Amazon shows off new 7-inch and 8.9 inch Kindle Fires | Hacker News Reader

Amazon shows off new 7-inch and 8.9 inch Kindle Fires

arstechnica.com

56 pointsevo_970 comments

I'm impressed with all of these. Amazon now has tablet pricing that smoothly ranges from $69 -> $499, an outstanding value on 4G service, a quality e-mail client story that includes ActiveSync, necessary touches like parental controls, a substantial app library, all of the one-click content you can handle, growing mindshare that isn't contaminated with the stink of 'Android', and genuine technical superiority over the market monolith in a few areas.

This is going to be an extremely popular lineup.

I am not sure if Kindle can be considered a "tablet". There is no media consumption possible on it except for text.

The Kindle Fire and its descendants are tablets with web browsing, app stores, games, etc based off of Android.

Yes, but $69 is for a regular e-ink Kindle. The tablets don't start until $159.

Distinct accounts, parental controls and child-friendly features seem like an excellent (overdue) addition to tablet computing. I can limit how much time they play games and give them unlimited time to read books? I can watch degenerate garbage at night and not have that show up in their "continue watching" the next morning. That's pretty damn cool.

I hope that this pressures other providers (hello Netflix!) to start offering services like this.

I'm cautious on their $50/yr LTE. It's definitely being subsidized somehow (as I seriously doubt AT&T is passing up $130/yr profit per customer, and not much room for profit margins for Amazon in that $500), the question is how? Using Silk to proxy all data? "Special Offers"?

EDIT: "Special Offers" confirmed, on all Kindles it seems. I won't be buying such a thing. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRDL0/

I would guess that Amazon profit shares with AT&T for sales done/delivered over LTE.

It's very low usage:

For 150MB of data access a month from AT&T, and 20 GB of cloud storage from Amazon, it costs $50 a year.

It's 250MB[0], and that same allotment on the iPad through AT&T is $15/mo[1], or $180/yr. Someone's making up the difference, or someone at AT&T is getting a rather concerned phone call from Tim Cook about now.

EDIT: For what it's worth, VZ's lowest iPad package is $20/mo for 1GB. If their costs were totally linear re: traffic (doubt it), the same package as above could be $5/mo ($60/yr) before any subsidy, and $10 is much easier for Amazon to make up than $130. It's entirely possible Amazon could have twisted AT&T down to this level, but not without AT&T getting heat from Apple in the process.

EDIT2: ...or the non-optional lockscreen ads may be helping Amazon's costs a bit.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/kindle-fires-4g-packa...

[1] http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/new...

I'll have to look into it, because with my habits (97% of the time in a wifi zone except for the car), this would be perfect for google maps and google voice when I am in a car or out of a wifi zone.

I've actually been very happy with various Android VOIP solutions. This could let me cut out having a cell much of the time (and have to carry around a larger tablet)

"Special Offers" confirmed, on all Kindles it seems. I won't be buying such a thing

I'm with you there. I would gladly pay the small premium for an ad-free experience. I understand why they would want to simplify their product lineup, but this is very annoying

HDMI out is the most overlooked feature. It will be awesome to hit play, walk to the kitchen, watch while cooking, then plug in to HD TV, sit down and continue watching uniterrupted.

Not to mention for presentations, showing photos or video at a party etc.

It's a nice feature, but in the long term, I expect AirPlay or a similar open standard (?) is going to be more important. Why plug your tablet into a cable if you don't have to?

Agreed, once you use Airplay you wonder why you would ever plug a device into a TV, seems archaic

Most Americans do not own Apple TV. I personally never will. That being said, in a few years WiDi or something else will allow this to happen in other devices.

It's not AirPlay - it's the concept of wireless "casting" the display to a complaint device - which may in the future be the TV itself (as you mentioned WiDi - though I think the first real competitor to AirPlay will come from Google not Intel).

