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Amazon to Unveil the "Kindle Fire"
- recoiledsnake 15y agoI like the play on the words, but wary of headlines like "Can the Kindle Fire kindle fire in the tablet market?"
- 7952 15y agoa better name would be "the kindle tablet"
- danilocampos 15y agoThat would be a great name if they were in this to sell hardware. Boom – it's a Kindle, and a tablet, here it is, buy it. But I'm not sure that would address Amazon's goals here. Amazon doesn't want to sell you a tablet. At all. They want to sell you digital content. But until we jack right into our occipital lobes, they're stuck needing a medium upon which to display that content. So they sell you a "Kindle Fire." What is that? Well, Amazon gets to define that for themselves, rather than being freighted with all the expectations that "tablet" carries. Which, now that I think about it, worked pretty well for Apple, too.
- RustyM 15y agoOr "Kindle Prime". But who knows? I thought iPad was silly name at first. "Too close to iPod." Seems to work now.
- hackinthebochs 15y agoExactly. I've come realized that names just don't matter. We associate our feelings towards a product to the name. The name is simply an anchor to connect all our disparate experiences. The name Google would have seemed silly at first but now it commands respect around the world. The only exception to this are names that carry a connotation to begin with. Positive connotations to whatever product you're hawking is a huge boon. Negative connotations can be a black cloud you may never get out from under. Tablet these days seem to be the latter. Amazon was right to ditch the straight-jacket and allow the device to define itself.
- rubinelli 15y agoThe problem with "Kindle Prime" is that it takes two of Amazon's strongest brand names and muddles them. Reminds me of Microsoft's marketing back in the early 2000's where they'd append .Net to everything, or take a sqlite-like library for smartphones and call it "SQL Server 2003 Compact Edition."
- xnxn 15y agoMy favorite of these is from Ars Technica: "Magic Trackpad or tragic Mac pad?"
- andrewljohnson 15y agoIt ended up being the latter.
- r00fus 15y agoI prefer what B&N did with the Nook vs. Nook Color.
- f7u12 15y agoAfter waiting for this for a long time, I'm disappointed to hear the specs of the fire. I hope it really isn't android 2.1 with their own UI. I have faith in cyanogen to fix it though :)
- blinkingled 15y ago"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+. Then there is competition from the likes of Archos and you can take their $299 Honeycomb 3.2 tablet and run everything Amazon has to offer on it - Kindle, MP3, Instant video etc.
- stuartjmoore 15y agoI'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.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- joebadmo 15y agoIt matters a bit. With 2.2 (Froyo), they added a JIT Compiler that, in my experience (upgrading from 2.1 to 2.2), resulted in a drastic performance improvement. [Edit: This was on my phone. Sibling response from stonemetal provides interesting counterpoint.]
- angryasian 15y agoyes 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.
- fpgeek 15y agoDitto. I wasn't expecting much from Gingerbread on my G2 and I was pleasantly surprised.
- wccrawford 15y agoNothing but unsubstantiated rumors.
- joenathan 15y agoThat mockup has enough bezel for a few tablets...
- danilocampos 15y agoThe same was said about the iPad but it turns out you need a place to put your thumbs.
- r00fus 15y agoTotally agreed, but on a 7" screen this width of bezel looks much worse than an iPad.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- simplegeek 15y agoSlightly off topic, has anyone successfully sold any ebooks on Amazon? Would love to ask few questions, if possible via email.
- nextparadigms 15y agoThey out-sourced the design to Quanta, and it's similar to the Playbook. What does this mean? It means RIM must've outsourced the design for the Playbook to Quanta, too, otherwise they'd be all over Amazon with a lawsuit when they launch. That's just sad. RIM is in a worse position in the tech world than we think it is. Regarding the Kindle Fire, I just hope it's not as heavy and thick as a Playbook. It should be more like the Galaxy Tab 7.7 which is very light (~330 grams) and very thin (7.9 mm)
- dskhatri 15y agoDoesn'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.
- jarek 15y agoBecause Samsung, who have been firing all patent/IP guns they can find at Apple, aren't a strong partner? Because HTC aren't? I'm sure Google will welcome an extra ally, but very significant seems like a bit of an overstatement.
- RexRollman 15y agoAmazon does have a licensing agreement in place with Microsoft over the current Kindles.
- gxs 15y agoAmazon has a cross licensing deal with MS for access to each others patents. http://www.pcworld.com/article/195151/htc_cuts_licensing_deal_with_microsoft_for_android_phones.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/195151/htc_cuts_licensing_dea...
- jessriedel 15y agoStill waiting for a device that will let me read PDF's and take hand-written notes on them. I assume the only input here is touch, and maybe a few buttons?
- twodayslate 15y agoI want color e-ink.
- jodrellblank 15y agoand?
- jasongullickson 15y ago"While that store doesn’t offer all the apps found in Google’s Android Market..." With tablet hardware providing little differentiation, software is the main value proposition. In light of this, providing a subset of the second largest app selection is a questionable move.
- jarek 15y agoThis is Amazon. Content is their value proposition.
- officemonkey 15y agoYou're still thinking apps. Amazon features the largest eBookstore, one of the largest MP3 stores, one of the largest tv/movie streaming libraries. That's the value proposition. I think the App store is going to be like the Browser on the kindle: some will use it, but it's not going to be the main focus.
- flocial 15y agoThe next generation e-ink tablet hybrid is when the real battle begins. Not sure they even needed to release this even to get their foot in the door. What's their differentiation? It just makes the iPad look like it's better value to me.
- vl 15y agoThey haven't leaked the most interesting facts: device price and data-plan pricing model. Is it going to be carrier-price based or content subsidized like on Kindle Ice?
- ck2 15y agoI highly doubt they'd put 2.1 on a dual core.
- Kaya 15y agoI'm a bit pessimistic; if the hardware is old and rushed, why would the software or overall experience be any better? I suspect Lab126 is cooking up something much better--but, unfortunately, it's not yet ready for prime time.