181–190 of 318 posts
Funny how all of the e-ink kindles have 4:3 aspect ratio screens but the Fire is widescreen. It lends credibility to reports that it's based on a previously existing Android tablet design. Amazon must realise it's sub-optimal, but now developers will be stuck supporting it even if they later release a 4:3 device.
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The iPod Touch is a considerably worse iPod than its predecessors. This doesn't seem to have hurt its sales much, nor the iPod brand.
The iPod Touch is a killer 'gameboy' (as Nintendo is finding out ;-)
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I hesitate to agree because it seems like the iPad and Fire will provide different experiences. For what it's worth, I couldn't justify an iPad for $500. I would absolutely consider a Fire for $200 (or a Fire 3G for $250-300).
He or she is saying that some people who were not looking for the advanced features bought the iPad because it was the only tablet available beyond some minimum.
My mom (she's a minister) just got an iPad, when all she needed was a handheld device with which she can scroll the text of a eulogy, when she's at a grave doing a funeral. The lowliest of tablets can handle this task, but "iPad" is all people talk about. If Amazon can generate buzz -- and I think they can -- then it would certainly erode sales such as my mom's.
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The business model to compete with Apple has been known for extremely long: offer lesser products at lesser prices. Everyone else failed at the "lesser price" part. Amazon can pull it off, because they don't need to make money with the tablet: as long as it sells ebooks and movies, it remains profitable for them. Since there's nobody to challenge them on this market, they will get the volumes to drive the BOM prices…
> Everyone else failed at the "lesser price" part. Apple's operational mastery and their cornering of the NAND flash market in particular is a big part of this.
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I don't understand this rationale at all. How does the Kindle Fire devalue the Kindle brand name? The Fire is a different product from the e-ink Kindles. You can still say "get a Kindle touch for $99" or "get a Kindle with hard keys for $79."
Audio is the core feature of the original iPod. Reading is the core feature of the Kindle. Reading from an lcd screen is a significantly worse experience than from e-ink. My point is that Amazon releasing the Kindle Fire is akin to if Apple released the iPod Touch (which had new features such as web browsing, youtube etc.) with degraded 8-bit audio.
Audio quality was not. iPods never supported Ogg Vorbis or FLAC, for example.
Ultimately, some ppl like reading white-on-black text on LCDs at night instead of e-ink. LCDs aren't better or worse, they're just different. Matter of preference.
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Audio is the core feature of the original iPod. Reading is the core feature of the Kindle. Reading from an lcd screen is a significantly worse experience than from e-ink. My point is that Amazon releasing the Kindle Fire is akin to if Apple released the iPod Touch (which had new features such as web browsing, youtube etc.) with degraded 8-bit audio.
The iPod Touch is a considerably worse iPod than its predecessors. This doesn't seem to have hurt its sales much, nor the iPod brand.
It certainly has less drive space than older iPods, but I have yet to fill up my iPhone. I understand using the old iPod as a portable hard drive, but storing your entire music collection on it never made sense to me - which is why I gladly traded the smaller drive space for the better interface.
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Since there's nobody to challenge them on this market, they will get the volumes to drive the BOM prices down, too. Barnes & Noble is in this space too, and they have hundreds of stores that will serve as points-of-sale for the Nook. Don't forget them. EDIT: apologies to the European HNers. Still, those B&M stores in America are incredibly popular, making it easier for Barnes & Noble to find new Nook users.
> Still, those B&M stores in America are incredibly popular They're actually an albatross. Ask Borders how popular physical book stores are. B&N is only still alive because of its digital business. Barely alive too, Amazon is 150x larger in terms of market cap. Digital sales are up, physical sales are down and at the end of the quarter they are losing a lot of money. The Kindle line is sold in Target. I'd wager Targe…
Since vendors often pay retailers for prime shelf space, Amazon might in fact contribute to keeping Target stores open. Still, I get what you mean.
Buying a Fire so I can develop on it, but would also like something with e-ink, now that they are priced affordably.
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This is precisely what you want the consumer thinking, and it's amazing that a simple fact like that eluded the likes of Samsung, etc.
? How does this relate to Samsung? Their related phone and tablet devices are priced nearly identically to Apple's offerings with nearly identical specs.
In the face of that, the only rational area to compete in is offering a functionally similar product at a much lower price. But instead of attacking from below and, as the OP said, making consumers question the price tag, Samsung chose to attack from above by matching specs and price point. Riskier move that has now spectacularly failed.
I want to buy one, but I now have no idea which one to buy. Is the only difference between the Kindle and the touch the fact that you can touch it? What about the keyboard...is that useful or no? Buying a Fire so I can develop on it, but would also like something with e-ink, now that they are priced affordably.