And it burns, burns, burns...
…And, according to Marco Arment, not in a good way.
I expected the Kindle Fire to be a compelling iPad alternative, but I can’t call it delightful, fun, or pleasant to use. Quite the opposite, actually: using the Fire is frustrating and unpleasant, and it feels like work.
An iPad Killer?
Amazon announced* the Kindle Fire. A full colour, 7-inch, Android 2.3 based tablet.
There’s a lot of talk about it being an iPad Killer. It’s a link-bait statement. Yes, the Fire is considerably cheaper ($199 Vs. $499). Charts like this, though, are a little misleading. It’s not as simple as a hardware spec comparison. It’s all about the hardware + software + content = experience. It would be like a car salesman saying a Porsche is a Ferrari killer in a country where roads and gas don’t exist; information that is useless to you without context and practical application.
A study suggests that an astonishing 41% of all mobile phone users in the US would like to switch to the iPhone 5. Many wallets already belong to Apple. Most people have invested at least $100 into content (books, music, tv, apps) that will only play back on Apple devices. That content spans all Apple devices; something that’s more likely to keep you to one platform. As Apple’s cloud services launch, that stickiness will increase as you wont even need to invest in a Mac in order to move content between devices (Note that Bezos made a cheap gag in the keynote with an Apple USB cable, even though Apple have made it clear that iOS 5 is all about untethering from a PC). Like the iPad, the Fire has an app store, a video and music service, an incredible and free cloud infrastructure and Amazon Prime bundled (which also offers free two day shipping on physical items you buy); but Apple’s platform integration with mobile is going to be hard to beat.
An iPad killer? No. But after the Nook Color, the Fire is the third tablet with a good chance of selling by the bucketload.
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*The Fire isn’t released until November so why announce now? I imagine they don’t want you spending your holiday dollars elsewhere.
Amazon launches three new Kindle families:
- Kindle ($79)
- Kindle Touch ($99, $139 with 3G)
- Kindle Fire ($199)
Thoughts to come when the full tech spec is released, but right now I’m most interested in the web browsing tech, Amazon Silk. Smart caching based on user behaviour (most commonly read stories are compressed and ready to serve) between their servers and your device, will make the competition feel agonizingly slow.
Amazon design refresh dropping soon.
Major companies launching initiatives outside of the App Store are popular today
Amazon’s HTML Cloud Reader iPad app goes live.
Amazon App Store Not So Great?
Apple and Amazon are in court about whether Apple should have exclusive rights to the phrase ‘App Store’. From the Bloomberg article:
Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told Bloomberg that Apple’s fear is that by using the “App Store” name, Amazon’s offering will “confuse and mislead customers.”
This new Gigaom article suggests that Amazon’s App Store is not a good user experience. Perhaps Apple have ground to stand on.
MyHabit - Amazon gets into the flash sale business.
Launches later today.
