anyone gonna git kindle fire?

[Doppel]

Fire looks like a great holiday gift for those technologically challenged family members. You could have Grandma up & running in a heartbeat with this. For most geeks though, I have to wonder, how much hacking are you going to do with a device that lacks a micro SD slot and relies heavily on the Amazon Cloud services for it's capabilities?

Even most geeks have no interest in hacking their device. I assure you the vast majority of ipad owners couldn't care less about it and it will be that way for the fire as well.

Mine is showing Nov. 21-29 as the expected delivery but I ordered this morning and I don't have Prime. I placed the order mainly as placeholder and still might cancel.

Same here. I played with a playbook today briefly. I will again, but damn the screen isn't huge that's for sure.

 

[alent1234]

it's like shade tree mechanics

i work in IT and the last thing i want to do at home is tinker with computers. and most of the tinkering is completely useless for career advancement unless you want to be an engineer

 

[poofyhairguy]

and most of the tinkering is completely useless for career advancement unless you want to be an engineer

Depends. I have a boss that basically expected me to hack up his Nook Color for him after I showed him mine. Sure the skills don't apply directly to on-the-job problems, but tablets are a "sexy" item now and so hacking them is an easy way to impress and say "I know more than the average Joe."

 

[Geekbabe]

Depends. I have a boss that basically expected me to hack up his Nook Color for him after I showed him mine. Sure the skills don't apply directly to on-the-job problems, but tablets are a "sexy" item now and so hacking them is an easy way to impress and say "I know more than the average Joe."

LOL, yes! it's sorta of like being a circus poodle but instead of riding on the ponies we're expected to do amazing computer tricks

 

[poofyhairguy]

LOL, yes! it's sorta of like being a circus poodle but instead of riding on the ponies we're expected to do amazing computer tricks

Amen.

Before my Nook Color it was my hackintosh netbook. Before that it was a jailbroken iPhone with apps when those were rarer. Before that it was my hacked DS Lite. Before that it was the magic of Compiz's cube effect on a laptop (and other effects, but that is the big one). Before that? Well then I was back in school with no one to impress!

 

[stacey1981]

Definitely considering one. I like the form factor. Might have to sell my original kindle.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Fire looks like a great holiday gift for those technologically challenged family members. You could have Grandma up & running in a heartbeat with this. For most geeks though, I have to wonder, how much hacking are you going to do with a device that lacks a micro SD slot and relies heavily on the Amazon Cloud services for it's capabilities?

Some people at XDA were talking about this as well. A lot of people there were bemoaning the lack of an SD card, and at first I thought that was no big deal for me since I don't care about having 20 GB of music and movies with me at all times. But I realized they were at least as unhappy about how it would make it difficult to hack stock Android onto it, or perhaps more importantly, it could make it much more difficult to back up the original software in order to restore it later if you have problems.

I'm honestly more excited about other companies' reactions to the Fire - even if the Fire is closer to a glorified Kindle than a cut-down iPad, it will still force competitors to step up their game. I'd totally buy a Nook Color 2 (or two!).

 

[Geekbabe]

Some people at XDA were talking about this as well. A lot of people there were bemoaning the lack of an SD card, and at first I thought that was no big deal for me since I don't care about having 20 GB of music and movies with me at all times. But I realized they were at least as unhappy about how it would make it difficult to hack stock Android onto it, or perhaps more importantly, it could make it much more difficult to back up the original software in order to restore it later if you have problems.

I'm honestly more excited about other companies' reactions to the Fire - even if the Fire is closer to a glorified Kindle than a cut-down iPad, it will still force competitors to step up their game. I'd totally buy a Nook Color 2 (or two!).

Exactly! While I have no doubt that some clever dev will successfully hack Fire, unless they can do so by simply modifying the proprietary Amazon interface to allow for more choices (Market access) why bother if all you'll be left with is an 8GB tablet? Amazon was smart here, they developed a product that will wrap customers within their eco-system but will have limited appeal to non-customers who simply wish to alter the device for other purposes.

BTW,I have a Nook Color running CM7 & love it, dev's are constantly working on improving it, the thing is literally unbrickable & I got it on sale for $200.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'd totally buy a Nook Color 2 (or two!).

Lets hope B&N keeps the same setup as the Nook Color 1. It might be one of the most hackable devices ever thanks to its ability to boot from the SD card slot.

 

[Pliablemoose]

http://gigaom.com/2011/09/28/amazon-silk-or-a-spider-web/

 

[Mopetar]

http://gigaom.com/2011/09/28/amazon-silk-or-a-spider-web/

Even anonymous aggregate data would be worthwhile for Amazon, merely to identify overall trends in purchases and items that are selling well. Still, I believe that this service is more harmful to Google than helpful to Amazon. At least Amazon is being somewhat upfront and honest about being able to opt out and how the collected data will be used.

I'm curious if Apple will eventually start offering a similar service. They've been moving towards cloud services for their hardware and something like this does offer positive security benefits for customers while providing Apple the ability to attack certain competitors' business models.

 

[alent1234]

I bet more than a few people in cupertino were doing face palms. I bet apple will just end up going through amazon like they do with iCloud which is run by amazon and Microsoft on the back end

 

[Pliablemoose]

http://gizmodo.com/5845852/snls-set...orn-kindle-fire-on-its-clueless-parent-appeal

 

[gorcorps]

Some people at XDA were talking about this as well. A lot of people there were bemoaning the lack of an SD card, and at first I thought that was no big deal for me since I don't care about having 20 GB of music and movies with me at all times. But I realized they were at least as unhappy about how it would make it difficult to hack stock Android onto it, or perhaps more importantly, it could make it much more difficult to back up the original software in order to restore it later if you have problems.

