Hacker News Reader

Comment by j_col | Hacker News Reader

As a long-suffering webOS fan (Pre- through to Pre3 & Touchpad), all I have to say to this news is, yay! WebOS is a fantastic system that does not deserve to linger and die due to HP's lack of leadership and vision.

Jeff Bezzos, on the other hand, is a true visionary in my opinion and I would be happy to see my webOS HP Profile become an Amazon profile sometime soon.

My only doubt though: will they make phones?

View on HN

I don't think they will make phones or even continue webOS. I have a feeling that this is a talent acquisition and they will use it to improve the Kindle Fire.

Considering they already fired all of the hardware people, most of the talent have already gone (unless you mean't software, and it that case webOS is a pretty different system to Android, so it's not like Amazon would be picking up a few hundred Android developers here).

Well most of Palm's hardware in recent years sucked anyway. WebOS is where the talent went in. Even if it was a talent acquisition, I think WebOS has a better chance of at least being open-sourced if it's owned by Amazon than if it was stuck with HP.

They will undoubtedly make phones. Why give away a market to competitors that is worth billions? Amazon wants to keep users in their ecosystem. To do that you need a phone as well, which they're essentially already doing in their AppStore.

Within three years Amazon will come out with their own phone. It will be the same game plan that they used with the Fire and gear it towards the low end. Eventually they will go towards the high end.

The Fire makes sense, it's a media portal that plugs directly in to Amazon's forte; books, and more recently, apps and streaming video. It's not a tablet though, and Bezos readily, and correctly, admits that. What exactly would they gain by making a phone? Sure they would stand to sell more apps, but I think Amazon is most interesting in selling books and being a player in the streaming media game. The cell phone, with its small screen, isn't well-suited for those. Not to mention that their apps are Android apps, something I wouldn't think Palm would make a great resource for. If they are buying Palm for hardware and cell phone experience, I'd think there would be a cheaper way to get those somewhere else.

Phones don't make sense in Amazon's model at all to me. Of course, I could be wrong, but unless it's driving sales of Amazon products, like the Kindle does, there's no incentive.

How is the Kindle Fire not a tablet?

It kind of is as a secondary function, but it was built as a media consumption/purchasing device, a kind of hand-held portal into the world of Amazon; even their browser relies heavily on their EC2 platform. Compared to the Android tablets on the market, it lacks a lot in the way of expandability and even storage. Even the underlying Android OS was forked to bring it further away from a tablet and more to an Amazon portal. That it runs Android Apps is just a pleasant side effect.

To quote Bezos himself, "We think of Kindle Fire as an end-to-end service"

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/29/bezos-in-the-modern-era-of-...

Aren't all tablets media consumption and purchasing devices though?

Sure, but none of the Android tablets are really purpose built for that. Samsung, Motorola, Asus and all the others seem to aim to be a kind of more-portable laptop, giving you memory card slots, cameras and to some extent even office type applications. These are the kinds of things that people market as a "tablet" and media consumption is something of an afterthought. The Kindle Fire is the other way around; media consumption is forefront, everything else, including apps to an extent, are an afterthought. This is more along Apple's vision with their iPad, and it's working out pretty well for them too.

At the end of the day, maybe I'm just arguing semantics, but the fact remains that this isn't a "tablet" in the same light as other Android "tablets." It's a bit of a subtle difference, and I think it's that difference that is crucial and will spell massive success for the Fire. Their ability to sell it at what I assume is a sizable loss isn't hurting their chances either.

Other tablets have no true purpose or useful content to consume. There is no thought put into the user experience of the Galaxy Tab or the like. They are simply "me too" devices and fall into the meme of "ipad killer". Where, as w33ble put it, the Fire is an Amazon Portal.

Apple and Amazon are in the same space but came from two different sides. And Apple is trying to cover the "harder" side, which is server and cloud computing. While Amazon had that down before diving into consumer HW.

I do think they are missing an opportunity without a camera. Think about the opportunity to scan bar codes or book covers and instantly see the Amazon price, and purchase right there. Imagine being in Barnes and Nobles and buying the book on your Fire.