Interesting that Android isn't mentioned at all. Is this tablet still based on Gingerbread or has it added some Honeycomb or Jelly Bean APIs? The biggest concern for app developers should be if Amazon is in the process of forking Android.

I thought they already did fork it with the first Fire.

Somewhat, but most gingerbread apps have worked fine without modification.

They never forked Android. The software on the original kindle fire is a fully compatible Android 2.3 based operating system.

How is that not a fork? They took it, made changes, and shipped it without those changes being reintegrated with the upstream project. "Fork" isn't a moral condemnation, it's a description of a development model.

If that's your definition of a fork there are very very few Android devices since just about every OEM/Carrier does the same thing. Amazon was different though since they didn't refer to it as Android. Not a true fork though since they are bringing in the latest Android changes.

Most OEM/Carrier modifications are new launchers, or an app or three to check your minutes. Amazon deployed an entire content delivery network and device provisioning system, and they're maintaining that across upstream OS releases without an attempt to integrate that stuff.

So yes, that is my definition of a fork. And while an OEM integration probably qualifies as a "fork" in a literal sense it doesn't really qualify in the same way Kindle does. Flip it around: if Kindle isn't a fork of Android than what does constitute a fork?

Again, this isn't a moral judgement. Amazon had the legal right to do this, and they did it very well. So far it hasn't done anything but present the Android "community" with some nice hardware at good prices. But refusing to call it a fork is just ... weird.

But did they make any changes to Android?

Again, the Amazon OS is fully compatible to Android 2.3. What Amazon actually did was making a new OS based on Android. That is not is not "making changes to Android". That's just using Android. Android is a platform that is supposed to be customized into different and unique ROMs.

Amazon just created a new UI and installed different apps than other vendors do. In order to fork the platform, IMHO, they would have to break the APIs.

That's a developer discussion. Mentioning Android in a customer-facing presentation turns Kindle Fire into an "Android tablet" which telegraphs the message that it is techie crap they won't enjoy.

Agreed; they are doubtless trying to go the direction they went with the Kindle readers. It runs Linux- but does my grandmother care in the slightest what her book runs?

Watching this dog and pony show today, I think it's the first time Amazon has been able to speak to gearheads and grannies in the same breath.

They threw out any number of cool-sounding acronyms, made a point of filling in some gaping holes in their software strategy, neutralized Apple's "premium" message by declaring themselves aligned with customers instead of Big Aluminum, gave more than lip service to the book industry, offered legitimately desirable exclusive titles, showed exactly what you do with their products, pointed out key technological advantages where appropriate, and priced them to move. It was a good show, and I want one of these things now.

Customers would want to know what apps the thing can run. Will it be stuck running android's gingerbread apps forever while the rest of the android ecosystem moves on?

That's a good question but a non-question, since it 'officially' only runs apps from the Amazon App Store.

They emailed developers to invite them to submit apps for Fire HD. No hint of a compatibility change in the works.

I think the 9" one is the most interesting tablet out of the bunch, because it's in the range of 9"-10", it has a "retina display" (just 9 PPI lower than the iPad 3) - and it costs just $300! That's crazy, and although I'm not interested in this specific tablet, because I'd rather have a full Android one, it's awesome that they are going to push others to match their pricing very soon for that size, too.

I seriously doubt most vendors care to compete with Amazon on price. Amazon makes all of their money from locking you into their services and platforms. That's not something other tablet vendors can do. Apple doesn't need to compete on price due to the size of their ecosystem and the quality of their products. That leaves Google which did something similar to Amazon with the Nexus 7 but can't necessarily continue that trend without damaging relationships with their hardware partners (All the OEMs currently making tablets).

Please, lock-in? I have seen very little to indicate they are trying to create lock-in. They do have the DRM on e-books, but if they are to be believed, it's demanded by the publishers.

I highly doubt you'll see the Kobo bookstore on the Amazon marketplace; that's lock-in

iOS is much more of a walled garden, yet you have Kobo, Amazon & others living alongside iTunes/iBooks.

