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Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

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Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#81

Post by dr_ »

vailripper wrote: post #7

I don't understand this:"The iPad is a credible laptop replacement for many people and with iCloud and another year or two of hardware improvements, that’s going to be true for more and more people. The Kindle Fire is a laptop replacement for almost no one. It’s a peripheral, not a second computer and it’s priced accordingly. " What is it that makes the iPad a possible laptop replacement, but the Fire not? To me, the…

The statement may be true as far as things stand now, but you are correct, in the future there's no reason the Fire couldn't be replacing laptops the same way the iPad may.

In it's current iteration, the Fire seems to be focused on selling Amazon content and products. It doesn't even include an email app, although one can apparently be downloaded from their app store.

The iPad, however, appears to be moving beyond simply the consumption of content pretty soon. There are productivity tools available for the iPad, but the input methods are limited. With solid speech recognition, however, this could change, and this is what the next generation iOS appears to offer. I don't have an iPad, but I already use my iPhone to scan pages using JotNot and then send them to my dropbox. I also sign off documents using EasySign. If I had an iPad I would create or modify my documents using it, but that's a pain with their keyboard - however solid speech recognition would work well for me. I'm a physician and we dictate all the time. At that point I could consider it to replace my laptop.

But there is no reason Amazon couldn't offer any of this in the longer run.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#82

Post by CJefferson »

spiralganglion wrote: post #9
jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #4

He's crazy to assume that the Kindle Fire isn't competitive with the iPad, or that the $199 price point isn't going to at least partially inform the pricing of the iPad 3. The days of the $700 tablet are over.

As soon as we see people getting work done on the Kindle Fire, I'll grant you that. If your work involves a lot of writing, then the iPad isn't an obvious boon [1]. But if you can do your work more efficiently by treating data and actions as symbols, the iPad is just overflowing with potential, much of it already being realized. Musicians, artists, animators, logicians, teachers, doctors, researchers; the list of pro…

You mention researchers and logicians using the iPad. Can you give any examples?

I tried using the iPad, but the lack of support for LaTeX or papers in svn, git or mercurial repositories made it completely unusable for anything resembling work.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#83

Post by tomkarlo »

burgerbrain wrote: post #59
tomkarlo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they release it because they were losing money to competitors, or because they were leaving money on the table with their existing price points? I suspect the latter.

They were losing out on customers so they released an el-cheapo piece of crap. This is my point.

Losing out on customers to who? Or just missing out on selling to customers who wanted a cheaper option? Those are two very different things.

I don't think they release the shuffle because their higher-priced products were suffering in comparison to budget competitors. They released the shuffle because there was demand at the $100 price point that they could profitably address without undercutting their more expensive products.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#84

Post by Someone »

ctdonath wrote: post #6

"You can get a Kindle Fire and a new top-of-the-line e-ink Kindle Touch for less than the price of an iPad. It’s a very different take." But few will want to carry both. This is the one problem with non-general-purpose tablets. Various discussions I've seen today imply, by intent or by chance, getting more than one tablet. To succeed in the long run, users must see the device as My One Tablet - which will include any…

"tablet. To succeed in the long run, users must see the device as My One Tablet"

I do not think that is the only solution. Windows 8 aims for "a device that, on my request, can behave as if it is mine". That aims at a future where tablets/laptops/phones/ebook readers are plentiful, and, oftentimes, the only thing users carry around (if even that) is the key that makes those devices 'theirs' on demand (see also: Star Trek. Ever seen anybody there who said: hey, that's mine!?)

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#85

Post by Steko »

watty wrote: post #65
vailripper wrote: post #7

I don't understand this:"The iPad is a credible laptop replacement for many people and with iCloud and another year or two of hardware improvements, that’s going to be true for more and more people. The Kindle Fire is a laptop replacement for almost no one. It’s a peripheral, not a second computer and it’s priced accordingly. " What is it that makes the iPad a possible laptop replacement, but the Fire not? To me, the…

You don't understand because it's bullshit from a notoriously biased source. The iPad is high end, Fire is low end. But if the iPad "replaces laptops" so will the Fire. There's no argument.

Here's an argument:

Newegg offers 127 netbooks.

