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How Will Amazon, Barnes & Noble Survive the iPad Mini?
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?"
I get really tired of this frame of stories that assume Apple is the alpha and the omega.
Who cares about a possible iPad Mini that isn't drinking the Kool-Aid already? Just another iOS device, they already come with a range of displays, connectivity, etc. If you have already bought into the iOS ecosystem you might want one, otherwise not so much. What other OEM adding a new screen size would be a major story on /.? Newsflash! Dell adds new display option to their laptop line, discuss.
And for that matter, I don't really care about the Amazon or Nook tablets because they are trying to run the same Apple game plan, poorly. I don't want to semi-buy a tethered device that is more a tethered window into it's owner's cloud than a computer that [I] control. And to a great extent I toss the new Google Nexus 7 (by Asus) into the same pile.
Look around and you can buy tablets in any size, build quality and price that can be unlocked, accept removable media, even boot from that external media. Want one with a keyboard? Yup. Good cameras, sensors, etc. How much ya willing to pay? In other words, tablet computers instead of iPad clones. You can keep your subsidized[1] media players; I'm a nerd and I buy computers.
Just don't expect to buy a computer from a media company and get anything useful. Which is what B&N and Amazon are, Apple is in the process of becoming and Google is greatly desiring to be.
[1] Well not subsidized from Apple of course, there you pay more for the chains... but they are just so stylish!
Democrat delenda est
"The past few months have seen Google and Microsoft unveil their 7-inch tablet offerings — the Nexus 7 and Microsoft Surface, respectively"
Nope. Surface is a 10 inch tablet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface
And besides, I'm sure Apple will sell a bunch, make money. A half year after that I'm sure stories will appear about a new Samsung, Kindle, or Google tab (or the combination of the three) that will offer something new or just enough of something new to move interest back away from Apple for a while.
Put the focus back where it belongs for their particular devices - Eink.
There are a ton of people who don't want to look at yet another computer screen when they are reading, which is why those people (me included) go for the Eink devices instead of the 7" tablets.
That is the space that made them popular, and that is the space they need to put the focus back on as a differentiating - and positive selling - factor.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
The Kindle hardware is just a channel to sell e-books. 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.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Sue!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There is no tablet market per se. There's an iPad market, an e-reader market, and a grab bag of every other manufacturer.
The Samsung Tab? Apparently it sold 37k units in the US last quarter, which makes it a total non-competitor to the iPad.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/10/apple-sold-5-7-million-tablets-in-the-u-s-last-quarter-court-documents-show-samsung-sold-37000/
http://fortunebrainstormtech.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/screen-shot-2012-08-10-at-7-33-07-am.png
So anyway, what does it matter? There are Nook and Kindle readers on iOS - that revenue stream should be fine. By not selling the hardware both companies save money, but lose on lock-in. The impact will probably be marginal, or possibly a small plus as more people move to nook/kindle and away from books.
Of course, it depends on the price. If the iPad mini comes out at $199 it's game over for everyone else. I doubt that price point because Apple generally doesn't sell its hardware at a loss or close to a loss. They just need to make it close. $300 sounds more realistic - that's $100 less than the Ipad 2 and overlaps well with the iPad touch pricing.
Amazon and Nook are all about consuming content. Initial tear-downs of the Kindle Fire purported them to be built at a loss, or at the very least, sold "at-cost". The profits are in App sales, Kindle books, Newsstand subscriptions, and Music/Video content.
Thus, if their consumers are running iPad minis, Amazon already has most of that taken care of. There's a Kindle app for iPhone and iPad, and they've recently released the Cloud Player (music) for iPhone and Amazon Instant Video app for iPad. Those loyal to their content will still be consuming it, regardless of the device. Amazon doesn't have a foothold in all facets of iPad like they do in Kindle Fire or other Android devices (i.e. Appstore), but it's "good enough", right?
To a lesser extent, same applies for B&N. NOOK apps are available for both.
Now the risk for both of these companies is those who aren't loyal to a content provider and the default presence of iTunes.
$ man woman *
-bash:
They'll survive because nobody with two brain cells to rub together enjoys reading on a backlit and always-refreshing screen.
Spoken by a person reading slashdot on a "backlit and always-refreshing screen".
Now I'll be embarassed to go pick up an iPad for the wife. "Umm, do you need mini or maxi?"
7 inch tablets are more portable while still performing enough viewing area to be useful for most tasks a tablet does.
Portable FTW in the portable mobile device landscape.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I read that as iPod Mini and became confused
Slightly off-topic... But I haven't been able to find good answers.
Anybody has a link to an authoritative source about what happens to e-books if the publisher/seller goes out of business?
Are there any safeguards that will prevent the publisher/seller from pulling out an e-book already sold and installed in my reader?
Finally, are the e-books complete editions or are they abbreviated?
Thanks
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
Amazon, B&N and all the others will survive because they have E-ink screens, which are far superior (and, sadly, more expensive) for their specialized purpose.
If people wanted a color 7" tablet to do more than just reading, e-readers would have been gone from the market already. The only benefit a dedicated e-reader has over one of those cheap 7" no-name Android tablets is the screen. Even the cheapest Android tablet outperforms an e-reader in every way... except the screen.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
By "reading" GP clearly meant reading books, not browsing websites.
They'll survive because nobody with two brain cells to rub together enjoys reading on a backlit and always-refreshing screen.
Spoken by a person reading slashdot on a "backlit and always-refreshing screen".
There's a big difference between spending 30 minutes browsing the web and spending hours reading an eBook. I always use the eInk Kindle instead of my 7" android tablet for reading a book - it's just easier on my eyes. And while I can browse the web on the Kindle, it's not really the best platform for web browsing so I use the tablet (or my laptop) for that.