Why didn't you take the 30 seconds and check? It's very much on the Amazon marketplace and works fine on the Kindle Fire.

http://www.amazon.com/Kobo-Inc-eBooks/dp/B004SIEZ8I/

Doesn't the Fire (and supposedly the new Fires as well), only have the Amazon App Store and don't officially work with Play? And from what I've used on the phone version of the Amazon App Store, your app is tied to that app. If you uninstall the App Store, your app will break. So yes, I believe that is a case for lock-in.

It's up to Google to allow Play. It's part of the non-open portion of Android along with stuff like Google Maps.

That's more likely because Google won't let them add it, not because Amazon wants to block it. Google Play is a proprietary service and they like to use it a a threat to force OEMs to cooperate. I don't see Google allowing it on a heavily customized OS that's barely "Android" at all.

The extra USD 200 for the 4G model are not all about hardware you know. I doubt 4G chipset and the 32GB flash chips are costing that much.

While I'm fully aware it goes against why Amazon is selling them, the 8.9" one is only interesting to me if I can blow away the Amazon OS and install stock Android 4.1 on it. The Amazon software is a big value-subtraction to me.

(I'm not expecting it to be possible--though eventually XDA will probably get it. Just that that's what I want out of my tablet and phone; it's why I use Nexus devices for my Android stuff.)

This tablet can run Android apps already, as far as I know. The OS is based on ICS.

It can only install apps from the Amazon marketplace which is significantly smaller than the play marketplace.

You can install regular ol' .apk files, so it's Google Play's issue and not the Kindle Fire's.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/kindle-fire-sideload/

It's Android so of course you can side load apps. However it's a fork of Android and so it's not eligible to get access to Google's app ecosystem. This is a decision that Amazon made intentionally and knowing full well it would limit their customers access to android offerings via Google. They don't want their customers using third party marketplaces or video services as then Amazon is cut out of the payments.

> They don't want their customers using third party marketplaces or video services as then Amazon is cut out of the payments

The integration into Amazon's ecosystem is a major selling feature, trying to fully tie it into two ecosystems would be a mess.

You can use other video services though, Netflix works great. For music there is Pandora and Spotify.

I don't see how this integration is a selling point, the price and the kindle branding seem to be it's biggest selling points. Everyone knows that kindle is synonymous with books at this point.

You can certainly use other services like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify or Pandora. Amazon probably loves that those apps are available for their device. The basic reason is that once you go looking for something not available on those other services (which happens frequently) your only other real choice is buying it from Amazon.

I have a fire, and it was immediately obvious within a few minutes it's designed around consuming content from Amazon and spending more money with them. While it would be absolutely a mess to fully support two app ecosystems I think it's naive to think that Amazon would have supported any system that didn't primarily direct funds back to them. They can sell these devices so cheaply as it doesn't matter if they profit from hardware. They've designed everything in such a way as to derive their revenue from sales of media.

> I don't see how this integration is a selling point, the price and the kindle branding seem to be it's biggest selling points. Everyone knows that kindle is synonymous with books at this point.

It's a selling point because it's easy and it's automatic. Similar to iOS. Out of the box you're ready to go and if you buy something one place it shows up in the other place too. If you're a Prime customer there is a ton of video content waiting for you for free. It's a walled garden, but other than Apple it's the most well done walled garden.

I'd prefer top of the line hardware with stock Android (mostly so I can test stuff), but that's not the business they're in. They made that very clear with Bezos stating they don't want to make money with selling their devices, they want to make money when you use them.

It's not just the Amazon App-store apps, it's Amazon services/features like Silk, Whispersync, and X-Ray.

That said, I'm seriously curious if Amazon is still using a highly modified, improved, Android 2.x fork for their release version.

Your "of course" is not legally or softwarely true as a rule.