I'm honestly more excited about other companies' reactions to the Fire - even if the Fire is closer to a glorified Kindle than a cut-down iPad, it will still force competitors to step up their game. I'd totally buy a Nook Color 2 (or two!).

It'll definitely make it less friendly to hack and mess with, but as Geekbabe said somebody will do it. Apple products have no SD slot but they get jailbroken after some time too. Obviously there's a large community behind that, but still.

It depends greatly on how Amazon sets up their recovery mode. Most Android devices (or all?) will boot from SD with a properly formatted boot card. So you can really screw up a firmware update but still save your phone or tablet. With the iphone and ipads they have a way to get into a hard coded recovery mode that will work 99.999% of the time if something is screwed up in the firmware. As long as Amazon has a hard coded recovery system like that then the modding community should still be able to mess with the Kindle Fire.

I understand that Amazon needs to make money on software and they don't make much on hardware sales alone, so somebody who just wants a tablet and not use Amazon services isn't their ideal customer. BUT I think it would have still been better to have included the SD slot and not force people into such a system. It may hurt them in the long run.

 

[Munky]

Already have a CM7 Nook Color, but I'm looking forward to what the Kindle Fire is gonna do to tablet prices everywhere, haha.

 

[shortylickens]

Amazons tablet costs 209 dollars to make.

 

[Bateluer]

Amazons tablet costs 209 dollars to make.

http://www.bgr.com/2011/10/03/amazo...e-sold-ubm-says-amazon-will-make-50-per-unit/

According to market research and consulting firm UBM TechInsights, however, these reports are not accurate. In fact, the firm says Amazon is looking at a sizable 25% profit margin on the device despite its low end user pricing. Read on for more.

Using estimated component costs of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook as a point of reference — the Quanta-designed Kindle Fire is, after all, basically the same tablet in terms of hardware — UBM TechInsights was able to piece together what it believes to be a fairly accurate breakdown of Amazon’s cost on the Kindle Fire.

As always, grain of salt.

 

[Deeko]

These "how much will it cost them" analysis reports are always kinda stupid, in my opinion. We have no idea what Amazon's actual cost to assemble is, shipping to their fulfilment centers, what the cost to support the device is (like the EC2 servers powering silk), how much engineering went in, both hardware and software, what the support costs will be....

It might give a baseline for "what do the components cost", but even if the components cost $150 and they sell it for $200, its still very possible that they actually lose money on the device itself and need to recoup via digital services sold.

 

[shortylickens]

These "how much will it cost them" analysis reports are always kinda stupid, in my opinion. We have no idea what Amazon's actual cost to assemble is, shipping to their fulfilment centers, what the cost to support the device is (like the EC2 servers powering silk), how much engineering went in, both hardware and software, what the support costs will be....

It might give a baseline for "what do the components cost", but even if the components cost $150 and they sell it for $200, its still very possible that they actually lose money on the device itself and need to recoup via digital services sold.

Which means its a darn good deal for you and you should get one and you should install your own ROM on it.

 

[Mopetar]

These "how much will it cost them" analysis reports are always kinda stupid, in my opinion. We have no idea what Amazon's actual cost to assemble is, shipping to their fulfilment centers, what the cost to support the device is (like the EC2 servers powering silk), how much engineering went in, both hardware and software, what the support costs will be....

It might give a baseline for "what do the components cost", but even if the components cost $150 and they sell it for $200, its still very possible that they actually lose money on the device itself and need to recoup via digital services sold.

Does it really matter whether or not Amazon makes or loses money on each device? They're a big company and have probably done the math so that regardless they're going to make money in the end.

Additionally, if I were Amazon I would want people to think that I was selling the device at cost or losing money. That immediately makes consumers feel as though they're getting a lot of value for the device that they won't get from other devices. It's almost like buying a $20 gift certificate for $18.75. A person might not have a whole lot of use for that gift certificate, but they feel compelled to buy it regardless because they feel as though they're losing out if they don't.

One could argue that share holders might be concerned that Amazon could be losing money for each device sold, but it wouldn't take much to convince them that the additional revenue gained from the sales of apps, books, etc. will far outweigh the loss due to device sales. Either way, I'm sure Amazon knows what they're doing. A company doesn't get into the position that they're in by accident.

 

[Deeko]

Does it really matter whether or not Amazon makes or loses money on each device? They're a big company and have probably done the math so that regardless they're going to make money in the end.

Additionally, if I were Amazon I would want people to think that I was selling the device at cost or losing money. That immediately makes consumers feel as though they're getting a lot of value for the device that they won't get from other devices. It's almost like buying a $20 gift certificate for $18.75. A person might not have a whole lot of use for that gift certificate, but they feel compelled to buy it regardless because they feel as though they're losing out if they don't.

One could argue that share holders might be concerned that Amazon could be losing money for each device sold, but it wouldn't take much to convince them that the additional revenue gained from the sales of apps, books, etc. will far outweigh the loss due to device sales. Either way, I'm sure Amazon knows what they're doing. A company doesn't get into the position that they're in by accident.

No, it doesn't matter - Amazon has a history of doing things at a loss to break into a market. Which is part of what I'm getting at, the bickering over how much it costs to make is a moot point, in more ways that one.

 

[Bateluer]

No, it doesn't matter - Amazon has a history of doing things at a loss to break into a market. Which is part of what I'm getting at, the bickering over how much it costs to make is a moot point, in more ways that one.

People have short memories, especially when it comes to technology.

Remember Microsoft's first Xbox. It was sold at a loss and never turned a profit through its entire lifespan. But, it established Microsoft as a major player and gave the Xbox 360 market leader status.