They'll survive it the way they've survived the iPod Touch all this time.
I honestly don't understand the 7" tablet market. If I want small, I've got my smartphone. If I want big, I can use a 10" tablet. WTF am I supposed to do with something that's too big to fit comfortably in my pocket but so small it's still hard to read?
The Blackberry Playbook is a 7" tablet and has been on the market for over a year now. How come it is never mentioned? I mean, it had it's flaws when first released but has been patched up for the most part now. When the playbook was first released everybody was saying 7" was too small for a tablet. Amazon, Google have each released their 7" and now Apple has been rumored to release a smaller version of the iPad and all of a sudden the 7" is the sweet spot?
Spoken by a person reading slashdot on a "backlit and always-refreshing screen".
That's a bit of an assumption, but even if you're right as you probably are - as opposed to what? One of the countless e-ink tablets on sale right now?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
And my 4" phone is more portable yet. and better still, I'm already carrying it!
If I want a tablet I want it big enough to use, 10" is marginal, but workable, a little bigger would be better (ideally the same size as an A4 sheet of paper (or 8 1/2x11 for the americans, close enough to the same)) If I want ultra portable I'll use my phone, I see no advantage whatsoever in a device half way between those 2... 7" is too small for anything requiring large amounts of detail and yet too big for being tossed in my pant pocket and forgetting about. It is just an utterly useless size.
I was extremely disappointed to discover that Google's tablet was a 7" offering, I had so looked forward to it until I learned that it was a useless size.
For now I'll keep my phone for reading ebooks, quick emails, and all other things that I want with me at all times, and keep my 10" tablet with it's keyboard accessory for any serious work when travelling (has completely replaced a laptop for me)
Which is exactly the same thing.
Most Apple customers these days aren't part of the fanbase. They're just regular people lately.
Tablet computers are becoming a commodity. A 7" tablet from China is only $70. On Amazon, you can now get Android tablets from $60. Since the Allwinner ARM system on a chip came out for $7, with no US intellectual property to run up the price, the compute power in low-end tablets has been quite impressive. Tablet computers are going to be something you buy in a blister pack at the convenience store.
How will Apple, with all their expensive stores on expensive real estate, and a business built on huge markups, deal with that? Their pricing is around $400, over five times the price of the competition. They can't maintain that margin.
There's a market for luxury items. The CEO of Rolex says "We are not in the watch business, we are in the luxury business. The volumes are small. Apple is too big a company to take that route. Apple may have to try coming out with lower-priced lines to compete.
No, it's not. Books - especially fiction books - are 99% text with the most basic layout possible, and minimal typesetting differences throughout the book. Your typical website has a far more complicated layout and typesetting requirements, often uses color, and generally requires scrolling (rather than page flipping) to conveniently read. Not to mention the whole interactive angle with clicking links; books only have an occasional footnote.
Microsoft Surface is not a 7" device...
The ipad mini will have to be a *lot* lighter.
If they are to compete with kindle they will have to sacrifice much
of the ipad experience unless they have some slam dunk
power consumption strategies/hardware that allow for a much lighter battery.
I get really tired of this frame of stories that assume Apple is the alpha and the omega.
When you start out like that you just look uninformed.
The fact is you should care if Apple is entering a niche because it means that other options may well dry up.
I don't really care about the Amazon or Nook tablets because they are trying to run the same Apple game plan, poorly
Poorly? Both seem to have done really well. Amazon has a tablet that lets people easily hook into the benefits of the media Amazon provides, and they have done a good job of selling devices.
I don't want to semi-buy a tethered device that is more a tethered window into it's owner's cloud than a computer that [I] control.
All of these tablets are computers you can easily control. Why then ignore the very real benefits that derive from the tablet maker also offering a hook into convenient cloud services?
iCloud will happily back up a jailbroken iPad as easily as a non-jailbroken iPad...
In other words, tablet computers instead of iPad clones. You can keep your subsidized[1] media players; I'm a nerd and I buy computers.
You claim you are a nerd, yet you discard the best hardware on the market (not just Apple), hardware that as you admit is perhaps cheaper through subsidization - that you don't even have to use!
A true nerd doesn't care what features a device ships with, just how much control they have over a device and what the hardware is. The iPad is as controllable a device as anything after jailbreaking - which even non-nerds can do, yet it seems to be too intimidating for you.
Weak sauce man. If you want be a nerd or hacker, be that - but don't proclaim some hardware is beyond your nerd-love simply because of extra features targeting the masses that you don't even have to activate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Whether you're strolling on a sidewalk in a city, or climbing a narrow mountain during hike, you are fundamentally walking, so these are exactly the same thing - and clearly dress shoes are the most convenient form of footwear for both.
Early next year Samsung will be selling an 11+" 'retina' type display tablet, and that will begin the end of apple's dominance. http://m.computerworld.com/s/article/9230159/Samsung_details_next_gen_Exynos_processor_for_smartphones_and_tablets?mm_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fnews%2Fi%2Fsection%3Fgl%3Dus%26pz%3D1%26cf%3Dall%26topic%3Dtc http://www.tehrantimes.com/science/100502-samsung-is-moments-away-from-a-true-ipad-alternative
e.g. by putting out reader applicaitons for all platforms and making money on sellign the books, as they already do now. I would never buy the kindle (since dont like to pay somebody money for playing the gatekeeper to what i can watch on *my* device), but since Amazon makes my purchases available on my android via the kindle app, my xp machine, and (even for offline reading) in the web browser, i am not exacltly sure *why* amazon should be worried about the 7 inch ipad. I spend more for ebooks in the last year (since i use the kindle app) than for books in the 5 years before.
