Why I am excited about Kindle Fire
Let me start off by saying that I own Amazon stock and I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire last week. If you think that makes me biased then feel free to stop reading.
Still with me? Okay, good. Amazon’s new $200 tablet, the Kindle Fire, starts shipping today (one day early). Many early reviews are in, and the general consensus is the Fire is good, but not as good as the iPad. I have an issue with this comparison. I honestly do not believe Amazon is making the Kindle Fire to compete with the Apple over the tablet space. However, I do think they are competing with Apple in another arena: content.
One of the biggest reasons why the iPad is so successful is the iOS ecosystem (or as Tim Cook calls it, the “experience”). Apple makes it so easy to buy everything from them. Apps, movies, music, and now even newspaper and magazines are just one tap away. Out of all of the other tablets on the market (and trust me, there are a bunch of them), none of them have been able to make a dent in the iPad’s dominance. Why? Because companies like Samsung and Asus do not have any content to sell. They rely on Google’s Marketplace for apps and third party apps for everything else.
Guess who does have content to sell. Yup, Amazon. They have a ton of it to sell. If the Kindle Fire’s hardware is any good, their customization of Android isn’t terrible, and you add in Amazon’s vast array of content services, I believe you will have a really good product on your hands.