Remember Apple’s unveiling of the iPad? Everyone mocked it, calling it a “giant iPhone.” They made fun of the name, the size, the purpose.
Similarly, the early leaks/reviews of the new Amazon tablet are making fun of how they ripped off the hardware, didn’t consult the Kindle team, blah blah. Coworkers watching the Engadget liveblog with me seemed unimpressed. But I disagree.
I think that like Apple, Amazon is too smart and savvy to release a sub-par, ripped-off tablet. Yes, they need a tablet on the market, but that’s not enough of a motivator for them; there’s something else. I’m not exactly sure what it is yet… It might be Amazon Silk, or it might be a long-term plan for their movie/music streaming strategy.
But there is, for sure, something else…
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There’s got to be an Amazon TV running Silk in the works somewhere.
It drives me crazy…the media keeps comparing the Kindle to the iPad, when I don’t believe it is actually created to compete with iPad. Nobody(in the media, anyway) seems to realize this. The Kindle device, including the new Fire, is a device to unlock Amazon’s content and media distribution. That’s where Amazon wants to make their money! Not on sales of a device. Sure, any profit on the device is a plus, but it is not the primary goal, as it is for Apple. Remember, the iPad has Kindle apps already available for it. If Amazon wanted to compete via the end-user device, they would be making their content proprietary to the Kindle hardware.
People keep comparing the end-user device, but they do not see the beauty in the strategy of the whole system, which includes the hardware, but also the unseen, backend content and application availability and distribution. Apple and Amazon are going to square off more directly eventually, as they seem to be building dualing content distribution systems. But, the point is its not the specs of the end-user device that should be focused on, but the whole of the consumer’s “experience” when using that device.