The ipad 7 inch is an device which apple hestitated to produce and enters the market as one of the last big players (the same for the surface thing). Pocket-compatible ebook reader have been arund a long time, and the load of android devices in all different shapes, formats and price ranges makes the 7 inch ipad appear like a drop of water in the sea.
The more relevant question is: Is apple navigating itself in a position of "we against the rest" with a high fence around the garden? Again? A little lesson in the History of Apple should teach that they made this mistake one time before. In the 90s they were had the monopoly in the DTP and creative market. Until they managed to annoy their customers a few years too long by keeping the same feature set and relying on the market monopoly. At that time the logics was: If you do DTP, you need an Apple, sicne the print shops only guarantee the result if you deliver your product as a mac format. If you open a print shop, you need a Apple because the customer has Apple. Bot have an Apple, so the colour calibration chain (which indeed worked better in the beginning on the Apples than on Windows) will guarantee that you know what you print. Nowadays the logics is: Apple controls a significant share of mp3 sales, media sales, so if you want to read a digital newspaper, you need an ipad. Since people reading digital newspapers own ipads, if you make a newspaper you need to publish for the ipad.
What happened in the 90s: Windows go better and betetr and chraper and cheaper and a so big overall market share that it put apple under pressure
What happens now: Android gets better and betetr and cheaper and cheaper and Apple has no monoply on the ebook, mp3 market or anything close. So the customers are essentially people who baought an ipod, upgraded to iphone and asrrive at the ipad now. I dont know many people who bought ipad which did not own iphones before.
So that leaves the question: Will Apple show an innovation (besides putting out an ipod in another size) which attract new cistomers or did they corner themself already?
They'll survive because nobody with two brain cells to rub together enjoys reading on a backlit and always-refreshing screen.
You do realize, of course, that active-matrix LCDs (like the IPS panels used in ALL Apple products) do not "flicker" (like the unavoidable consequence of "always-refreshing" CRTs).
Flicker in LCDs does NOT come from "refresh"; but rather from asymmetric-drive signals. Modern LCDs have hardware compensation for this. Hence, they don't flicker. At all.
This is why reading text on an LCD is much less fatiguing than reading it on, say, a CRT. e-Ink displays are also "comfortable" for this same reason; but that's not the point: The point is that properly-designed active-matrix LCDs don't flicker any more than e-Ink displays, at least as far as human eyes are concerned. And until the U.N. Non-Human Rights Treaty passes in 2030, we don't have to worry about making displays tuned to horses, dogs, cats and pigs.
They need to bring out color ink. .*now*. And be a tad bigger than 6" too please.. Not huge, but a little bit..
But as far as their 'tablet-readers' they are pretty much toast once apple gets in the game, as i don't think their multimedia ecosystem will keep them afloat enough to make it worth while. Sure they could survive, but that isn't the point of a business unit.
Their book ecosystem will keep the ink-readers alive forever, however my biggest fear is they get out of the reader market completely, and just sell e-books and reader apps.. Then where will we get ink from other than Sony and mainland china?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Wait; Apple doesn't have a 7-inch tablet yet? The strategy of the others is obvious: They sue Apple for infringing their "innovative" format. If they can find a friendly judge, they can block sales of Apple's gadget of the same size for a year or two, and by then people will be galloping off after the latest hot thing (maybe a 7.5-inch tablet?), and it won't matter. If Amazon, B&N and a few others pool their resources, they should be able to drag this out for a few years, even against Apple.
Of course, Apple might countersue for infringing on their patent on their process of patenting things that are only minimally different from what others have had for years. But that's a different /. story ...
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
They'll survive because nobody with two brain cells to rub together enjoys reading on a backlit and always-refreshing screen.
Spoken by a person reading slashdot on a "backlit and always-refreshing screen".
There's a big difference between spending 30 minutes browsing the web and spending hours reading an eBook. I always use the eInk Kindle instead of my 7" android tablet for reading a book - it's just easier on my eyes. And while I can browse the web on the Kindle, it's not really the best platform for web browsing so I use the tablet (or my laptop) for that.
People that feel their tablet is "fatiguing" to read for long periods generally have their backlight adjusted incorrectly (usually too bright). I know my iPad 2 has enough backlight to make my irises squinch shut on a predominantly-white page in normal home-level lighting. Of course that's going to be fatiguing after a few hours; because your irises are relaxed when open (why people's eyes dilate when they die). You can duplicate this effect by trying to read a dead-tree book in bright sunlight. After awhile, you just want to run screaming...
/. readers, who probably spend far more than average times staring at a display that is essentially in the same focus-plane for hours at a stretch...
So, try adjusting the brightness of your tablet such that, when looking around the room, then looking at the screen, your don't feel your eyes "adjusting" too much. Then see if that doesn't tame that "backlight fatigue" when reading/browsing.
Also, give your eyes a little exercise by deliberately changing the focus-plane (looking around the room) every few minutes. Even a few seconds makes a big difference. I know this isn't news; but it bears repeating.
But I shouldn't have to tell that to an audience of
Yep
For a lot of people not on holiday, you have it reversed: they probably spend 10-12 hours a day on a computer screen and half an hour reading a book while commuting. E-Ink is useful for power reader, reading book for hours rather than watching TV or browsing internet after works - if they were anywhere close to being the majority, the world would be a very different place.
People have been saying that about Apple since Apple existed. They have come out with a few lower priced things over the years, but those products came and went while the expensive stuff remained.
both Barnes and Noble and Amazon were shifting those tablets, pretty much exclusively to get you to buy stuff from them. I'm not even too sure they were even that important - given an ipad and no legacy tie-in, I'd use kindle over apple's in-house offering.
