“Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is being portrayed as the first real competition Apple’s iPad has had, but initial evidence from potential tablet buyers suggests it’s Apple’s rivals who really need to worry,” Tony Smith reports for Register Hardware.
“US market research company ChangeWave polled just over 3000 North American consumers this month and found that a staggering 19 percent said they’re thinking about catching a Fire,” Smith reports. “That’s not only folk who said they’d already ordered one (two percent) but also those who said they were very (five percent) and somewhat (12 percent) likely to do so.”
Smith reports, “Some 14 per cent of respondents said they plan to buy a tablet of one make or another in the next three months… Of those folk, 65 percent said the will choose the iPad. A further 22 percent said they would pick the Fire.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wonder how many of those 22 percent realize they’ll want to return the Fire and get an iPad after frustratingly trying and failing to tap items, realizing the Fire suffers from severe AppLack™ or after watching scrolling stutter and other UI elements bog down repeatedly?
Related articles:
Instapaper creator reviews Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire: Bad game player, bad app platform, bad web browser, bad video player and bad Kindle – November 18, 2011
PCWorld reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Flawed, unimpressive, subpar; can’t hold a candle to iPad – November 16, 2011
Mossberg reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Frustrating, clunky, much less capable and versatile than iPad – November 16, 2011
Apple iPad 2 vs. Amazon Kindle Fire: Bootup, browsing, and Netflix streaming (with video) – November 16, 2011
Wired reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Web browsing sucks, emotionally draining, makes reading a chore – November 14, 2011
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Sluggish, ornery, unpolished – November 14, 2011
The Verge reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Uninspired, confusing, incredibly unoriginal – November 14, 2011
Engadget reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Sluggish, clunky, too limiting and restricted – November 14, 2011
PC Magazine reviews Apple iOS 5: The best phone and tablet OS, Editors’ Choice – October 15, 2011
The Guardian reviews Apple iPad 2: Ahead of the pack – March 25, 2011
The Telegraph reviews Apple iPad 2: Does everything better; now’s the perfect time to join the iPad club – March 25, 2011
Computerworld reviews Apple’s iPad 2: ‘The Holy Grail of computing’ – March 16, 2011
Ars Technica reviews Apple iPad 2: Big performance gains in a slimmer package
Associated Press reviews Apple iPad 2: Apple pulls further ahead – March 10, 2011
PC Mag reviews Apple iPad 2: The tablet to get; Editors’ Choice – March 10, 2011
Associated Press reviews Apple iPad 2: Apple pulls further ahead – March 10, 2011
PC Mag reviews Apple iPad 2: The tablet to get; Editors’ Choice – March 10, 2011
Pogue reviews Apple iPad 2: Thinner, lighter, and faster transforms the experience – March 10, 2011
Baig reviews Apple iPad 2: Second to none – March 10, 2011
Yep, nothing to fear for now. But the Kindle Fire’s screen will become bigger, and Amazon will still sell those models at a loss. The question is whether or not the iPad’s price will drop in time to extinguish those fires before they even start. The iPad 2 entry level price hopefully drops to $399 in a few months upon the iPad 3 debut, so I have confidence that Apple is prepared for this fight.
Reality is people are ignorant. If analysts who are supposed to “know” , cant add 2+2, whats to expect ? Fresh in mind are still the “ipad is going to flop”. People don’t need a phone and a pc. It doesn’t have a F$%King KEYBOARD hahahahaa
These surveys take time to conduct — I bet it was done before all the negative reviews came out. I wonder what percentage of those potential buyers have already changed their minds about getting a Fire now that we know what a useless device it is.
I haven’t seen a product so universally trashed as the Fire since Windows Vista. I gotta say, it’s at least a bit unfair.
It’s unfair to compare it to Apple’s iPad. If it was compared to Android tablets and found wanting, that would be fair.
Virtual perfection is an unfair standard for amateurs.
… designed to compete with the iPad so much as to service a different market.
The Fire is closer to the iPad than the previous version, but that’s only relative. It’s actually a better Kindle rather than a failed iPad. Too bad the ANALysts (and MDN) can’t see the distinction. The Fire will be a success if it sells enough product for Amazon. That’s all it needs to do.
volume lack – failure to achieve significant loudness in the sales channel because some bean counter left off the volume switch.
To MDN take…surprisingly not many people, it’s sad to realize some people just like with crap, dealing with crappy hardware and justify their cheap wanna be iPhone or in this case iPad. They’re delusional I tell ya!
Ommit the with***
omit the m*
sorry, I thought that was someone else correcting your grammar, not you correcting your grammar.
leaping to your defence and falling over
Kindle is not a Tablet. Kindle is not even half of what an iPad is. Yet these guys think they are or give the impression that it will be good enough to substitute for an iPad. ZDNET/CNET/PCMAG/MSNBC….and on and on it goes.
Agreed. But has Amazon ever said the Fire was meant to be a flavor-of-the-month competitor to the iPad, or is that thought been coined by misguided reviewers and analysts?
I know I’ve read, probably on here, that Apple has been able to negotiate extremely favorable component pricing, and has stockpiled parts before certain price increases.
If so, any attempt, for now at least, to truly duplicate the iPad’s quality and user experience would only increase the losses Amazon will incur with each sale over what they are now because of the inability to get component pricing as low as Apple.
Would Amazon’s stockholders want to hear, “the good news is, we have 15% of the iPad’s market; the bad news is we lost $250,000,000 (fill in your amount) doing it?” I’m guessing Amazon’s strategy with the Fire is to nibble at the edges like a vastly smaller competitor would do-be the best of the rest of the POS pack, and let certain reviewers run with, a variation of “it’s good enough.”
That thought had been coined by misguided reviewers and analysts.
Apple haters are desperate to find something to get in the ring with the iPad, and, of course, if it has ‘android’ tagged onto it in any form they start salivating. Then, reality hits, and they work up a lather dissing the POS for its clay feet.
If the Fire’s return rate is hig then the Amazon will make huge losses because they have to refurbish those machines and try to sell them again. That for sure doubles the loss from those machines.
Oh look another pole, but from Mashable which is a bit more popular than most clueless blogs. Guess what? They add the Kindle as a TABLET! Geeez…
http://mashable.com/2011/11/21/which-tablet-to-buy/
LOL… POLLLLLLLL
I do not see the Kindle Fire as a competitor to the iPad. When the iPad 2 came out I bought the largest one (64Gb) possible. I opted for wifi because 3G needs were minimal. My next tablet will be the iPad 3. The Kindle Fire does not appeal to me, though the Kindle is more appealing for its niche. I can see the benefits of the Fire for some, but my greatest fear with non Apple tablet makers is will they be around next year?
Yawn oh yawn:
-> “Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is being portrayed as the first real competition Apple’s iPad has had”
Big FAIL. We know, we know. No ‘iPad Killers’. No competition. No imagination in the tech industry, EXCEPT APPLE. Wake me up when something changezzzzzzzz
(-_-)
What is the orange arrow under the Amazon logo?
• just an arrow?
• a graph going down then up?
• a wry smile?
• male genitalia?
• or is it saying the letter ‘A’ should come after the ‘Z’?