Apparently this is a reincarnation of RIMs failure. But many customers will waste $200 before realization sets in. Meanwhile AAPL will have to wait until Apple quarterly results arrive.
An aside are the predictable stories that battery life is still a problem. If you actually go to the Apple discussion forum you’ll find that very few folks were having problems to begin with and even fewer now. I won’t provide a link since bloggers are now using the numbers of views as their criteria as opposed to posts.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review/
Birra 2:22 pm on November 14, 2011 187 days ago Reply
I should have noted that the Kindle Ash is US only thus even less significant.
Birra 2:28 pm on November 14, 2011 187 days ago Reply
Oh, a telling moment will be Amazon’s quarterly report. The revelation that loss leaders seldom work will further take the PE from the rarified to the ridiculous.
Birra 2:45 pm on November 14, 2011 187 days ago Reply
The killer announcement will come along with the intro of the iPad 3. The iPad 2 will continue starting at $399. The Kindle Ash has set a losing price point for Android tablets. These two events will be huge.
Birra 4:02 pm on November 14, 2011 187 days ago Reply
Most complete review of the Ash and yes that’s the gist. Fun to read the Apple hateboy comments. Someone recently analyzed comments regarding the iPhone 4S battery life and concluded that 2/3rds came from Android fanboys, no surprise there.
http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/11/kindle-fire/
Nicu 4:28 pm on November 14, 2011 187 days ago Reply
more reviews
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-the-reviews-are-in/
rastard 10:52 pm on November 14, 2011 187 days ago Reply
There are actually *some* positive reviews in there, that don’t agree with Birra’s assessment. Did you actually mean to post that?
Nicu 1:22 am on November 15, 2011 187 days ago Reply
I do not mind when Apple’s competition does a good thing. The only good thing Fire achieves is a low price. And that will appeal to many people. But Amazon will suffer in the short term because they sell it at a loss. And many users are cheapskates (if not freetards) and Amazon will not recover their losses with those people. AMZN’s P/E is more than eight times that of AAPL’s. Apple’s profits grew more than 80% y/y and Amazon’s are shrinking and they may incur a loss this quarter.
I do not have enough margin right now (I own only calls and one sub-$1 stock and have been investing hard in those lately so not much cash left), but 2x short AMZN + buy AAPL is the closest you’ll ever get to an arbitrage (make money with no risk), if you can wait for it 6m-1y.
Birra 4:06 am on November 15, 2011 186 days ago Reply
Further evidence that the Kindle Ash is really the Android Killer. Developers will gravitate to volume. But as @nicu indicated, these customers cheapskates, they will not pay for apps let alone Amazon Prime. Never were potential iPad buyers.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/14/kindle.fire.tops.in.android.devs.ios.still.ahead/
Birra 4:15 am on November 15, 2011 186 days ago Reply
BTW, I buy a lot from Amazon, just got my wife a new sewing machine, she loves it and I love the price, no sales tax, and no postage. But never bit on Amazon Prime, offers me nothing except Amazon surpressing other sellers from their searches.
Birra 3:30 am on November 17, 2011 184 days ago Reply
“All eyes are on the Amazon Kindle Fire to provide fresh competition for Apple’s iPad 2, today’s dominant tablet,” Melissa J. Perenson reports for PCWorld. “Not so fast: Beneath the Kindle Fire’s slick veneer and unparalleled shopping integration lies a tablet that fails to impress as either a tablet or as an e-reader.”
http://macdailynews.com/2011/11/16/pcworld-reviews-amazons-tiny-screen-kindle-fire-flawed-unimpressive-subpar-cant-hold-a-candle-to-ipad/
JPWatkins 1:53 am on November 18, 2011 184 days ago Reply
I think the Kindle fire will be very successful in its own right, just not against the iPad.
They just aren’t competitors. as they are very different and occupy very different niches.
Birra 2:44 am on November 18, 2011 184 days ago Reply
Interesting that the Fire is a US only play as is the Nook, yet it seemingly is having world wide ramifications. Seems that the stock market hasn’t figured that it’s a net positive for Apple.
Birra 3:30 pm on November 18, 2011 183 days ago Reply
@JP you might want to rethink the possible success of the Ash. The developer of Instapaper reviews it and it’s not pretty.
http://www.marco.org/2011/11/17/kindle-fire-review
JPWatkins 6:34 pm on December 6, 2011 165 days ago Reply
@birra,
No, I think you misunderstand me. It will be successful as a Kindle Fire, but probably not as a tablet. It’s just not a tablet. It’s in a separate class of some kind—”Reader +”(?)—but definitely not a real tablet. If it works well as a reader and does a few other things decently, while still being cheap, I see a lot of Kindle users going for it. (For a power reader though, it seems like it would be a sacrifice to give up that crisp, monochrome, e-ink screen.)
Nicu 6:12 am on December 6, 2011 165 days ago Reply
I usually find MDN a bit childish in their comments, but here they got the best excerpts and reasonable observations
http://macdailynews.com/2011/12/05/usability-expert-jakob-nielsen-tests-amazons-tiny-screen-kindle-fire-a-disappointingly-poor-user-experience/