My take on the Nexus 7 was a little bit different - this was prove that Android tablets didn't have to be crap or expensive. In our swoop they've pretty much decimated the market for so-so 3rd party manufacturers - any new tablet has either got to be significantly cheaper or better to even bother trying to enter the market place.
There's a market for luxury items. The CEO of Rolex says "We are not in the watch business, we are in the luxury business. The volumes are small. Apple is too big a company to take that route. Apple may have to try coming out with lower-priced lines to compete.
You have a good point, and I used to think the same, but consider that Apple has been selling high-priced laptops for over a decade, despite the emergence of $350 laptops, they still manage to sell them for $2000+. Not only do they sell them, their marketshare is increasing. I don't claim to understand HOW they do this, but they do. And so far, they've managed to keep selling iPads for some reason, too.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
For all intents and purposes, they both perform the same functions, after all, regardless of the price tag.
And a cardboard box provides the same function as a house, and a 9" B/W TV performs the same functions as a 60" HDTV; but I know which one most people would rather live in, and watch...
So what exactly was your point? Oh, that's right; you really didn't have one.
For that matter, it blows away the iPad as well. After using it for a week, going back to iOS feels like going back in time. The Nexus is easier to use, more flexible, more responsive and it just plain feels slicker. I suspect an honest comparison between an iPad mini and the Nexus won't come up too well for the iPad. I'm sure it will still be bought in droves by the faithful, but Apple's been passed by Google.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Kindle anyway. Slow, cumbersome, difficult to search. Purely a "use only when absolutely necessary" feature. I suspect (just a speculation based on my experience and the experiences of several colleagues) that most Kindle users buy books on Amazon.com using their computer, and only use the Kindle device/app for *reading*.
But nobody right now has Amazon's selection, or (just as big an asset) review infrastructure and data.
For the serious reader (several books a week, academic or specialty books, etc.) Amazon is currently the only choice by a large margin.
And I doubt the iPad Mini (or whatever) will have any effect on Kindle Fire sales, since Amazon advertises is as a "reader" much more than in the "tablet" space. The Kindle Fires is my social circles were all bought by people that use them for reading and reading only. They really had no other ambitions for the device, which is how they ended up with a Kindle Fire in the first place.
Even if they knew that you could do other things with one, I'm not at all sure they'd be interested in actually doing those things. I suspect that the marketing differences will keep these two devices in different and only slightly overlapping market segments.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
My point (which you know, yay for being deliberately obtuse!) is that insinuating that Amazon and Barnes and Noble are in any sort of trouble just because Apple is releasing a 7" tablet is fucking retarded. The iPod certainly didn't kill off all other MP3 players, the iPad certainly didn't kill off 10" tablets, so why the fuck would a 7" iPad kill off the Nook or Kindle? It's completely ridiculous, and this is just click-bait.
Also, I really love the fact that, to you, iPad:Nook/Kindle = house:cardboard box. The fanboy is strong with this one!
The medium of eInk is completely different than an LED type display. eInk is damn good for a page turning book, as in a novel or something where you read the pages slowly and in order. eInk is terrible for skimming where you flick back and fourth or where the data is highly formatted such as a textbook.
LED is awesome for stuff you read quickly such as video (many frames per second) a web page, twitter, facebook, etc. But even then the size determines what you will read. A larger screen (iPad or bigger) is good for skimming a textbook, or a magazine. I don't want to read a magazine or textbook on a 7 inch screen. Even though the screen is book size and the weight will be more book like I suspect that people will not want to read 50 shades of stupid on a smaller iPad. So that basically leaves it to be used for games, video, and other things that you would do with a really big phone.
I would say that the revolutionary size would be to bump up the normal iPad so that it doesn't have that huge bezel and a genuine 10+ inch screen; at least the size of a National Geographic. Then I can really do the textbook/magazine thing really well.
The revolutionary thing to do with eInk would be to make it way tougher (2 dead kindles in this house) and keep making it crisper. I am not sure that colour is even that important. Colour might make it easier to sell in Staples but only if it doesn't come at the expense of lightness/crispness/cost/ or battery. I wouldn't mind the screen being a notch bigger but at most another inch.
I'll probably buy it to replace both my phone and my current iPad in one device. I use Google Voice + Talkatone on my iPad already when I'm stationary, but a 10" tablet is just too big to carry around—for example—to the grocery store. But at 7" I'd make the leap and do away with the phone form factor altogether.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Assuming they actually do release it (has anything official been announced yet?), Apple is going to have a hard time setting a good price for the iPad Mini.
The Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire, and Nexus 7 all start at $199. Therefore, Apple won't be able to price the iPad Mini much more than $250 unless they want to be seriously beat out on price by A-list competitors. It's one thing to be beaten on price by bottom-of-the-barrel crap like Archos, but until now, the iPad has been quite competitive on price with equivalently powerful systems from A-list vendors such as Samsung. No other 10-inch tablet provides equal performance to the iPad at a substantially cheaper price. In fact, no consumer tablet at any price can beat the iPad 3's display resolution. Apple's success comes not only from providing a slicker product, but also from the fact that they've pretty much abolished the "Apple tax" on portable hardware, and used their supply chain dominance to leverage prices way down.
At the same time, Apple can't sell the iPad Mini for much cheaper than the iPad 2 ($399), because if they do, it will cost them a substantial number of sales on the better hardware. A lot of tablet users would gladly drop from 10 inches to 7 inches to save $150, if the user experience is otherwise the same. Apple doesn't want to cannibalize its own profit margins on their high-end tablets.
I'm sure their marketers have crunched all the numbers. My prediction: if the iPad Mini does see production, it will start at $249 or $299 for the cheapest model. Just low enough to lure over a decent number of Nexus/Kindle/Nook users, just high enough to keep the iPad 2 competitive. Also, the screen resolution will be 1024x768.