The issue is the tragic farce that is Amazon's UI, not sideloading (though I recall, perhaps incorrectly, some nonsense about Google Play being uninstalled if you tried to sideload it onto the device). The Kindle Fire's UI was terrifyingly bad. I expect nothing less from Amazon this time around.

I buy Android devices for stock Android, not for a manufacturer skin.

> I buy Android devices for stock Android, not for a manufacturer skin.

You're very much in the minority. People like iOS because it's integrated and easy, that's the same thing Amazon and Google are going for as well.

Stock Android is integrated and easy. Though perhaps you're taking "stock" to mean "lacking the Google applications," which I'm certainly not.

"What comes on Nexus devices" is what I consider a stock Android product. That's effectively the selling point and why it's so fantastic.

In my experience it has been a constant that manufacturer-customized Android is consistently trash. If you read my post, you'll note that I said stock Android 4.1. Not Ice Cream Sandwich and not "it needs to run Android apps".

> The OS is based on ICS.

I was looking for that info, where did you see that?

> The Amazon software is a big value-subtraction to me.

Yep. My Nexus 7 is far more useful than the Kindle Fire. I actually like the Fire, but it's very much based on consuming stuff from Amazon. No Google apps is kind of painful - no Gmail, no Reader, no Maps... Also, the Nexus 7 handles switching back and forth between English and Italian with aplomb. The Fire doesn't seem to at all, and I don't know if they are changing that with this latest update - Amazon is a fairly US-centric company, whereas Google got exposed to the world a lot more via Android.

I wish Amazon would stick to content. I think they're better at it than Google in terms of a selection of music, video and of course books. But I don't think they're as good at producing a device that is designed to be flexible and used in ways that aren't 'consuming Amazon content'.

Why doesn't it have the battery life listed at the bottom of Amazon.com's description of the fire HD?

Every other tablet they have has it listed.

Good catch. It's probably less than the 11h they announce for the 7" Fire HD. Unless nearly all of the 6oz weight difference is in the battery.

Speaking of which, "Weight 20 ounces (575 grams)" is rightly not touted in an otherwise very convincing siren call to those ready to enjoy the Amazon garden.

(Product page at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRDL0/ )

Even worse is the non optional ads "Special Offers"... WTF?

I am definitely going to preorder the 8.9 inch model. It looks amazing, isn't based on Tegra 3 and the screen looks awesome. It sets itself apart from the Nexus 7 and iPad very well.

How's not being based on quad-core tegra3 is a plus? As for battery life, the new Fire obviously doesn't have any hands-on reviews yet but nexus 7 battery life has been very solid according to all reviews.

If they based it on tegra 3 it would be very hard to understand, as a "techie", the differences between this and the collection of other tegra 3 products on the market. I think this helps set it apart from Google, rather than the instant retort of "its just a rebranded nexus 7"

You'd like fewer cores to "set it apart"? That's certainly one way of looking at it.

That's a strange kind of argument for favoring something "as a techie". Wouldn't you be more excited by the two extra cores (not to mention the additional "phantom" core) that tegra 3 provides.

Mine is strange. I left the house yesterday and it was at 14% (got an alert), came home after work and it was dead. I didn't use it all evening, but plugged it up overnight and looked at it this morning and the meter was at about 50%. I hope the battery isn't defective because there isn't an Asus/Google store to take this thing to.

Hey, at least it keeps TI in the consumer SoC business. It's not like they've had that many OMAP4 design wins, OMAP4 is long in the tooth at this point, and OMAP5 isn't with customers yet (to the best of my knowledge).

It feels like it takes TI forever to iterate...

Do you guys think cyanogenmod could work on the LTE kindle with the cheap data plan and everything?

Can these be bought outside the US? Looks like the data plan on the LTE model at least is US-only.

I think the iPad Mini is an absolute certainty at this point.

With a similar processor (though better GPU) and a much lower resolution display...

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