Amph The IPad, Kindle and the possible impact on Print Media

FYI - Blackberry playbook has had a price slash. In the UK the 16gb version has gone from £399 to £169.

 

With the problems Blackberry has been having this year I think it wouldn't be my first choice.

 

I wouldn't consider it either; from what I understand RIM is basically setting up their own sandbox for the Playbook. This works fine for the IPad because the IPhone app store set the stage for the tablet-there were plenty of apps ready to go when the IPad hit market. This isn't the case for the Playbook-it's hitting the market cold and it shows. Introducing a new Android tablet, or for Apple a new IPad, is easy because of software commonality; Android tablets don't really differ greatly from each other and they ALL have access to the original Android Market and the Amazon App Store and the IPads have the advantage of Apple letting practically anything into the app store. Playbook owners are going to have to take what they can get and deal; they're in the same boat as a Nook Color owner, but for nearly twice as much money.

 

Mom's kindle broke...I think because she keeps falling asleep with it, rolling on it...and it actually has CIGARETTE BURNS all over the keyboard

Called Amazon customer service, didn't mention all the obvious user damage, did the standard reset thing. Didn't work.

No receipt from Best Buy or anything. They had the buy date from activation, so year long warranty was instantly verified. Sent her a new one, one day shipping. Don't even have to send the old one back. No questions asked.

Great service. I want a pad, and have no experience with them, but I'm definitely trying a Fire for my first one.

 

That's pretty good service. Kindle Fire isn't out in the UK yet, but when it is I'm hoping the price for the normal Kindle drops. I might take another look at it then.

 

Nice!!

Graduation is approaching at a much faster rate than I'd like. I'm seriously considering asking for a reader or tablet. (Though I might end up needing to ask for a new computer.)

 

As always, depends on what you need it to do. What's your degree in?

 

Journalism. I mean, I will need a new (functional) computer at some point, since I use it for work. I'm trying to decide whether I really need a tablet in addition to that or whether a reader and iPhone will suffice.

 

I kinda cringe at using my Iphone now, actually. People call the Ipad an "overgrown Iphone"; in my experience the Iphone is the mentally retarded Ipad. If I could get a beefy data plan for an Ipad (which, arguably, you could; it's 25 bucks a month for two gigs, and ten dollars a month extra for each gig after that) I'd probably ditch my phone entirely and just skype/facetime/Imessage everyone I know. IoS 5 on an Ipad is much closer to full OSX than what's on the phone; there's just MORE of everything and it works well in my experience. Plus there's a rumor that the next Ipad will have full-blown OSX on it, I could see it working (OSX is a pretty visual/gesture-oriented operating system as it is) but I think it'd cost waay too much to be sticking OSX on each tablet.

You ought to ask for an Ipad. The Apple productivity apps-Pages, Numbers, and Keynote-are crappy if you ask me, but Microsoft is apparently developing a version of Office for IoS and that has me pretty excited. Plus there's ways to hook it up to a monitor and such if you need more screen space than ten inches.

 

I love ebooks. At first, I started reading them on my Ipod touch and now that I just got a Kindle Fire, I've switched over to Amazon completly. Though not perfect, they have a better service than apple, and I don't have to store movies on my hard drive. It's great to be able to carry all my books around with me.

 

Good argument, but I actually enjoy both the iPhone and the iPad. iPhone camera is far superior, the display is better (not a noticeable deal most of the time), and it's much, much more portable.

 

I'm actually looking at getting the Asus Transformer Prime tablet here in the very near future. It's a tablet and a netbook at the same time. I need something that portable and with an 18hr battery life for while I'm deployed. Plus it has a four core processor.

I may actually end up leaving my nook touch behind if the prime is good enough.

Evil.

 

But the camera is probably my lowest priority (I use it for FaceTime and that's really about it; taking pictures of things isn't something I do on a regular basis) and as you mentioned, the screen resolution isn't all that noticeable usually. The IPad's expanded multi-touch gestures and generally beefier version of IoS are what win it for me; they more than compensate for less portability if you ask me.

 

Boba: Well, I kinda need a phone (Not that I've totally decided on an iPhone, but I do need some sort of cell.)

jop: Just out of curiosity, what (if anything) do you use the Fire for besides books?

Wiggins: I've never heard of that tablet. What company makes it?

 

Asus makes those; they're a good company.