And there are cheaper music players than iPods, and cheaper laptops than MacBooks, and yet somehow Apple has turned into the biggest company on the planet than isn't a bank or oil concern. Apple is selling more and more computers, phones, and tablets year over year, every year. (The only thing that's going down is their iPod sales because everyone's buying iPhones instead.) The whole market is growing--people are buying tablets who never bought computers, and cell phones are literally going to hit the points where 99% of the PLANET owns one. (Did you know their iPhone business--something that didn't even exist five years ago--is bigger than the entirety of Microsoft?)
Apple is not a niche, small-volume luxury company like Rolex. You're comparing a multi-hundred dollar, multi-feature device to a multi-thousand dollar, single-function device--of course Rolex is going to have orders of magnitude less volume.
I always laugh when posts like yours get high "Insightful" mods. You're cherry-picking all these little facts here and there while ignoring the hundred-billion-dollar elephant in the room.
> How will Apple, with all their expensive stores on
> expensive real estate, and a business built on
> huge markups, deal with that?
LOL. Have you ever heard "you've got to spend money to make money"? Apple retail stores have the highest profit per square foot ratio of any retail chain by a HUGE margin. (Almost 2x higher than #2, Tiffany.) And it's been like that for five years.
Also: you really think all these companies with razor-thin margins are going to thrive in Apple's place? You can ask Dell how well that strategy worked for them long-term. And have you ever used a generic tablet? I have, and they all suck in every way you can imagine. Apple's resources give them the ability to make things people actually want.
I'm not saying Apple will reign forever, but it will take them a LONG time to fall.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Asus already sell a 10-11" tablet with a 1920x1200 screen. I'm happy to admit that frankly, that's good enough for me.
Until I get one, I'll stick with the 4" 1280x780 screen on my phone, which is again about as dense as I need, given it fits in my pocket.
Or, just buy a Nexus 7 and install the Kindle reading app. And, if you want REALLY open, download the one-click windows app to unlock and root it.
because it comes in at 299 or less I won't flinch every time the seven year runs to show me her latest effort on the iPad
A small size means I can shove it my dress pants pocket, something the Kindle does well but the iPad does not (I have the kindle touch, kindle fire, and an iPad)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't see how it's really a threat to Amazon and B&N at all-- they both have apps that let you read their content on iThings, and they're primarily content companies not hardware companies. The bigger issue might be whether it cuts into iPhone sales.
And depending on what you want it for, it may not be a major competitor at all. I've got a collection of various e-readers and tablets, and the iPad isn't that great of an e-reader. It's big (making it less convenient to read in bed), and the backlighting sucks power and isn't as good for extended reading as the reflected-light reading of e-Ink. And it's too big to fit in your pocket, and doesn't make phone calls... The advantage (to me, focusing on ebook related things) is that it supports equations and is better if you want to to picture books and that sort of thing. I kind of prefer the kindle fire over the iPad (and that's coming from someone who has a house full of old macs of various flavors). And for just plain reading I prefer the eInk versions of the kindle and nook.
I can't understand why people go full retard over buying the iPad. It costs almost double what a laptop does and does not have a keyboard. It has no means of expandable storage (besides SD card), its too big to fit into a pocket and does everything a cell phone does except make calls. Why are these so popular?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Many reasons to list, but the most salient are: Apple will price it too high. Fanboys will buy it- but ultimately Apple will grasp and miss any kind of foothold as they lose out to the tidal wave in incoming inexpensive Android tablets. It will still be locked into the iTunes store. That exclusivity isn't worth the price of the DRM, sorry. Android tablets will continue increasing in features while the iPad plods behind. Apple doesn't move as fast as technology. Maybe I should have called it an iPlod.
I'm looking at a Taiwanese 7-inch tablet now that does everything I need for $65. This is just like the IBM PC clones that kicked down a huge section of the pricing wall and made entering the market more enticing to new buyers. Apple's days are numbered.
The only thing to do is change their prices. TFA even says "If Amazon and Barnes & Noble are smart, they will cut their respective tablets by $50, pricing the Kindle Fire at $149 and the Nook Tablet at $199."
Did anyone else notice that BN has, wait for it, dropped the price of the Nook Color and the tablets? I (and probably countless others) got a bulk mail last night. Nook tablets now start at $179 and the 16GB is $199. Hell, the BN website still says "get 16GB for only $50 more" and "get 8GB and save $50", even though it's now only a $20 difference.
Amazon will almost certainly do something similar shortly.
Another US-centric story I see. Here in the UK, the story reads to me as "unreleased Kindle Fire and unreleased Nook Color vs. rumoured unreleased iPad Mini and unreleased MS Surface and - shock horror - released Nexus 7". In other words, a pretty useless story for non-US citizens - please try harder next time. Oh, and yes, I have a Nexus 7 because that *has* been released outside the US and is therefore the default 7" tablet winner in my books.
There's no difference between spending hours browsing the web and spending hours reading an eBook.
Wrong.
Browsing the web needs a.) a network connection b.) a colour display (otherwise you cannot really use a lot of the websites) c.) halfway decent CPU/RAM to handle all the javascript/graphics/animated stuff/...
Reading text (ebook, ascii file) needs none of that. The text is already on the ebook reader, so you need no network connection. You need no colour display, because it's just text, black on white/grey. Which means the e-ink display is perfect for the job, and it also uses far less battery power than a backlit display. And, in my opionion at least, is FAR easier on the eyes. If I had the choice of using the latest and greatest ipad or my kindle to read a book, I'd still choose the kindle even though the ipad has a really good colour display - the e-ink display is just better for text. And you can get away with far less CPU grunt because all the reader needs to do is refresh the display when you press the "next page" button, and text files use no java script or any other stuff websites use.
