Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles • Hacker News Board

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#21

Post by alex_c » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:28 PM UTC

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…

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

Any reference for that?

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#22

Post by jemfinch » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:28 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #11

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.

Despite 10 years of evidence to the contrary people keep telling themselves that Apple is going to change their device pricing due to pressure from the rest of the market. Good luck this time.

Only ten years of evidence? I still remember the Performa lines costing twice as much as a comparable PC. I wouldn't go so far as to call Apple products Veblen goods, but they're pretty close, and I don't see iPad's $500 pricing harming it in any way.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#23

Post by tewks » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:30 PM UTC

alex_c wrote: post #19

tewks wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not crazy and that conclusion is not unique to gruber. The screen area of the iPad is nearly 2x that of the fire. Resolution is 1.3x but pixel density will increase on iPad3. They are about as competitive as a 15" laptop is to a netbook: not very as they are physically quite different. The price difference reflects this.

No one buys tablets by the square yard, though. Lots of people seem to say that a 10" tablet is inherently better than a 7" tablet, but I think the market is still far too young to really know the winning form factor.

Actually, people do in fact choose tablets and laptops based on size. I'm not suggesting that either size is superior. They are clearly different.

Anecdotally, I find that the iPad size is great for a table/lap, but less great for holding, while I love the size/shape/weight of the Kindle2 for reading. I don't think any particular size will win out.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#24

Post by spiralganglion » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:31 PM UTC

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…

I have made a living as a musician, as a 3d animator, and as a software dev. My parents are both teachers. I did a lot of research in my University days.

In all of these areas, I can see the potential for multitouch-based applications that go far, far beyond what we're currently seeing, or have ever seen on a traditional mouse/keyboard computer. In fact, in my current line of work as a developer, I'm pursuing these very things.

If you're in a line of work where you're attempting to push the boundaries of what's possible with a computer, I find it hard to believe that you aren't fully aware of the realized and unrealized potential of multitouch devices.

Just because the iPad feels like a toy right now, doesn't mean it's limited to that sort of usage for all people, from now on. I just don't see Amazon playing any role in pushing user-facing technology forward. Silk is brilliant, but the Fire doesn't really enable anything that wasn't previously possible, and I don't see that changing. The iPad did.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#25

Post by jgmatpdx » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:33 PM UTC

spiralganglion wrote: post #14

jgmatpdx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logicians? I'm not seeing the iPad app to write math papers without, y'know, writing.

Logic is a game of symbols and relationships. The iPad is the best tool I've ever seen for working with symbols and relationships.

Being a practicing mathematician means generating and publishing results. I am interested to see your iPad app for diagonalization results or computability proofs.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#26

Post by jgmatpdx » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:36 PM UTC

spiralganglion wrote: post #24

ASDASDSDA wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have made a living as a musician, as a 3d animator, and as a software dev. My parents are both teachers. I did a lot of research in my University days. In all of these areas, I can see the potential for multitouch-based applications that go far, far beyond what we're currently seeing, or have ever seen on a traditional mouse/keyboard computer. In fact, in my current line of work as a developer, I'm pursuing these v…

I'm pretty sure by "feels like" you mean "is".

Maybe multitouch will make all kinds of exciting differences. Maybe it won't. As long as you agree that you can't point to any of these exciting results yet, we're on the same page.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#27

Post by guywithabike » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:36 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #11

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.

Despite 10 years of evidence to the contrary people keep telling themselves that Apple is going to change their device pricing due to pressure from the rest of the market. Good luck this time.

Remember when people said the iPod was doomed because of cheaper competition? That didn't work out so hot, I hear.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#28

Post by OpieCunningham » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:36 PM UTC

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…

Not sure how the Kindle Touch or Fire work, but iBooks and the Kindle app on iPad both have tap once to flip to the previous/next page (swiping is not required).

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#29

Post by jgmatpdx » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:36 PM UTC

alex_c wrote: post #21

ASDASDSDA wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Doctors need to enter lots of information and prefer a laptop / proper keyboard. Any reference for that?

I would also be mildly skeptical about that claim; I think there have been some fairly successful uses of custom UIs in medicine.

Re: Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

#30

Post by calloc » Wed, Sep 28, 2011, 10:36 PM UTC

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…

The Kindle app on Android/iOS already solve this problem, you tap the side of the page and it switches to the next page in the book. I've been reading REAMDE on my Samsung Galaxy S and on my iPhone and it works fantastically. Exactly as you'd hope it would work.

Quick easy to switch from one page to the next, all the whole still holding it in your hand.

I am assuming that the same concept will be brought over to the new touch Kindles.