Alan Browne

So - after a bit of the usual press priming, the Kindle Fire comes out.

Amazon have leaned to sub-tablet capability focusing on information
consumption and games. No camera, not much storage. Wi-Fi only -
though it has a 1.5 GHz dual core ARM processor running an Amazon
engineered v. of Android (Silk). Screen is 7 in.

It's strongest point (to be proven of course) is it's reliance on the
cloud of which Amazon is a major, possibly the largest, player in terms
of physical plant. This potentially gives the Kindle very strong cloud
based processing - not to mention the "free" storage. (TANSTAAFL).

As speculated in the press, Amazon has taken a diametrically opposed
tack to Apple's premium priced hardware and the iTunes store, v.
Amazon's lower priced content and vast digital media library.

Amazon of course make no mention of Apple's cloud services to begin in
the near future, but do state that cloud storage for the Kindle shall be
free.

QUOTE
The Kindle Fire includes a free cloud-based storage system, meaning that
no syncing with cables is necessary. Mr. Bezos seemed to take a swipe at
Apple, saying, “That model that you are responsible for backing up your
own content is a broken model.”
UNQUTE
(New York Times, 2011.09.28).

QUOTE
p.s. – Kindle Fire has a radical new web browser called Amazon Silk.
When you use Silk – without thinking about it or doing anything explicit
– you’re calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to
accelerate your web browsing.
UNQUOTE
Jeff Bezos (CEO) on Amazon site.

QUOTE
There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge
customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both
approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.
UNQUOTE
Jeff Bezos imitating an irritated cat on Amazon site.

Specification digs at Apple:
QUOTE
System Requirements None, because it's wireless and doesn't require a
computer.
UNQUOTE

Of course it _does_ have a USB port...

And its battery life is more tablet like (about 8 hours) - this unit
does not use E-ink.

While Amazon seem secure in their strategy (nothing wrong with it,
that's for sure) they can't help but make oblique attacks at Apple.

PS: I wanted to x-post this to a kindle newsgroup ... but I couldn't
find one in usenet.

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

nospam

In article <Kc6dnRbeNZro2x7TnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@giganews.com>, Alan Browne
<alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:

> So - after a bit of the usual press priming, the Kindle Fire comes out.

...snip..

> Specification digs at Apple:
> QUOTE
> System Requirements None, because it's wireless and doesn't require a
> computer.
> UNQUOTE

wait a week or so and the ipad won't either.

not only that, but the kindle fire won't ship for at least 6 weeks.

> Of course it _does_ have a USB port...

micro usb, only for charging.

Lewis

In message <Kc6dnRbeNZro2x7TnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@giganews.com>
Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
> The Kindle Fire includes a free cloud-based storage system, meaning that
> no syncing with cables is necessary. Mr. Bezos seemed to take a swipe at
> Apple, saying, “That model that you are responsible for backing up your
> own content is a broken model.�

Right, which is why Apple's iCloudn and iOS 5 (announce yonks ago) have
wieless cloud based backup.

> p.s. – Kindle Fire has a radical new web browser called Amazon Silk.
> When you use Silk – without thinking about it or doing anything explicit
> – you’re calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to
> accelerate your web browsing.

That sounds very cool.

> QUOTE
> There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge
> customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both
> approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.

Yes, I would certainly agree with that.

> Specification digs at Apple:
> System Requirements None, because it's wireless and doesn't require a
> computer.

That's not a dig at Apple, that's a dig at other portable devices,
including the iPhone/iPad (until October 4) and every android phone or
tablet.

> While Amazon seem secure in their strategy (nothing wrong with it,
> that's for sure) they can't help but make oblique attacks at Apple.

I think someone is reading in something that's simply not there.
Amazon's Fire is about one thing, making Amazon easier to use by their
users. The thing about Amazon is that they don't care about competing
with Apple. In fact, I don't think they see the Fire as any sort of iPad
replacement, much as the kindle isn't. It is something else, targeting a
different use. I can easily imagine that people will have both a Fire
and an iPad.

The $100 Kindle Touch looks very interesting as well.

The only drawback that I can see at all is that the Fire should have
been priced at $249 and come with a year of Amazon Prime service.

--
One by one the bulbs burned out, like long lives come to their expected
ends.
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said but I am
not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

BreadWithSpam@fractious.net

Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> writes:
> Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:

>> p.s. – Kindle Fire has a radical new web browser called Amazon Silk.
>> When you use Silk – without thinking about it or doing anything explicit
>> – you’re calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to
>> accelerate your web browsing.
>
> That sounds very cool.

I believe that there are browsers for other platforms which
also do this. Opera Mini, for example, claims to be able to
render pages faster because they route it through Opera's
servers to pre-cache/compress the data before sending it
to your device. How well this kind of thing works in
practice, particularly if the pages you are looking at
are customized content, I have no idea.

>> QUOTE
>> There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge
>> customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both
>> approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.
>
> Yes, I would certainly agree with that.

Um, that's goofy. All for-profit companies are in business to
make money. They may choose different business models (ie. sell
lots of stuff for little profit, vs. sell less stuff for greater
profit), but in the end, both Apple and Amazon are there to
separate us from our money and trying to do so in a fashion which
we mind the least (ie. which provides us all the reasons to give
them the money in the first place).

> Amazon's Fire is about one thing, making Amazon easier to use by their
> users. The thing about Amazon is that they don't care about competing
> with Apple. In fact, I don't think they see the Fire as any sort of iPad
> replacement, much as the kindle isn't. It is something else, targeting a
> different use. I can easily imagine that people will have both a Fire
> and an iPad.