Newegg offers 2 netbooks with a screen under 9 inches, 1 with a screen under 8 inches.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#86

Post by jurjenh »

dascripter wrote: post #3

One thing that I have a problem with is the complaints about the Kindle buttons. As much as I see people try and use the Kindle as a touch screen, I would not want it to be. I like the button press because I don't have to move my hand from holding the device. If I had to physically swipe my finger everytime I wanted to move to the next page I could see that being very annoying. The two reasons I really love my Kindle…

Funny that you complain about page turning... for hundreds of years, it has required an extended physical movement to turn the page.

Amazing the times we live in, that page turning has become an effort that becomes annoying. Combined with our tendency to be less physical active, we are heading to a (physically) stationary future...

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#87

Post by Steko »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #66
vailripper wrote: post #7

I don't understand this:"The iPad is a credible laptop replacement for many people and with iCloud and another year or two of hardware improvements, that’s going to be true for more and more people. The Kindle Fire is a laptop replacement for almost no one. It’s a peripheral, not a second computer and it’s priced accordingly. " What is it that makes the iPad a possible laptop replacement, but the Fire not? To me, the…

What is it? It's raw, unfiltered bias of course. There's very little reason why the Kindle Fire won't be a strong iPad competitor. Tablets are primarily used for browsing, reading, and casual gaming. It seems like Kindle Fire will succeed in hitting each one of those bullet points.

Did you even read the article? He's very complimentary of everything Amazon's doing here.

Leave it to HN to zero in on the one critical thing he says and blow it up as HUGE BIAS TYPICAL GRUBER FANBOY.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#88

Post by jroid »

mrchess wrote: post #31

I think the Kindle light is a great idea. I just scooped one myself. I rarely used the keyboard on my original Kindle, plus this one is much slimmer and compact -- awesome. Can't wait for the light to come in. Personally I think a touchpad Kindle with eink is overkill. The touchpad is nice, but I don't see why I would ever need it if I'm just casually reading. That plus I'm a sucker for slimness and the added dimensi…

I think touch is useful, if you browse a lot. Using keyboard to navigate links is hard.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#89

Post by angus77 »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #57
jmonegro wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the iPad has many more apps (at least for the moment) and a bigger screen, both of which make it more suitable for light-to-medium work stuff. For example, I can perfectly imagine (and there are many cases of this) a college student passing up on buying a laptop for class and opt for an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard instead. In this scenario, this setup can effectively replace a computer for most students most…

How does one type on a seven-inch tablet? Typing on the iPad is bad enough, but at least its long dimension is about the right size. Presumably typing on a seven-inch tablet is reminiscent of typing on the iPad in portrait mode. Which is annoying. To the point where I'd rather type on the iPhone, where at least I can reach everything with thumbs alone.

There are Swype, SlideIT and ShapeWriter sliding inputs available for Android devices that you can't get for iOS devices. I use the (unfortunately discontinued) ShapeWriter on my Desire phone, and it's awesome. The keyboard for the iPad is a chore to use.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#90

Post by schleyfox »

bsuto wrote: post #55
mrchess wrote: post #31

I think the Kindle light is a great idea. I just scooped one myself. I rarely used the keyboard on my original Kindle, plus this one is much slimmer and compact -- awesome. Can't wait for the light to come in. Personally I think a touchpad Kindle with eink is overkill. The touchpad is nice, but I don't see why I would ever need it if I'm just casually reading. That plus I'm a sucker for slimness and the added dimensi…

Ditto. There've already been multiple posts saying "don't get the base model instead of the touch" that I don't understand. Their "touch" screen uses infrared instead of a capacitive or resistive panel, and I anticipate lots of accidental and frustrating page turns. It looks like the touch model has no side buttons from the press photos, so tapping on the screen is necessary instead of applying slightly more pressure…

The one major advantage of the keyboard on the old models (and why I'm glad they are still being sold) is for students using ebooks in class. For my literature discussions we often have to reference specific sections so the keyboard, while crap, allows you to quickly search out a key phrase in the section under discussion. Page number mappings are still not all that available and often time off of weird editions that aren't even close to standard real paperback editions.
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