Amazon Attacking Apple's iPad Mini on Homepage | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Attacking Apple's iPad Mini on Homepage

amazon.com

30 pointspioul22 comments

In the real world, this is just called marketing, not "an attack." I know HN is pretty much a punchline anymore but seriously, moral outrage over an ad comparing the product it's advertising against a competitor while casting the competitor in an unflattering/unfair light?

That's all advertising ever, why in the holy hell does this matter to anyone here?

edit: Thank god, it was removed from the front page.

I am really sympathetic to Amazon here, but to not be misleading, the right column would need to have items such as does video editing with iMovie or equivalent, has cameras and microphones, runs office productivity suite, runs digital music recording and editing studio (GarageBand), etc. My understanding is that the Kindle doesn't really have much software available for it. If that has changed and the software is now comparable to what is available on iOS, Amazon should make that really clear. Obviously it is a huge issue and not some minor thing that should be left off a comparison chart.

The claim that the iPad is incapable of playing HD movies seems to be false based on commonly accepted definitions of HD as being 720 and up. They should define what they mean so as not to give the appearance of misrepresentation. The TV claim is likewise strange as neither device contain a TV receiver, but both are capable of playing TV shows that are appropriately encoded as video files, or available through streaming from the internet.

HD video resolution is 1280x720.

iPad mini only has a 1024x768 screen. That makes 780 000 pixels instead of 920 000 pixels, which is a significant difference. Also, iPad mini has a 4:3 screen which means the user will see black bars on top and the bottom while watching an HD movie.

Here's a screenshot for posterity: http://i.imgur.com/QEXaH.png

Are some in the HN community such Apple Fan Boys to label this as "an attack"?

You don't have to be a fan boy to see this is indeed trying to belittle the iPad without giving the complete story.

Whether you are an Apple fan or not, it is difficult to contest the fact that this Amazon ad is taking direct aim at an Apple product.

What would you call this, if not an "attack"?

I love the iPad and already preordered my iPad Mini. But it's nice to see a little competition. Sure, the amazon ad is stretching things a bit, but it's advertising, that's what they do. I can't wait for the "tablet wars" to really start, instead of Apple just dominating. Competition is good for us all, even for Apple themselves in the long run.

According to Amazon, 1024x768 is standard definition when in a tablet, but high definition when in a TV. Plasmas that are 720p are almost universally 1024x768 natively.

Those plasma screens are 16:9 and have non-rectangular pixels. Since all high-definition content is also 16:9, if you play it back on a 1024x768 4:3 display like the iPad Mini you're actually watching it in 576p with black bars at the top and bottom which is unquestionably standard-definition. In Europe and much of the rest of the world DVDs have always been 576p and there's really no way to dispute that those are standard definition.

Well, one potential problem with the mini is that while the for factor is excellent for reading, the low res screen is really going to work against that.

Interesting! The UK site http://www.amazon.co.uk/ has a similar front and centre promo for the Kindle Fire, but without the comparison to / attack on the iPad Mini.

If I recall correctly, you can't call out a competitor by name in UK advertisements. All the tv ads we have here will say "compared to the next leading brand..."

Unless that's changed recently. I moved away 4 years ago.

I believe it was changed in the last few years, but it's still pretty uncommon. The only examples I can think of, off the top of my head, are by the supermarkets (particularly those from Asda).

Thanks, it makes sense that Asda would be one of the first to take advantage of a change in law, I recall Walmart bought them out a few years ago.

Amazon has a great case for the Fire vs Mini, but saying the Mini has an SD display hurts the credibility of the ad. Honestly, that Samsung vs iPhone 5 ad was much fairer.

They should mention that you pay 199$ for the "Special Offers" version :). Meaning it will load adds on your Kindle.

Attacking Apple with technical specifications?

See how well Nokia is doing with that...

Typical falsehoods from Amazon. They call their display "stunning" but in my experience they ship low quality TFT displays, while Apple uses the latest LCD technology. Calling the iPad display "standard definition" implies it is 480p, which is a lie, as it is closer to 720p. Calling it "low resolution" is a straight up lie.

Ok, they have more pixels per inch, but like the people who focus on gigahertz but ignore how much work gets done, the real question is the quality and color reproduction in the images produced by the display.

"No HD movies or TV". This is a flat out lie. The iPad mini plays HD movies and TV from the iTunes store, or from everywhere else you might want to play them. 720p is only 1280x720, which is not very far from 1024x768... so, the fact is, you CAN watch HD movies and TV on this device. Further, the display is nearly HD, and I've seen "HD" applied regularly to displays simply because they were larger than 480p.

[Edit: Just noticed, this "HD" display on the kindle fire HD is only 720p. That means it is 40 pixels SMALLER in one dimension and 200 pixels BIGGER in another dimension. In other words, roughly the same resolution. Asinine.]

Somehow I bet the mono speaker in the iPad sounds better than the "dual stereo" in the kindle, but we'll have to see. Certainly a device made out of machined aluminum is going to rattle a lot less than one made out of plastic.

Finally they say "Ultra fast MIMO Wi-Fi". Then leave the spot blank for the iPad, implying it doesn't have it. This is, again, a blatent lie. The iPad has 802.11n, and uses MIMO, and is "ultra fast". (unless they've decided to redefine what "MIMO" means to be something magical that only they have.) They never say the specs of what the WIFI is on the kindle page, so I can't tell for sure.... but the implication that the iPad has no WIFI is typically dishonest.

[Edit: I see now that they claim a, b, g, compatibility, but one of the things Apple has done really well with their devices is make them interoperable, and support more esoteric situations.... I'm dubious that an independant test wouldn't find the iPad WiFi to be faster.]

When you have to lie about the competition like this, well, it says alot about your product, but also what kind of company you are.

Having worked at Amazon, where lying is a key survival trait, I'm not surprised to see this at all.

Frankly, this company is pathological. From the first announcement of AWS (where they lied and claimed Amazon.com ran on AWS infrastructure) to this latest example, I see Amazon constantly lying... and getting away with it. It's a shame. For instance, notice how people think the Kindle is a success, yet Amazon never gives actual sales numbers? (At least in a report that where they would get in trouble with the SEC... they have their PR flacks spread all kinds of lies about it.)

It's shameful.

Amazon's table is pretty shoddy, but being misleading in the other direction doesn't right the situation. There is more incorrect information in your comment than in their table.

Some key points:

1. Amazon has only ever used LCD screens on the Kindle Fire product line. They have always used notably excellent displays: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5128/amazon-kindle-fire-review

2. You're right, calling 1024x768 "standard definition" is a lie.

3. Amazon's is larger in both dimensions and is not 720p. (1280x800 vs 1024x768).

4. MIMO WiFi is a real thing. It might not be a huge deal (primarily increases max throughput, which is rarely a constraining factor), but the table is correct.

None of this is to say that the Kindle Fire HD is better than the iPad mini, I'm almost certain it is worse. It's just that facts are facts.

re: SD vs HD, is dependent upon who you ask. The CEA, which represents the TV makers, says that anything with at least 720 lines is HDTV, thus enabling 1024x768 to be called HDTV. ATSC, which develops broadcast standards, says that HDTV should be 720 or 1080 lines at 16:9 aspect ratio, which implies 1280x720 or 1920x1080.

I think most TVs now are 1280x720 or 1366x768.

"having worked at amazon, where lying is key..." wow what group were you working for?

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