7 ms·

Daring Fireball: Amazon's New Kindles

137 points by krishna2 15y ago

krishna2 15y ago
From another daring-fireball article: Q: How many times does the word “Android” appear on Amazon’s Kindle Fire page? A: Once, in the following sentence: “Additional email apps are available in our Amazon Appstore for Android.” It’s a Kindle tablet, not an Android tablet.
- inconditus 15y ago
  On a side note, the Fire will not be able to download from the Google Android app store.
- doron 15y ago
  From a development perspective its an Android. Write once,.sell in two stores. Let's see how it goes
dascripter 15y ago
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 are for the digital distribution and the form factor. I can no longer read paperback books. I find holding them to be just unpleasent and not near as enjoyable as the Kindle. And I think a swipe page turning mechanism is a backward step in how I move through my book.
- OpieCunningham 15y ago
  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).
  - rg 15y ago
    Kindle app on Android phones also uses single tap to page; it's extremely convenient (compared to the old Kindle with physical buttons which I also use). Touch for paging is certainly no worse than the old buttons, and--really--the keyboard and cursor control on the old Kindle are just about useless. ("Up, up, up, left, down, down, up, ..." is hard to take after having a touch device.)
- calloc 15y ago
  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.
- jurjenh 15y ago
  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...
  - pyre 15y ago
    Well, we've removed the 'annoyance' with the original Kindle, why make an effort to put it back in? What does touch add over the use of buttons (other than, "Look! We're using a new technology, therefore it's better and you should buy one!")?
  - unfed 15y ago
    Reminds me the overweight people on the WALL-E spaceship
  - icebraining 15y ago
    > Amazing the times we live in, that page turning has become an effort that becomes annoying. Or it always was, and people just didn't have a choice.
- tzs 15y ago
  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.
- lukifer 15y ago
  I really like how the Nook Touch handles it: subtle physical buttons (with little risk of accidental presses), or you can swipe, or you can tap on the screen. I use all three methods, depending on how I'm holding it in that moment. I don't even have to think about it, and the immersion of reading is unbroken.
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
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.
- krishna2 15y ago
  I agree. I also think that the damage is going to be more for current-android-tablet makers, such as Samsung, Acer, Asus, Viewsonic ..etc. More so to the ones who price their tablets above $400. Everyone's going to compare them to the Fire and say, "Why even consider anything when I can get this for half the price?". Pretty safe to say, Amazon's tablet is going to beat all the other android-tablets.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    It's hard to know what to do with that information in a world in which the current android tablet makers can barely give their devices away.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    That makes no sense. I think $199 is a great deal for a 7" tablet, and they will sell like hotcakes. But anyone selling a $400+ tablet is offering a 10.1" screen. This is a completely different user experience, and very likely a different market. Persoanlly, I don't even understand the attraction of a 7" tablet. I'm quite OK with paying 2x the price for something that's about the same size as a sheet of paper or a textbook, however.
- tewks 15y ago
  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.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
ctdonath 15y ago
"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 anywhere/anytime Internet connectivity (note the absence of a Fire 3G).
- tsm 15y ago
  If I have the money, I'd be just as glad to separate my ebook-reading from everything else. When I read an ebook, I do want an eInk screen, ridiculous battery life, and no distracting apps or websites.
  - wanorris 15y ago
    My problem is that I ultimately find an e-ink Kindle too limited as a reading device. I have a substantial number of ebooks in PDF format, and only a minority of them are effectively readable on my 2nd gen Kindle. (There are other use cases like comics and cookbooks where e-ink falls down on the job as well.) Honestly, my Android phone with ezPDF is a better reader. So something like this looks just about perfect.
    - tsm 15y ago
      My completely subjective personal preference is better than your completely subjective personal preference! No, in all seriousness you make a good point about PDFs. I eventually realized that reading, say, a programming book was best done with a dead tree and that I should stop struggling with my Kindle. As a PDF, the text was a bit too small. As a converted document, the reflowed text killed the formatting, which was also no fun. Full-size PDF would be nice.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  I currently carry around an MBP and a kindle. I could see (in some hypothetical, far-flung future where touchscreen keyboards weren't utter crap) dropping the laptop for a tablet, but I could never see dropping eInk for anything suitable for a general-purpose tablet. Barring some eInk-led hybrid, I simply can't see using a general-purpose tablet as a reading device. The kindle is simply far too good. I've been reading ebooks on my laptop for years, and I've read more books in the six months since I've gotten my kindle than I had in the 6 years prior. It's just that good. The kindle isn't a tablet. It's your library in your pocket. Don't confuse form with function.
vailripper 15y ago
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 primary market for people replacing laptops with a tablet are casual users, many of whom care more about content and entertainment than producitivity, in which case it would seem the Fire would be equal to, if not beating, the iPad.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  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.
