kicking back, even though you can make very difficult content for it too – all creators exlore the nature of their medium/device, whether it be developers or content producers!

iMovie - plenty of amazing music-making apps in addition to Garageband – and an increasing number of outlining apps, OmniOutliner, productivity apps like OmniFocus – seem to suggest that appmakers are still only starting to explore what can be done with this new UI and what the usage scenarios are for this device. They're different!

TODAY, most of the apps existing presume that you have a PC, and indeed, until iOS 5 – soon coming out – you need a PC for backups and various device management tasks. That PC dependence will end, and with it maybe most of the need for tablets to be defined as complementary 'consumption' devices. How file management will work with apps in the iCloud is only about to start to get worked out. Indeed, looking at how the iCloud works suggests their vision of how people will use their various devices together – it's still quite untried!

So, I'd not say tablets are doomed to be for consumption – it's more of a market dynamics question, like you note, together with technology just getting created. It's really about what gets explored. And one can hardly say that the app store model can't be successful for those who want to create something new.

I'm hopeful – and also did some of my best work at that time on a Psion Series 5, back in 1998. For editing, the touch interface, with a stylus and a keyboard, turned out superior to desktop word processing - at least to me.

What we're getting away from is maybe the idea that work is done at a desktop – something that still lived on with laptops. It will partly be a sort of 'self-conscious' loop of what is possible to be done – what we make possible to be done – and how convenient and productive these tools then turn out. 'A bicycle for the mind' indeed...

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

#150

Post by sgns »

estel wrote: post #113
nigham wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A step backward is hardly the way I'd put it. Consumption-related technology as well as production related technologies are improving dramatically; we perceive the pace of consumption technology as being faster because consumption technology is far more applicable, and affects more users, and so it's more on the news. This is not a problem, there have always been more readers than writers, movie watchers than movie p…

With respect to app development, which has been incredible in how widespread it's become, it's possible it's just an extension of what the Web started: incredible democratisation of creation.

Great point! Illustrates just how we're still living with the implications of just how the first extremely undemocratic reality of 'code as content' – first encapsulated in program devlopment, then going through a slight democratization route regarding computer usage through the Macintosh, and moving on through the html web – still is playing out.

One can at least see that the path-to-market of content has been democratized with the web over time… and the App stores/'App paradigm' are also helpful in making it possible for more to program.

I think a big part of our dilemmas have had to do with how isolated and abstract programming and development have been compared to mainstream society. A relative 'mainstreaming' of programming is still an incredible thought – yet it is happening right now!

Whatever happens to our present jobs, I can't help but think that the infusion of new programming talent is about to create a new reality – a wave that could lift a great number of us – given appropriate channels for us all to contribute so much more than regular business logic programming - and us people practicing and getting ready to catch it!

(over the top eh? :)

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