>Sure they would stand to sell more apps, but I think Amazon is most interesting in selling books and being a player in the streaming media game. The cell phone, with its small screen, isn't well-suited for those.

The smaller screen isn't ideal as a tablet for most media but people still do use it. The phone is the main way most people have access to the web.

I'm not making the case for a WebOS acquisition, just an Amazon phone. It just seems like there is a hole in Amazon's product offerings if a phone isn't available.

"They will undoubtedly make phones. Why give away a market to competitors that is worth billions?"

It's an extremely competitive, painful market. MS are struggling, Palm have already tried once and failed. Amazon is taking another approach (having their own AppStore on Android) and it's working out for them.

Hardware was Palm and WebOS's weak spot. An Amazon acquisition could be many things, but I very much doubt it's a play for any hardware gains.

Unless they think that their freeloading of android is limiting them in some ways. Currently it seems like a good deal for amazon to get android for free. Don't know what they will gain by buying a new platform.

Well, Google are secretive about it. Amazon built their OS on top of an old version of Android because Google haven't released the source for their latest efforts yet.

Certainly, if they consider themselves competitors to Android Tablets, it would make sense to get the OS under their control, while perhaps ensuring a certain level of compatibility for app porting, etc.

"They will undoubtedly make phones."

I don't see anything undoubtedly about it. The celluar phone market is a quagmire.

Amazon will make iPod Touch like devices before they make phones (although the Kindle Fire already falls into that market segment due its price point).

This proposed webOS purchase is to hedge their bets against Google keeping ICS and future versions closed source. Amazon can't out a 10" Kindle tablet with the underlying system based on Gingerbread. The Amazon services could be provided but there would be no apps and games made for it.

> Amazon can't out a 10" Kindle tablet with the underlying system based on Gingerbread.

Why not? What makes Gingerbread so inappropriate for a tablet compared to Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich? Amazon can tabletize Gingerbread in their fork.

Exactly. I don't get why Amazon would buy a new OS when it can get an existing well supported well publicized and we ll maintained OS for free. Currently they are freeloading on android which is a great thing to get all the android benefits without having to pay apenny for it. Why spend money on a new platform and then spend some more developing for it and inviting developers to it. I hope they don't make this mistake.

(1) Android is not free, ask Samsung about the $180 million check they're writing to Microsoft this year and the 20 court cases the have with Apple. There's potential liability with Oracle and if they put 3G/4G chips in them, Nokia. Then since Amazon is forking it they have their own development costs anyway.

(2) Amazon is locked out of Google Services and the latest version of Android, if ICS or Jellybean has a truly killer feature/service they could get their clock cleaned by other Android vendors. Hoping Google will always release the source early on releases yeah you might not want your eggs in that basket.

(3) Integrated development ala Apple can be the most profitable model. (or it can not, cough Palm)

(4) There's a lot of IP here and Amazon doesn't have a lot of patents.

(5) The tanking of everything WebOS may mean the price is very cheap. Maybe they implement a WebOS-like layer in Android.

(2) Amazon's market is different. They aren't competing with other "Android vendors." Yes it essentially runs Android, and by some peoples' definition, it's a tablet, but in the end what the Fire really is is a well-integrated portal to Amazon services and products. Nobody else can really offer that to consumers. Plus, it's highly unlikely that other vendors can afford to sell their hardware for $200.

Also, a lot of people seem to be assuming that Amazon is looking to upgrade the underlying version of Android. I think they are forgetting a key part here; Amazon is running a fork, and I think it's pretty likely that the only compatibility they care about is with Android Apps (and Bezos has said they will work hard to keep the Kindle Apps compatible with other Android platforms). The OS version doesn't matter at all, as long as the device is fast and pleasant to use, which by all accounts, it is here. There's really no reason they couldn't just keep working on their port indefinitely with no regard to what Google is doing with future iterations of Android. And if a new feature pops up that they like, nothing would stop them from cherry-picking it and putting it in to their fork.

"if a new feature pops up that they like, nothing would stop them from cherry-picking it and putting it in to their fork."

You mean nothing except the feature being a Google service or not open sourced (cf Honeycomb).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com