  - phillmv 15y ago
    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".
    - sliverstorm 15y ago
      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.
      - phillmv 15y ago
        <I also really needed a keyboard, but that's not even the main issue Well, considering the iPad lacks a keyboard, I'd say that's a pretty big issue at least. >for my parents. PERSONALLY, I would happily pay the premium if it means I never have to field a support call ever again. Tradeoffs! Also your parents might not appreciate playing games or watching movies on the couch as much as other people might, yadda yadda.
mrchess 15y ago
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 dimensions killed it for me :)
- bsuto 15y ago
  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 to the bezel you're already holding. This may just be me, but I find that to work just fine. The battery life of the base model is half that of the touch model, sure, but it's still a month. Is that really a problem for anyone? They can't use an outlet or USB port four hours a month? Trimming space by getting rid of the keyboard and speeding up page turn "flashes" are great upgrades to an already great device.
  - schleyfox 15y ago
    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.
- jroid 15y ago
  I think touch is useful, if you browse a lot. Using keyboard to navigate links is hard.
sigzero 15y ago
I know it's subjective but I think they blew it on the size.
zyb09 15y ago
This is what I like to do on daringfireball posts: http://i.minus.com/iXy1JUUd4GGMz.jpg http://i.minus.com/iXy1JUUd4GGMz.jpg - and that's pretty much my opinion about them.
- icebraining 15y ago
  You do know that he (not them) called Daring Fireball a "Mac column"? What did you expect him to write about, oranges? Not to mention that this post is a pretty bad example, since writing about a new tablet without talking about the one with the huge slice of the market would would be very strange.
heresy 15y ago
Not available outside of the US (except for the crippled non-touch version). Poor, poor strategy. That's essentially gifting the market to iOS/Android. I sure as hell won't wait until Amazon deigns to offer one outside.
- rodh257 15y ago
  I don't think this is completely Amazons fault. The device is heavily centered around Amazon Prime and the various streaming content services they have. Most of these services are U.S. only thanks to requirements of the publishers. I'm sure Amazon would love to ship it worldwide, but it wouldn't be nearly as useful without the cloud services behind it.
doron 15y ago
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
ja2ke 15y ago
"The iPad and Kindle Fire are emblematic of their makers. Apple’s primary business is selling devices for a healthy profit, and they back that up with a side business of selling digital content for those devices. Amazon’s primary business is as a retailer, including as a retailer of digital content. They back that up with a side business of low-cost digital devices that are optimized for on-the-fly purchasing of anything and everything Amazon sells. The Kindles are to Amazon what the printed catalog was to Sears a century ago." That's the best articulated philosophical breakdown between the two products and the two companies that I've seen. The two devices look similar at a glance, but the reasoning behind their numerous differences boil down entirely to those two different philosophies. Apple wants you to buy an iPad to buy an iPad -- they get you to do that by pointing out how it has apps and music for sale. Amazon wants you to buy a Fire to buy a ton of Amazon digital content -- they get you to do that by making the Fire itself cheap.
kloncks 15y ago
Any idea on details around this: Over 100,000 movies and TV shows, including thousands of new releases and your favorite TV shows, are available to stream or download, purchase or rent - all just one tap away. Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows. As a Netflix user, I know first-hand that quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality. Any idea on what this list actually contains?
- colonelxc 15y ago
  It's probably all the same movies/tv shows available on Amazon. Note that the 100,000 includes all the ones you can purchase and rent. If you have amazon prime, the 10,000 subset is what you can stream for free to this device.
- smackfu 15y ago
  For the free options, the movie selection is decent, and the TV selection is pretty awful. Lots of back catalog stuff, like 270 episodes of Cheers, but only a few series from recent years. But OTOH, I paid for Prime when it didn't have any streaming, and thought it was worth it, so I don't have high expectations.
sgentle 15y ago
I'm amazed by the insight in this article. I'm not generally a huge Gruber fan (nor a hater, I just don't find "Apple released a new x, here's my reaction" very nourishing). But in this I felt like he really nailed the state of tablets and why the Fire will do well and the others won't. Really good stuff. Sadly not analysed is that his central point, taken to its logical conclusion, gives you an obvious field for new iPad competitors. He's correct - nobody's going to beat Apple in hardware design. Nobody's going to beat Apple (for a while anyway) in app market size. What can they beat Apple at? Price and content. Price and content means Sony, Nintendo, Disney, any of the big content players with an untapped market for specific tablets. I don't know if they'll go that way, but there's every reason to think they'd win out if they did.
- haydenchambers 15y ago
  Can't see Disney taking on Apple any time soon - at least not 100% of their board would approve
wazoox 15y ago
Hell must be freezing over, Gruber isn't gratuitously bashing Apple's competitor? It's refreshing to read a new, insightful analysis of his for the first time in a while.

