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Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

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Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#91

Post by Steko »

tomkarlo wrote: post #83
burgerbrain wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expensiv…

Famous Steve story I saw last month when he retired about how people at Apple wanted to attack all the mp3 markets from the start but he forced them to focus focus focus on the one big model to get it perfect. Two years later they opened it up, something I take it we'll see with the low end phone and eventually with ipads too.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#93

Post by lukifer »

nextparadigms wrote: post #49
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 iPad is not a laptop killer for people who want to be productive on it. Period. If they want to make the iPad a laptop killer, they first need to make it more like Asus's Transformer, with a keyboard dock, and second, they need to get more apps on iOS that can replace people's need for Windows apps.

In fairness, "productive" is highly domain-specific. If your version of that is something like reading legal briefs, or drawing free-hand sketches, or collecting survey results from passersby, an iPad could be very productive indeed.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#94

Post by tzs »

ASDASDSDA wrote: post #16
spiralganglion wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Musicians, artists, animators, ??? Any serious professional will have a maxed out task specific equipment. logicians?? Lol I take it that you are not being serious! teachers, doctors, researchers! haha Doctors need to enter lots of information and prefer a laptop / proper keyboard. As far as researchers are concerned any serious researcher will be either using legacy software or cutting edge software that runs on spe…

> haha Doctors need to enter lots of information and prefer a laptop / proper keyboard

You are just making that up, right?

Health care is the one area where tablets did very well even before the iPad, and iPads have proven to be popular among doctors.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#95

Post by mturmon »

sliverstorm wrote: post #51
phillmv wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much a real laptop replacement as it is a "computing device while on the go". Whereas four years ago you'd get a netbook, now… you kind of need a good reason not to get an iPad/Fire. It's a subset of computing. I have my main work laptop, which I'm not going to take camping or up to the cottage. In this space, a tablet is perfect but we used to settle for a "meh laptop".

What you say would be very astute, if the iPad price range was not $500-800, compared to the $380 I paid for a relatively high-end dual-core netbook with discrete graphics not 6 months ago, or the $300 I paid for a middle-of-the-road dual-core netbook for my parents. I also really needed a keyboard, but that's not even the main issue.

This line of thinking ("netbooks offer more capability for less money") makes sense to some customers, but not to many others: Apple is predicted to sell ~40 million iPads this year.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#96

Post by tzs »

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…

One of the things that I really liked about my first generation Kindle was the big buttons on the edges for page turning.

It meant that on cold nights, I could read holding the Kindle through my blanket in bed, and could turn pages just be bumping the side through the blanket with my other hand.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#97

Post by pyre »

mturmon wrote: post #95
sliverstorm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say would be very astute, if the iPad price range was not $500-800, compared to the $380 I paid for a relatively high-end dual-core netbook with discrete graphics not 6 months ago, or the $300 I paid for a middle-of-the-road dual-core netbook for my parents. I also really needed a keyboard, but that's not even the main issue.

This line of thinking ("netbooks offer more capability for less money") makes sense to some customers, but not to many others: Apple is predicted to sell ~40 million iPads this year.

That does not imply that: 1) those same people would have bought a netbook had the iPad never come out and 2) those people view it as a laptop replacement.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#98

Post by alttag »

sliverstorm wrote: post #35
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 that makes the iPad a possible laptop replacement, but the Fire not? I don't think the iPad is that much more a real laptop replacement than the Fire. I think people bill it as one to themselves to help justify paying for an iPad.

Of the 10-or-so iPad users I know (all from different industries), about half of them use it as a replacement for a laptop, but not necessarily as a desktop replacement.

Anecdotal, yes, but compelling in that those it's a replacement solution for have been strongest in their iPad evangelism.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#99

Post by alttag »

Steko wrote: post #87
InclinedPlane wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, he's complimentary, but as someone who often agrees with Gruber, even I found that part a little jarring. I think he's mostly right on this one, but if anything, too conservative about the potential for the Fire.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#100

Post by doron »

Strange that he does not mention Android at all, maybe its his disdain to the platform, but its a strong advantage .

I bet software in the Amazon app store will work right out of the gate, that's a ready made eco system in a new device

The fire will benefit from the Android development community. this is a great win. And that Gruber, is what it means that the platform is open. Everybody benefits, and the platform is agile enough to afford different business models

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