I'd get an Iphone, myself, but I'm obviously sort of biased

 

Never heard of them (though I'm not really up on the tech market). How do they compare to the iPad and Fire, if anyone knows?

 

Besides reading?

I watch downloaded and streaming movies. The New Star Trek movie looks awesome on the screen. I also enjoy streaming all the seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

I browse the web and Facebook and twitter on it as well. I love to chat with friends on it. It's so much easier to type with a larger keyboard.

I check my email.

I enjoy alot of good apps including playing scrabble online with other people. I also enjoy the Madden 12 app. Never liked football games, but it's kinda fun playing on the Kindle Fire. Angry Birds is also a blast on it.

It does play music, but I don't use that feature; I have an Ipod touch for that.

It comes with an office sweet so I can read and edit MS word and excel documents.

It has a newstand for newspapers and magazines, but that's a feature I don't use either.

I also use it as my Bible for whenever I go to church.

So pretty much, I use it alot in a single day. Sometimes it's easier than just turning on my pc. I don't need a camera or a GPS. I don't like taking pictures, and I already own a reliable TomTom. Anything else, I have my smart phone. To me, it's all the fun stuff I can do with my Ipod but on a bigger screen, that's easy to cary along, and not too big like the Ipad.

 

They're a pretty good company as far as I know. As for how they compare to an Ipad, well....Ipads are responsible for 97% of tablet-based internet use and 61% of tablet sales, and that is literally two items. What this means for Android tablets is actually good: What's left of the tablet market sees pretty vicious competition and crappy products (and companies) go under pretty fast, and stuff that is actually worth buying costs less and sticks around.

As for what I use my Ipad for-pretty much what mrjop uses his for, although I stream music over it as well-the speaker on an Ipad blows headphones out of the water as far as I'm concerned, and the new Itunes Match/various other music streaming programs are pretty nice as well. I use it for SOME productivity-as I said, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are kinda crappy, but I'm trying pretty damn hard not to need a laptop anymore, and they work decently enough until Microsoft gets its act together and gives us Office for IoS.

 

The Transformer Prime is currently the best tablet on the market according to both professional, and user reviews.

Evil.

 

And if you can't afford an Ipad or an Asus, then a Kindle Fire is the perfect solution. There's no way I can afford either of those, and then pay $20 to $25 a month for 3G service. I can lives without the 3G, and I can do pretty much everything on a Kindle Fire than I can on an Ipad. The Kindle Fire is the poor man's tablet.

 

I won't argue with that. But I'm not poor, so I'm getting a transformer with all of it's 128gb memory capability.

Evil.

 

I have the 16-gig, wifi-only Ipad; once you get a music streaming service and Netflix, there's not much practical need for a whopper-sized harddrive, at least in my experience, and as my phone is also a wifi hotspot, I don't really need the 3G connection on the Ipad itself.

The main thing that aggravates me about the Iphone is AT&T. They over-inflate the crap out of their texting & calling plans-you can only get unlimited texting on the Iphone now, and 700 minutes of talk time if you have a family plan. My wife doesn't talk that much on the phone, and neither do I; the only people we text regularly have Iphones as well, so the unlimited texting is also unneeded. We pay about 160 a month for all this, which I guess wouldn't be that bad if we actually used anything besides data on a regular basis. I've thought about just putting Skype on my Ipod Touch and buying one of those 'mifi' hotspot devices-it'd drop my 'phone' bill to about 45 dollars a month; it's frustrating dealing with AT&T's constant gouging of smartphone customers.

Jobs originally wanted Apple to have its own data network exclusively for Idevice customers; while that has gone the way of the dinosaur as far as I can tell, although Apple's introduced a few data-only workarounds for its customers-FaceTime and Imessage, to be precise-since the intro. Definitely wouldn't mind if Apple bought one of the smaller, struggling cell companies (cough TMobile cough) and made an Apple-exclusive network, though.

 

Wow, a lot to think about

I think Sprint recently got (or is about to get) the iPhone. I haven't checked out the data plan, but it might be better than AT&T.

 

Yes, Spring has the Iphone now. From what I can tell, their data plans are better than AT&T, but don't hold me to that.

 

Its not. The Iphone 4S has swamped Sprints data network to the point where they dont offer unlimited data for IPhone users.

ATT has the fastest network, Verizon has the most widespread, and Sprint just kinda sucks.