137 points by krishna2 15y ago

From another daring-fireball article: Q: How many times does the word “Android” appear on Amazon’s Kindle Fire page? A: Once, in the following sentence: “Additional email apps are available in our Amazon Appstore for Android.” It’s a Kindle tablet, not an Android tablet.

inconditus 15y ago
On a side note, the Fire will not be able to download from the Google Android app store.
doron 15y ago
From a development perspective its an Android. Write once,.sell in two stores. Let's see how it goes

dascripter 15y ago

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 are for the digital distribution and the form factor. I can no longer read paperback books. I find holding them to be just unpleasent and not near as enjoyable as the Kindle. And I think a swipe page turning mechanism is a backward step in how I move through my book.

OpieCunningham 15y ago
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).
- rg 15y ago
  Kindle app on Android phones also uses single tap to page; it's extremely convenient (compared to the old Kindle with physical buttons which I also use). Touch for paging is certainly no worse than the old buttons, and--really--the keyboard and cursor control on the old Kindle are just about useless. ("Up, up, up, left, down, down, up, ..." is hard to take after having a touch device.)
calloc 15y ago
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.
jurjenh 15y ago
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...
- pyre 15y ago
  Well, we've removed the 'annoyance' with the original Kindle, why make an effort to put it back in? What does touch add over the use of buttons (other than, "Look! We're using a new technology, therefore it's better and you should buy one!")?
- unfed 15y ago
  Reminds me the overweight people on the WALL-E spaceship
- icebraining 15y ago
  > Amazing the times we live in, that page turning has become an effort that becomes annoying. Or it always was, and people just didn't have a choice.
tzs 15y ago
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.
lukifer 15y ago
I really like how the Nook Touch handles it: subtle physical buttons (with little risk of accidental presses), or you can swipe, or you can tap on the screen. I use all three methods, depending on how I'm holding it in that moment. I don't even have to think about it, and the immersion of reading is unbroken.

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

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.

krishna2 15y ago
I agree. I also think that the damage is going to be more for current-android-tablet makers, such as Samsung, Acer, Asus, Viewsonic ..etc. More so to the ones who price their tablets above $400. Everyone's going to compare them to the Fire and say, "Why even consider anything when I can get this for half the price?". Pretty safe to say, Amazon's tablet is going to beat all the other android-tablets.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  It's hard to know what to do with that information in a world in which the current android tablet makers can barely give their devices away.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  That makes no sense. I think $199 is a great deal for a 7" tablet, and they will sell like hotcakes. But anyone selling a $400+ tablet is offering a 10.1" screen. This is a completely different user experience, and very likely a different market. Persoanlly, I don't even understand the attraction of a 7" tablet. I'm quite OK with paying 2x the price for something that's about the same size as a sheet of paper or a textbook, however.
tewks 15y ago
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.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

ctdonath 15y ago

"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 anywhere/anytime Internet connectivity (note the absence of a Fire 3G).

tsm 15y ago
If I have the money, I'd be just as glad to separate my ebook-reading from everything else. When I read an ebook, I do want an eInk screen, ridiculous battery life, and no distracting apps or websites.
- wanorris 15y ago
  My problem is that I ultimately find an e-ink Kindle too limited as a reading device. I have a substantial number of ebooks in PDF format, and only a minority of them are effectively readable on my 2nd gen Kindle. (There are other use cases like comics and cookbooks where e-ink falls down on the job as well.) Honestly, my Android phone with ezPDF is a better reader. So something like this looks just about perfect.
  - tsm 15y ago
    My completely subjective personal preference is better than your completely subjective personal preference! No, in all seriousness you make a good point about PDFs. I eventually realized that reading, say, a programming book was best done with a dead tree and that I should stop struggling with my Kindle. As a PDF, the text was a bit too small. As a converted document, the reflowed text killed the formatting, which was also no fun. Full-size PDF would be nice.
redthrowaway 15y ago
I currently carry around an MBP and a kindle. I could see (in some hypothetical, far-flung future where touchscreen keyboards weren't utter crap) dropping the laptop for a tablet, but I could never see dropping eInk for anything suitable for a general-purpose tablet. Barring some eInk-led hybrid, I simply can't see using a general-purpose tablet as a reading device. The kindle is simply far too good. I've been reading ebooks on my laptop for years, and I've read more books in the six months since I've gotten my kindle than I had in the 6 years prior. It's just that good. The kindle isn't a tablet. It's your library in your pocket. Don't confuse form with function.

vailripper 15y ago

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 primary market for people replacing laptops with a tablet are casual users, many of whom care more about content and entertainment than producitivity, in which case it would seem the Fire would be equal to, if not beating, the iPad.