So, really, reading websites is not the same as reading an ebook.
It's like asking how BMW stays in business in a world where you can buy a cheap Fiat that can get you anywhere the BMW can go. In other words, it is missing the point.
This is not very much of an issue with IPS panels, as opposed to say a TN panel.
An LCD is not an LCD is not an LCD. I currently sit before a very good IPS display (NEC 2090uxi) and a TN display of the same calibre that most folks have (a random, inexpensive 24" Asus), and the difference in viewing angles is immediately obvious once it is noticed. (Unfortunately, once noticed, it can also never be un-noticed...)
More to the point: When I had the NEC IPS display next to a quality Viewsonic monitor with a Trinitron CRT, I liked them both equally well in terms of viewing angle as neither of them had any issues with having a particular sweet spot to view them from. Indeed, by the time I was off-axis enough for the LCD to start looking meaningfully wrong, I was also getting optical distortion from the thick glass on the CRT.
So. IPS panel in a reader? Please, sign me up. From what I've seen, Apple does a brilliant job with their IPS displays. (And no, I don't own an Apple product and don't really care to, but the displays are fucking gorgeous.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Read again. The previous poster said active-matrix, as in IPS panels, which are NOT directional and contrast does NOT vary. There are many, many types of panels to chose from when making an LCD, and they all have pros and cons with various effects. You're thinking of poorly made TN panels.
It fits in larger pockets.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Those markets are just what people talk about all the time. Apple has had some outright failures and markets they have competed in poorly. A good failure would be the Pippin, Apple's game console. Apple had a game console way before MS did but it was a total failure and Apple fans don't talk about it anymore.
On the opposite end a product that hasn't failed, but failed to impress is the Apple TV. People buy them and use them, but not in droves. DVD/Blu-ray players with network functionality are more popular in that market (or using game consoles for the same purpose). So it isn't a failure, but hasn't "set the trend" at all.
So what will happen with the 7" iPad? Who knows? For most people a tablet it completely worthless, it is just a toy. Now there's nothing wrong with that, and there's a massive market in selling people toys they want to have for no reason other than they are cool. However, will the be sold on needing another, slightly smaller toy? Maybe, maybe not. We'll just have to see.
However this isn't doing anything new. It is just something that is larger than a smartphone, smaller than the previous iPad. If ever there was a "no real need" niche, that is it. People may decide they want it and buy it in droves, however they may also say "Meh, already have the big one," and leave it at that.
Oh... I dunno... I can get a kindle for under $100... The battery charger for this thing will likely cost more than that. So there's that.
The offering from Amazon and Barnes & Noble are like carburettor sub-compacts without airbag, anti-lock brakes power steering, air condition and power windows
What available from Apple are fuel-injection BMW with all the trimmings
When BMW decides to offer a sub-compact, it will come with all the trimmings (anti-lock brake, air bags, air conditioning, power-everything)
If Amazon / Barnes & Noble want to compete, they better upgrade their sub-compacts with matching trimmings, or risk losing their customer base
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
My view of Apple isn't routed in the 90's it's routed from all the REALLY stupid choices they make. For instance shipping a new notebook with out an Ethernet port, or shipping a computer with out a DVD / CDROM drive. How about building a tablet so big it's impractical ( iPad1 and 2 ), How about your only real selling point is the fact you are 1 mm thinner then the other guy. etc..... So I'm not routed in the 90's I just need products and technology that isn't designed by completely morons.
I really wouldn't be surprised if Apples next move was to get rid of the keyboard, the Onion was making a joke in the video the iWheel but I'm willing to put money on the fact that Apple will get rid of the keyboard just to save room, of course every fan boy will line up to get a new one.
Even if you do turn the backlight down there are enough problems with lack of contrast to make E-Ink better for reading.
Meh. Another poorly researched article to slobber some fruity knob. If you look at the authors other articles at least half of them are dedicated to the fruit salad. The author had to go back and correct his article because the first comments were pointing out incorrect info on the IBT site. Move along nothing to see here...
There are color e-ink displays on the market. Eventually they will have enough resolution to make color comics or magazines available.
IPS varies too with off-angle. Just not as much, and not quite so sensitive to direction in particular.
I've been a big e-ink supporter since the first Kindle. I'd no longer say e-ink is far superior, just better.
The retina iPad and iPhones closed the gap for me almost completely. I have no fatigue issues with those, as long as I cut the brightness a bit to be comparable to lit e-ink. I've read entire longish novels on my phone, no problem. That's led me to believe the real problem with reading text on LCD has never been luminance or flicker, but simply crispness of the text.
I still buy e-ink Kindles, but that's because they're lighter, cheaper (and thus safer to carry around) and have the slight advantage with off-angle viewing and my tendency to shift my grip/gaze such that the angle varies. However, the advantage is now small enough that if e-ink disappeared from the market, I'd live.
My point (which you know, yay for being deliberately obtuse!) is that insinuating that Amazon and Barnes and Noble are in any sort of trouble just because Apple is releasing a 7" tablet is fucking retarded. The iPod certainly didn't kill off all other MP3 players, the iPad certainly didn't kill off 10" tablets, so why the fuck would a 7" iPad kill off the Nook or Kindle? It's completely ridiculous, and this is just click-bait.
Also, I really love the fact that, to you, iPad:Nook/Kindle = house:cardboard box. The fanboy is strong with this one!
Wow! You are reading WAAAY too much into my analogy!
I was simply proposing that there really ARE differences in products. One car is not like another; one TV is not like another; one guitar is not like another, and one Tablet Computer is not like another. It is YOU that decided to analogize the Nook/Kindle to the cardboard box, not me.
