

Amazon Has High Hopes for Its iPad Competitor - garbowza
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/technology/anticipated-amazon-tablet-to-take-aim-at-apple-ipad.html

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cageface
_“The No. 1 thing consumers do on tablets is e-mail,” said Sarah Rotman Epps,
a Forrester analyst. “The No. 2 thing is look up stuff on the Web...."_

Apple loves to tout sales numbers for the app store but this jibes with my own
experience. It's nice to have a healthy stock of third-party apps to choose
from but if your core email, web, & fb/twitter apps are solid you're 90% there
for most users and can start chopping secondary features and specs to undercut
the iPad.

~~~
greendestiny
I mostly use my Touchpad for email. Some web browsing. Games for the kids. I
plan to install android when I can though. All platforms have decent email
experiences, web browsing on a tablet is actually highly overrated. Its really
native apps that differentiate the experience, and its native apps that can be
a joy to use.

~~~
saurik
FWIW, the Touchpad's (WebOS) browser is even worse than the Android browser
(even Google often fails to render in it, since they released Google+,
yielding horribly hilarious results); if you were using Android or iOS you
might not feel the same away about browsing on the tablet being "highly
overrated".

~~~
j_col
Except for Flash, which in my eperience is consistently excellent on the
Touchpad browser, much better than the browsers on the Android tablets I've
tried, and as for iOS, well Flash really isn't an "issue"...

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acabal
I hope that doesn't mean they're abandoning development on their e-ink
devices, or relegating them to third-class citizens. The only reason I'd buy a
reading device is if staring at it for 2+ hours didn't give me a headache like
a backlit tablet does. (And an all-purpose tablet like an iPad still doesn't
interest me enough to buy anyway.)

~~~
ctdonath
I'm watching this introduction with an eye on the long-running theory that the
standard Kindle will drop to $0 by November.

For those unaware, the pricing v. price-drop dates graph has the Kindle on a
straight-line path to $0 by November 2011. Word is when Amazon CEO was asked
about that, he responded "ah, someone noticed" and changed the subject. How,
when & whether this will happen is interesting.

~~~
ableal
Bezos was around for the CueCat scanner. He will not drop the price to zero.
He knows that would be giving free hardware to anyone who can find out how to
jailbreak a device.

~~~
ctdonath
"Free with Prime membership" seems the vector for controlling access to "free"
stuff from Amazon. Arguably not "free" in all terms, but akin to "free phone"
with cellular service.

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teach
"We're trying to remove the barrier between 'I want that' and 'I have it'." -
Sam Hall, Amazon's director of wireless products and service

I don't know about others, but my consumption of digital music from Amazon
increased by about $20 a month within just a few weeks of them adding their
Amazon Cloud Drive Player and their one-click purchase that dumps the album
directly and instantaneously into the Cloud Drive.

With an Amazon tablet, I can see something similar happening for digital
video.

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joshwa
_Apple sells movies, music and books in order to sell devices. Amazon sells
devices in order to sell books, movies and music._

This.

~~~
philwelch
Obvious follow up: then why not let Apple sell the devices and Amazon sell the
content?

~~~
notauser
Because Apple want a 30% cut of all content sold via the iPad, which
represents a larger margin than Amazon can afford to give away whilst
remaining a profitable distributor.

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itswindy
_"With the tablet, Amazon is a follower. That’s never as good."_ Unless you
sell it for half a price is good enough for most people.

~~~
jacques_chester
> ... Amazon is a follower. That’s never as good.

I guess this is why Friendster have crushed MySpace and Facebook in turn.

~~~
tybris
Did you look that up on Excite or on Altavista?

~~~
jacques_chester
A friend on ICQ told me to check it out on his .plan file website.

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atldev
I'm hoping Amazon will have a pretty good hook. I want to be excited to buy
one. However, the kindle book offering is not enough. I love the kindle, but
the kindle app is already fantastic on the iPad. So I don't need a new kindle
tablet. Give me something new, Amazon. Or open up the developer program and
let us help you.

~~~
mmahemoff
If you have an iPad already, you're not Amazon's primary target. That said,
the 7" "mini-tablet" form factor might be one hook. It's actually a great
size, great for reading, and I like taking mine to meetups where I just want
web access and a little twitter. 7" tablets also fit in handbags and more
pockets than most people realize (like back pocket of most of my jeans!).

Up to now, these devices have mostly been way too expensive - close to iPad
prices - or cheapo devices (apad/hipad) with serious shortcomings, e.g. No
Android market and ancient versions of the OS. In my case, I paid £160 for a
device with poor quality control, had to return it as the wifi was broken. I
changed my Google password a while ago, which broke Market and GMail and means
I have to hard-reset in order to install any new apps. (There was no error
message from those programs and had to trawl through forums to work out why
there exiting immediately.) So tne 7" devices today have not exactly provided
the out-of-the-box iPad experience.