sliverstorm 15y ago
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.
- phillmv 15y ago
  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".
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    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.
    - phillmv 15y ago
      <I also really needed a keyboard, but that's not even the main issue Well, considering the iPad lacks a keyboard, I'd say that's a pretty big issue at least. >for my parents. PERSONALLY, I would happily pay the premium if it means I never have to field a support call ever again. Tradeoffs! Also your parents might not appreciate playing games or watching movies on the couch as much as other people might, yadda yadda.

mrchess 15y ago

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 dimensions killed it for me :)

bsuto 15y ago
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 to the bezel you're already holding. This may just be me, but I find that to work just fine. The battery life of the base model is half that of the touch model, sure, but it's still a month. Is that really a problem for anyone? They can't use an outlet or USB port four hours a month? Trimming space by getting rid of the keyboard and speeding up page turn "flashes" are great upgrades to an already great device.
- schleyfox 15y ago
  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.
jroid 15y ago
I think touch is useful, if you browse a lot. Using keyboard to navigate links is hard.

sigzero 15y ago

I know it's subjective but I think they blew it on the size.

zyb09 15y ago

This is what I like to do on daringfireball posts: http://i.minus.com/iXy1JUUd4GGMz.jpg http://i.minus.com/iXy1JUUd4GGMz.jpg - and that's pretty much my opinion about them.

icebraining 15y ago
You do know that he (not them) called Daring Fireball a "Mac column"? What did you expect him to write about, oranges? Not to mention that this post is a pretty bad example, since writing about a new tablet without talking about the one with the huge slice of the market would would be very strange.

heresy 15y ago

Not available outside of the US (except for the crippled non-touch version). Poor, poor strategy. That's essentially gifting the market to iOS/Android. I sure as hell won't wait until Amazon deigns to offer one outside.

rodh257 15y ago
I don't think this is completely Amazons fault. The device is heavily centered around Amazon Prime and the various streaming content services they have. Most of these services are U.S. only thanks to requirements of the publishers. I'm sure Amazon would love to ship it worldwide, but it wouldn't be nearly as useful without the cloud services behind it.

doron 15y ago

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

ja2ke 15y ago

"The iPad and Kindle Fire are emblematic of their makers. Apple’s primary business is selling devices for a healthy profit, and they back that up with a side business of selling digital content for those devices. Amazon’s primary business is as a retailer, including as a retailer of digital content. They back that up with a side business of low-cost digital devices that are optimized for on-the-fly purchasing of anything and everything Amazon sells. The Kindles are to Amazon what the printed catalog was to Sears a century ago." That's the best articulated philosophical breakdown between the two products and the two companies that I've seen. The two devices look similar at a glance, but the reasoning behind their numerous differences boil down entirely to those two different philosophies. Apple wants you to buy an iPad to buy an iPad -- they get you to do that by pointing out how it has apps and music for sale. Amazon wants you to buy a Fire to buy a ton of Amazon digital content -- they get you to do that by making the Fire itself cheap.

kloncks 15y ago

Any idea on details around this: Over 100,000 movies and TV shows, including thousands of new releases and your favorite TV shows, are available to stream or download, purchase or rent - all just one tap away. Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows. As a Netflix user, I know first-hand that quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality. Any idea on what this list actually contains?

colonelxc 15y ago
It's probably all the same movies/tv shows available on Amazon. Note that the 100,000 includes all the ones you can purchase and rent. If you have amazon prime, the 10,000 subset is what you can stream for free to this device.
smackfu 15y ago
For the free options, the movie selection is decent, and the TV selection is pretty awful. Lots of back catalog stuff, like 270 episodes of Cheers, but only a few series from recent years. But OTOH, I paid for Prime when it didn't have any streaming, and thought it was worth it, so I don't have high expectations.

sgentle 15y ago

I'm amazed by the insight in this article. I'm not generally a huge Gruber fan (nor a hater, I just don't find "Apple released a new x, here's my reaction" very nourishing). But in this I felt like he really nailed the state of tablets and why the Fire will do well and the others won't. Really good stuff. Sadly not analysed is that his central point, taken to its logical conclusion, gives you an obvious field for new iPad competitors. He's correct - nobody's going to beat Apple in hardware design. Nobody's going to beat Apple (for a while anyway) in app market size. What can they beat Apple at? Price and content. Price and content means Sony, Nintendo, Disney, any of the big content players with an untapped market for specific tablets. I don't know if they'll go that way, but there's every reason to think they'd win out if they did.

haydenchambers 15y ago
Can't see Disney taking on Apple any time soon - at least not 100% of their board would approve

wazoox 15y ago

Hell must be freezing over, Gruber isn't gratuitously bashing Apple's competitor? It's refreshing to read a new, insightful analysis of his for the first time in a while.