But if the box fits...
The real issue with LCD panels as readers is that they are directional, and contrast varies (sometimes greatly) depending on the viewing angle. This means that each eye sees an image with different contrast (especially when held in portrait mode), which can be very fatiguing.
You apparently haven't experienced the IPS panels that Apple (and a very few others) use.
Stop using crap, get the to an Apple Store and you'll see that the panel on the iPad has 170 degree viewing angle in all axes. No polarizer artifacts and brightness drop-off until you're at such a steep angle you couldn't read it, even if it were a piece of printed paper.
There really IS a difference.
IPS varies too with off-angle. Just not as much, and not quite so sensitive to direction in particular.
Yeah, 170 degrees off-angle...
Even if you do turn the backlight down there are enough problems with lack of contrast to make E-Ink better for reading.
Maybe on your shit TN display; but that isn't much of an issue on a iPad with an IPS Retina Display.
For instance shipping a new notebook with out an Ethernet port
I own that notebook. I carry an ethernet cable with me. And now at the end of the ethernet cable I have an adapter. Not a terrible sacrifice.
Well, if you ignore the dozens of sub-$100 7" tablets that are made in China that do nearly everything the $500 ones do. I'd like to see sales figures for those but if my workplace is anything to go by, they're outselling Samsung, HTC, Apple, etc by a considerable margin.
Since the expensive household-name tablets are also made in China, why even bother with a name brand anymore? And they all run the same OS (except for Apple of course).
I suspect that Malibu Stacey having a new hat is not going to be a problem for Amazon or B&N.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
It is out in a few forms (triton eink, mirasol and there are others), but since it's not emitting light (and a few other reasons) it doesn't look as good as an LCD screen.
I played with a 10 inch "Ectacto Jetbook Color" for a couple of days to set it up for a friend, and it's a nice device but you don't buy it for the colour (you get it for the software). The colour is like coloured comics on cheap 1980s newsprint - there but not glossy. The old Beatrix Potter "Adventures of Peter Rabbit" and the lightly coloured line drawings looked perfect on it, but any photo displayed on it is going to disappoint. Text looks wonderful (since the resolution is huge) but colour is at 1/3 of the resolution and not bright. The software is OK for what it is supposed to do - using WinCE is a bit of a braindead choice for such a platform though since you cannot have an audiobook playing while looking at the text of the same book. If I was getting that hardware for myself I'd probably get the Chinese one that doesn't run WinCE so is probably a bit more responsive, and I don't need the text to speech or educational software which is the reason to buy the Ectacto. I don't know how I'd get it though since it seems to be in short supply, and it may cost just as much as getting the Ectacto version.
So books and old comics look good on it but you can forget about anything else for the colour.
I've never seen a mirasol device, but that's the glossy low power sunlight readable display that is similar to eink but not quite the same and the advertising says colour photos will look like photos on the devices. Apparently one is on sale in Korea but hard to obtain.
Sunlight is the deciding factor for me. I can't even use my phone outside in full daylight but I can read an eink device without having to carefully shade it.
If you think that all 100mil Apple Fans still have all their old iOS devices.
Just look at the numbers of old models that appear on Ebay etc just after a new model is released
I know of many families where the older iPads are recycled to other family members.
Disclaimer
I own one iOS device, an ipod Touch 16Gb. 3+ years old and still going strong. My phone is an HTC Sensation.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
If I'm buying a notebook I'm not going to accept the fact it doesn't come with an Ethernet port. That would be like making a notebook with out a keyboard but making an adapter for a keyboard. There are some standard ports that must come with new computers, just because Apple decides that it doesn't need to include them doesn't mean there right.
Dude. Stick a warning label on that shit. You got sarcasm all over my screen. Eww. Where's my spray bottle of screen cleaner...
If it is an idealogical must that has nothing to do with actual functionality that's your right. If the issue is one of functionality however, there isn't actually any loss.
As for why you are wrong that there shouldn't be an ethernet port: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/07/dsc01883-copy-1342021663.jpg
That's a picture of the Lenovo ultrabook, which is actually slightly thicker than the rMBP. I think the problem with include one is obvious.
That doesn't prove anything. That shows an Ethernet port on the side of the notebook beside two USB 3.0 ports. Which is almost an ideal layout for a side of the notebook, on the other side should be another USB 3.0 port, One HDMI port and a Optical disk drive. The ultimate notebook would still include an RS-232 port but it's HIGHLY unlikely you'll find one.
Your argument essentially boils down to this:
Do not underestimate the power of human stupidity.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Maybe on your shit TN display; but that isn't much of an issue on a iPad with an IPS Retina Display (TM).
Fixed that for you.
Look at the lines on the bottom, the port doesn't fit.
But if you consider that the ideal layout, Lenovo's ultra-books are always available. Apple does this year still sell a line with all those ports: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/features/13-and-15-inch/
But if the box fits...
It doesn't. That was kinda like the whole point. Yay again for being deliberately obtuse!
Easy the bulk of us out here want nothing to do with Apple. I won't buy the mini, much in the same way I didn't buy a iPad, iPhone, touch, iPod, Mac, etc, etc, etc
Apple's resources give them the ability to make things people actually want.
People also want cheap. If it's isn't brand recognition that's driving the "luxury" price, then when a competitor achieves reasonably similar results for cheaper, things will change. I would say that Apple's phone "reign" was relatively short lived, I would expect the same for the tablet.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Barnes and Noble is fine. Their strategy is to convert their current customer base to digital. When these customers come into the store they see a big display case of Nooks with a saleman behind the desk to push them. They have the best location in the buisness to sell a tablet to a book buyer. Apple can only get the book buyers who are comparison shopping. Apple also can get people who want a tablet for video and gaming. But these people don't buy a ton of books a year. They are low volume customers for B&N.