"it's all about the software" as many hardware people say these days. If
Amazon can build a smooth user interface, it will be the first inexpensive
mini-tablet which "just works".

~~~
berntb
>>That said, the 7" "mini-tablet" form factor might be one hook. It's actually
a great size, great for reading

I get that 7" works for reading literature and has better portability. That is
Amazon's home market.

The problem is that 7" makes full document reading (pdf, web pages, code, etc)
hard.

I'd pay for an 12" iPad, since my eyes are older than 40. (-: Maybe I need a
fresnel lens, Brazil style? :-)

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77ko
The one thing I like about Amazon ebooks is that you can set your country as
USA, and than use any credit card to buy American ebooks. I hope that
continues with Amazon's tablet and the video and other content they'll be
selling, as American digital prices and content selection are cheaper and
wider than anywhere else in the world.

Of course, the RIAA and MPAA of the world's will be fighting tooth and nail
over regional restrictions, I have a feeling Amazon made it easy to bypass
regional restrictions because book publishers are technologically challenged
and didn't quite realize what happened.

Of course, there is always the piratebay for countries which aren't in the
G7...

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latch
I'm just not ready to bet against Apple. I think we're at the point where the
only way for anyone to take any significant chunk of profit from Apple's
[growing] core business, is for Apple to have a couple significant missteps.

~~~
tybris
Why? I don't see the precedent. Android phones are overtaking iPhones. Why
wouldn't Android tablets?

~~~
majika
There's no reason to think Android tablets wont overtake the iPad in future.
However, the key difference between the tablet and smartphone spaces is that
the masses recognise there are smartphones other than the iPhone.

Apple _created_ the tablet market, and consumers know it. The iPhone had a big
impact on the smartphone market, but it didn't create it.

Apple earned itself 6-12 months of 100% ownership of the tablet market. People
don't yet understand that there are any tablets apart from the iPad. Or, if
they do, there will be a belief that the Android tablets are crap because they
know that they're just following the success of the iPad.

I think it will take another two or three years before we start seeing tablets
become a commodity, as the market begins to recognise the other tablets out
there. Or, if this Amazon tablet is a success, then they might be a commodity
by next Christmas :)

~~~
roc
> _"There's no reason to think Android tablets wont overtake the iPad in
> future."_

Except that Android devices never went anywhere as media players. Nothing did,
compared to the iPod. Even well after they were seen as a commodity and
certainly not for lack of awareness of non-iPod competitors.

And the iPad is loved/used as much more of a big media player than a big
phone.

So while Android devices certainly may overtake the iPad, the iPod market
presents a great argument that they very well might not. At least not until an
OEM puts some serious thought and consideration into the media experience.

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srik
"AMAZON PRIME" - thats whats being overlooked.

Imagine this. One prime account that would give you netflix like access to all
the music, books and movies from amazon's library. Music and Video is pretty
much at par with the rest of the iTunes competitors already and once Amazon
gathers enough momentum, the book publishers will bow and then Amazon Prime
will hold so much value, it wouldn't be sensible to not have one.

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patrickgzill
A Kindle DX that can take decent notes/todo lists (maybe with an add-on
keyboard) and handle email and web tasks, would be pretty nice.

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dafarian
Apple has 75% of the tablet market, Samsung is gaining quickly as a formidable
competitor (specially after the Apple/Samsung European showdown which gave
more exposure to the compatibility of Samsung).

Amazon might throw a lot of money at it, but my money is on Samsung & Apple
battling it out. I think Amazon is doing this because Apple shut them out from
their App store.

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steele
Maybe v2 will be webOS? One can dream, no?

~~~
LeafStorm
Amazon's already invested a lot in the Android platform with the Amazon
Appstore and all the other assorted Amazon Android apps. Considering that
migrating to WebOS would require Amazon to:

(a) actually obtain the rights to WebOS (whereas Android they can just fork a
version from git),

(b) retool all their existing app infrastructure to support WebOS, and

(c) promoting WebOS to developers when probably the only WebOS device that
would be available to them would be the new Kindle and the fire-saled
Touchpads,

I don't really see them moving to WebOS, or away from Android in general,
anytime soon.

~~~
hollerith
>whereas Android they can just fork a version from git

No, they also have to negotiate patent licenses or find some other way to
avoid injunctions. (Sadly.)

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dramaticus3
> [The iPad has] set off a revolution in progress about how entertainment and
> other media are consumed.

Is this really true ? I know I'm a bit provincial but I don't know anyone with
an iPad and have only ever seen anyone with one TV. I'm not even sure my
friend who works in the Apple store has one at home (he's never mentioned it
and he's the kind who would).

EDIT I got my reply from asking him. It's revolutionised how entertainment and
other media are consumed in his house.

me: how do you like it ?

he: Very much. Lou uses it all the time ... She hasn't used a pc since.

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chugger
What's the value add other than tight integration with Amazon Cloud, etc. ? is
it compelling enough for most users to ditch the Xoom, Touch Pad, Galaxy Tab,
etc. over this tablet?

~~~
jonknee
Most users aren't on any of those, Amazon could have a good quarter and sell
more of their tablet than all of those combined.

That said, it's going to be half (or even less) the price and have seamless
access to a very wide array of content. I don't think they're worried about
the Xoom, or the discontinued TouchPad and or the new Galaxy Tab that's
illegal to sell in most major markets... They're clearly leveling up against
the iPad.

