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Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

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Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#51

Post by moe »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #48
moe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really only two tablet speeds; "smooth" (ipad) and "jaggy" (android). If amazon makes their tablet "smooth" then that will be an achievement independently and despite of android - not due to a specific android version. And before the android-fanboys crawl out of the woodwork: The "next version" is always supposed to finally solve the lags, by virtue of some awesome software-fix or raw dual-core power. However…

Having used an SGS2 (the Sprint variant) for the past few days, you're crazy. If anything, it's almost a little too fast.

Give it a few weeks. It has an unfortunate tendency to degrade over time.

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#52

Post by RexRollman »

dskhatri wrote: post #30

Doesn't anyone else see how the Kindle Fire is very significant for Google, despite the fact that Google may see no revenue from this product? Google now has a strong partner in its Android patent war, unless Amazon has paid license fees to the likes of Oracle, which would then undermine Google's position.

Amazon does have a licensing agreement in place with Microsoft over the current Kindles.

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#53

Post by blinkingled »

kenjackson wrote: post #45
blinkingled wrote: post #5

"based on Android 2.1" Ugh. Android is after all cursed on the Tablet and Amazon is just doing their bit. Very disappointing - ridiculous in fact given there should be literally no excuse to put 2.1 on modern hardware. Oh and no Email client and no Google integration if that wasn't enough. [Edit] Consider JIT (2.2+) and low pause GC (2.3+) that they will be missing. Also consider Flash support which is also 2.2+. The…

Very disappointing - ridiculous in fact given there should be literally no excuse to put 2.1 on modern hardware. Amazon's a pretty big SW company. I wouldn't be surprised if they started their fork with 2.1, but will bare no resemblance to it. Amazon may have their own internal Android fork built up now and may not merge back with the Google version of Android. I don't think Amazon wants Google to control their desti…

Sure, but what happens when Google's Android market place remains dominant, they release new versions of Android for Tablet and SmartPhone that become incompatible with Amazon's version of Amadroid? It doesn't have to be forever - if new games, new high-demand software is released for Android phones and Tabelts, even if it takes 6 months for Amazon to make their OS compatible and 6 more for app developers to put out their apps on Amazon App Store - they lose. Amazon doesn't make phones - Google and its partners do and that's where most of the Android app ecosystem is focused.

I honestly don't think Amazon will take that risk - their changes are going to be cleanly designed such that they can pull Google's AOSP code, merge their changes and crank out their own updates. I can't see Amazon developing 2.1 code base without merging Google's bits from newer releases - there is just no way they are going to be able to catch up with all the stuff Google and co. are putting in Android - they will never have that kind of expertise unless they hire people from Google/Android team which I find somewhat far fetched.

Keeping up with the releases from 2.1 and going to 4.0 is going to be a huge pain. And that will be required for compatibility sooner or later.

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#54

Post by blinkingled »

stonemetal wrote: post #34
stuartjmoore wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an Android dev (yet), but does it matter much outside of the UI? Honeycomb isn't open source, so 2.* is all they can use without talking to Google. Seeing as how Ice Cream Sandwich is meant to better unify the APIs, I don't mind if they skip Honeycomb as long as they do get on track eventually.

When the nook went from 2.1 to 2.2 there wasn't a noticeable difference in responsiveness. So my guess is it was a big benchmark win but not a big usability win unless you were trying to do number crunching on a tablet.

I had noticeably less UI stutter and freezes going from 2.1 to 2.2 on my Nexus One. 2.3 made it a new phone - the low pause GC really makes a difference for UI responsiveness.

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#55

Post by fpgeek »

angryasian wrote: post #16
stuartjmoore wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an Android dev (yet), but does it matter much outside of the UI? Honeycomb isn't open source, so 2.* is all they can use without talking to Google. Seeing as how Ice Cream Sandwich is meant to better unify the APIs, I don't mind if they skip Honeycomb as long as they do get on track eventually.

yes android 2.2 and 2.3 introduces significant performance improvements, that are definitely noticeable. Just moving from froyo to gingerbread, feels like a new phone.

Ditto. I wasn't expecting much from Gingerbread on my G2 and I was pleasantly surprised.

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#56

Post by ronnoch »

rkudeshi wrote: post #40
megablast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it uses color eInk, it is not going to be that good at reading books.

Little-known fact: the Nook Color (vastly) outsells the e-ink Nook. I was surprised too.

Maybe people who want e-ink just buy a Kindle.

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#58

Post by wanorris »

blinkingled wrote: post #39
Steko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"to ship modern OS" Amazon's customizations are purportedly deeper and better then Honeycomb. Proof will be in the pudding of course but if you were doing a significant fork you can't just keep restarting over and over to incorporate everything Google is doing too.

In that case it would be a huge gaffe on Amazon's part. Amazon will have to be responsible for the full OS and it will be a nightmare for them to integrate whatever Google is pushing out every 6 months, including security fixes. But let's put that aside - think about compatibility from user stand point. Google's app store is still the main Android app store and is likely to be so going forward. If Google and its part…

Keep in mind that it wouldn't be particularly difficult for the Kindle tablet to outsell all the other Android tablets put together. If that proves to be the case, why would they have any difficulty attracting apps?

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#59

Post by CamperBob »

danilocampos wrote: post #12
blinkingled wrote: post #5

"based on Android 2.1" Ugh. Android is after all cursed on the Tablet and Amazon is just doing their bit. Very disappointing - ridiculous in fact given there should be literally no excuse to put 2.1 on modern hardware. Oh and no Email client and no Google integration if that wasn't enough. [Edit] Consider JIT (2.2+) and low pause GC (2.3+) that they will be missing. Also consider Flash support which is also 2.2+. The…

> Very disappointing - ridiculous in fact given there should be literally no excuse to put 2.1 on a modern hardware. There's a more than reasonable reason : Perhaps Amazon's project froze that portion of the code at some point during 2010. They're shipping v1 of a brand new product based on heavily customized code. At some point, you need to eliminate moving targets if you're ever going to ship. Amazon's use of Andro…

Enough to make Apple sweat a bit.

Rest assured, nothing based on Android 2.1 is going to do that.

Re: Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"

#60

Post by CamperBob »

ronnoch wrote: post #56
rkudeshi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little-known fact: the Nook Color (vastly) outsells the e-ink Nook. I was surprised too.

Maybe people who want e-ink just buy a Kindle.

Or maybe people who want e-ink are a single-digit percentage of the market.
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