Amazon already has an iPad app. They could easily do an Android app with the full capabilities of the Kindle Fire; they just haven't chosen to do it yet. The Kindle line isn't about making money on hardware; it's about delivering a sales device to people and then making money on those sales. Amazon likes the idea of the Kindle because they're the only seller there, but their store is strong and will be able to sell media (as well as physical goods) on other platforms. I have no interest in a closed tablet platform like the Kindle Fire but I might be persuaded to get an Amazon Prime subscription for my Nexus 7 if they offered it.
The main danger to Amazon is that the hardware companies could choose to make it difficult or impossible for them to do so. Apple has total control over what can be offered on the App Store and could withdraw approval of the Amazon app. Microsoft appears to be planning a similar model for the Surface. Android is the one space where Amazon appears to be safe. Google can't close Android to outside developers without destroying its unique selling proposition; Android's openness to everyone is a big factor in people choosing the platform.
Barnes and Noble is in a more difficult position. They don't have as much to offer as a merchant (they're doing fine with books but they don't have the other media content that Amazon does, let alone the physical goods), so it's not clear whether they can survive on platforms that are also open to other sellers. One possible survival path for B&N would be to use their strong academic ties to become a specialist in publishing e-textbooks.
It's also useless for spreading butter or inflating a flat tire.
They'll survive because nobody with two brain cells to rub together enjoys reading on a backlit and always-refreshing screen.
Spoken by a person reading slashdot on a "backlit and always-refreshing screen".
Completely different use cases. Last christmas I slept in a bedroom without a reading light, and I decided to give the iPad provided by my employer a whirl for reading an epub. I quickly found that it works better as reading light for my Pearl-based reader than as a reader in its own right (seriously -- the brightness on that thing is amazing). If I wanted to browse Slashdot the tablet would obviously be the better tool.
The tablet is not useless for reading, but IMO the specialised reader is far superior for what it's designed for.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
I'm your average hardcore computer geek and didn't like the iPad-induced tablet hipe all that much - mostly because it favours devices that factually arent turing complete because I can't programm them (Apple Developer Lockin, iTunes lockin, Controll over Deployment, etc.), Android fragmentation hassles, etc.
Anyway:
6 months ago I gave in and bought the only tablet that I've seen to date that is or was actually interesting to me: A special bargain offer of the HTC Flyer. Turns out, I use it every day. It's a very neat device as far as tablets go, and I maybe even swap my smartphone (HTC Desire, also very nice) for a dumbphone somewhere down the line, because usage on the Flyer is so much more comfortable.
It's quite good right up to very great for almost anything besides programming. It's small enough to fit anywhere, the enclosure is the best on the market (even better than the Apple stuff), it runs Android 3, it's great to watch movies on, it's great to read novels on. - Neal Stephensons Reamde is my first Kindle Book and I've been reading it on the Flyer exclusively, using the kinlde app. I use it regularly in situations where a Notebook - even the MB Air I'm typing this on - just wouldn't suffice: The Bed, the Beanbag, leaning back in the seat on the train, standing at the bus stop, checking prices and reviews at the store or checking my schedule in meetings.
Everynote is a great experience, and the calendar, albeight not quite as good in functions and features as the blackberry ones (those are the best imho) is still awesome. And the stylus is great for navigating tricky stuff on the browser that isn't built for tablet navigation yet.
Long story short: The HTC Flyer showed me that tablets can actually be worthwhile for the relatively small niche they service. And the Flyers 7" size and its slightly elongated cinema display formfactor tops it off.
I expect this 7" hipe to continue and become the dominant formfactor of portable tabletcomputers. I for one will now probably slowly move away from dead-tree reading to this sort of tablet. From my experience in the last 6 months I think it's safe to say that that time has now actually come.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I don't get the appeal of a 7 inch tablet at all. If you want to read novels on a 7" screen, go with e-ink. For comic books, technical articles, web, etc. a 10" screen is WAY more appropriate.
Use one.
No, seriously: Use one. Borrow one for a week or so. You'll be suprised. Same with me. I'd almost bet money that the usage patterns are noticeably diffferent than with a 10" tablet.
I'd never thought that I'd be carrying around and using a tablet each and every day, but the 7" formfactor actually is very neat. Weight, space, handling ... my hands are actually big enough to hold both edges of my 7" HTC Flyer with one hand.
I was very late in the tablet-game, but I think now I'm hooked. A 10" would be to cumbersome in most situations where you'll be using the smaller one. And, no, a smartphone is not a substitue. I've had my HTC Flyer for more than twice as long as my HTC Flyer, and I'm using it considerably less nowadays.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
For about a year, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble were almost completely alone in the 7-inch tablet market.
At the risk of inciting a slew of "that lone BlackBerry user" trolling, PlayBook was not only around for the past year, it predates both of those by quite some time...
Bow before me, for I am root.
Amazon is in the content business. If they can sell books on an iPad mini I'm sure they will be happy to get the profits.
It's OK, the Apple fanboys modded it down. Gotta burn up karma some days.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
IPS still has very poor diagonal angles. I'll take my vastly superior OLED displays any day.
I like OLEDs, too. They are true lambertian light sources. BUT the blue color still has VERY shitty lifespan in OLEDs, which results in a constantly-shifting "white level" over time.
I think his obtuseness is genuine. You forget, you're dealing with someone who buys Apple products. Intelligence is anathema to those people.
Just let him clicky clicky, point n' drool with his fisher price computer and ignore him.
Ahem.
Embedded systems developer with over 30 years of hardware and software experience.
And my "Fisher-Price computer" runs Unix. So does my phone and my Tablet.
What was your point, again?