It may well be a fabulous media consumption device. Amazon's Prime
service has been expanding the array of streamable content, they
are already the biggest seller of electronic books (even ones I
read on my iPad, I'm more likely to buy from Amazon than from
Apple's iBook store because I can read them on more devices than
just my iOS ones). And the price point is hard to argue with.

I definitely think there's a bit of overlap - the iPad is also
a fabulous media consumption device - and I can see a lot of
people choosing a Fire instead of an iPad. For me, one would
not substitute for the other.

> The only drawback that I can see at all is that the Fire should have
> been priced at $249 and come with a year of Amazon Prime service.

That would be a nice bundle - I'm a Prime member anyway - but I
can certainly see where that wouldn't make sense for folks who
rarely buy stuff which requires shipping (for me the biggest
benefit of Prime) or who don't care about streaming video. If
they are mainly going to read e-books on the thing, or play
content they've bought in other ways (music, etc), Prime is
not a necessary expense. It should be optional, and if keeping
it such was necessary to get the base price under $200, that's
a very smart move on Amazon's part. Seriously - $200 with
no contract, no nothing - they're going to sell a lot oft
these things.

--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.

Jeffrey Goldberg

On 11-09-28 11:26 AM, Lewis wrote:

>> QUOTE
>> There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge
>> customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both
>> approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.
>
> Yes, I would certainly agree with that.

Maybe that should read

"There are two types of companies: Some companies create products that
you pay to use. Other companies pay the bills by creating free or cheap
products that collect information about you and your habits and sell it
to advertisers. Both approaches can work for us."

(I should note that I don't oppose the second model as long as people
know what they are getting into. I'm a happy user of Facebook, knowing
full well that I am not their customer, but their product.)

Cheers,

-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid

Alan Browne

On 2011-09-28 12:24 , nospam wrote:
> In article<Kc6dnRbeNZro2x7TnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@giganews. com>, Alan Browne
> <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
>
>> So - after a bit of the usual press priming, the Kindle Fire comes out.
>
> ..snip..
>
>> Specification digs at Apple:
>> QUOTE
>> System Requirements None, because it's wireless and doesn't require a
>> computer.
>> UNQUOTE
>
> wait a week or so and the ipad won't either

I pointed that out.

>
> not only that, but the kindle fire won't ship for at least 6 weeks.
>
>> Of course it _does_ have a USB port...
>
> micro usb, only for charging.

One site I visited mentions 'sideloading' to Mac or PC via USB (personal
photos/video for example).

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

Alan Browne

On 2011-09-28 14:16 , BreadWithSpam@fractious.net wrote:
> Lewis<g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> writes:
>> Alan Browne<alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
>
>>> p.s. – Kindle Fire has a radical new web browser called Amazon Silk.
>>> When you use Silk – without thinking about it or doing anything explicit
>>> – you’re calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to
>>> accelerate your web browsing.
>>
>> That sounds very cool.
>
> I believe that there are browsers for other platforms which
> also do this. Opera Mini, for example, claims to be able to
> render pages faster because they route it through Opera's
> servers to pre-cache/compress the data before sending it
> to your device. How well this kind of thing works in

All Opera claim to do is compress and cache data. Amazon seem to imply
they will do other significant processing on the 'cloud' side to
alleviate processing on the device side. What, specifically, beyond
communications compression that is remains to be seen.

Of late, I've found Opera on the iPhone to be much slower to return
search results (from Google and other sites) than Safari.

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

nospam

In article <l6idnZb7O9koHR7TnZ2dnUVZ_vudnZ2d@giganews.com>, Alan Browne
<alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:

> >> Of course it _does_ have a USB port...
> >
> > micro usb, only for charging.
>
> One site I visited mentions 'sideloading' to Mac or PC via USB (personal
> photos/video for example).

you can do that with an iphone or ipad via usb.

Patty Winter

In article <l6idnZb7O9koHR7TnZ2dnUVZ_vudnZ2d@giganews.com>,
Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
>On 2011-09-28 12:24 , nospam wrote:
>> In article<Kc6dnRbeNZro2x7TnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@giganews. com>, Alan Browne
>> <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> Of course it _does_ have a USB port...
>>
>> micro usb, only for charging.
>
>One site I visited mentions 'sideloading' to Mac or PC via USB (personal
>photos/video for example).


That would make perfect sense, considering that current Kindles
allow files to be sideloaded from a computer via the USB port.
I can't imagine that Amazon would downgrade a new model such
that it can use the USB port only for charging.


Patty

Lloyd Parsons

In article <l6idnZb7O9koHR7TnZ2dnUVZ_vudnZ2d@giganews.com>,
Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:

> On 2011-09-28 12:24 , nospam wrote:
> > In article<Kc6dnRbeNZro2x7TnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@giganews. com>, Alan Browne
> > <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
> >
> >> So - after a bit of the usual press priming, the Kindle Fire comes out.
> >
> > ..snip..
> >
> >> Specification digs at Apple:
> >> QUOTE
> >> System Requirements None, because it's wireless and doesn't require a
> >> computer.
> >> UNQUOTE
> >
> > wait a week or so and the ipad won't either
>
> I pointed that out.
>
> >
> > not only that, but the kindle fire won't ship for at least 6 weeks.
> >
> >> Of course it _does_ have a USB port...
> >
> > micro usb, only for charging.
>
> One site I visited mentions 'sideloading' to Mac or PC via USB (personal
> photos/video for example).

I've seen speculation about that, but since no one has actually gotten
their hands on one, that is all it is.

--
Lloyd