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How Will Amazon, Barnes & Noble Survive the iPad Mini?

Posted by timothy on from the add-rear-facing-cameras-dammit dept.

redletterdave writes "For about a year, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble were almost completely alone in the 7-inch tablet market. It was nice while it lasted. The past few months have seen Google and Microsoft unveil their 7-inch tablet offerings — the Nexus 7 and Microsoft Surface, respectively — and it looks like Apple is about ready to get into the mini tablet game, too. If Apple releases its first 'iPad Mini' next month, what can Amazon and Barnes & Noble do to keep the Cupertino colossus at bay, as well as the other new competitors in the 7-inch tablet game?"

1 of 354 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why should they care? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If Kindle hardware sales dry up due to competition from other tables, it's not a problem as long as the other devices that people buy support the Kindle App.

    The problem is that Apple has slowly been making it harder to make its devices sale channels (unless you're willing to pay the Apple tax). Not only they forced Amazon to remove in-app book purchasing, they even made them to remove the button that would take the user to Amazon's Kindle web store in the browser. Right now Kindle app on iOS is a plain reader only, and you have to know where to buy the books on your own.

    On the other hand, there's iBooks, which is more prominently there (every iOS device bugs you to install iBooks as soon as you open the app store), and lets you browse the books and buy them, not just read them. I suspect Apple is diverting quite a few iOS users who'd otherwise go to Amazon that way.