According to Strategy Analytics, more than 15 million Kindle Fire tablets from Amazon will be sold by the end of 2013. If the forecasts come true, the application market for this inexpensive device will be too large for developers for mobile platforms to ignore it.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire has so rapidly burst into the charts that, according to some analysts, it is close to surpassing the iPad in sales in the first month. Until now, competing brands could not oppose anything to Apple’s tablet and, accordingly, could not claim leadership in the tablet market. Kindle Fire is the first real competitor.
Despite the fact that iPad sales are as high as ever, forecasts for a new touchscreen tablet have reason to be optimistic. On the one hand, the Kindle Fire is different enough from the iPad not to be accused of plagiarism. On the other hand, the Fire is similar enough to the iPad that many consumers consider it a more affordable alternative to the iPad. And in some respects, the alternatives are the best.
Availability. Amazon Kindle Fire is more than twice cheaper than iPad: $199 versus at least $500 for a basic tablet from Apple. This alone attracts attention. Especially when you consider that previously announced iPad clones were offered for the same money with, as a rule, lower quality.
Lots of content. The content in this situation “decides”. iPad, of course, may be the king of apps, but Amazon Kindle Fire is ahead of it in terms of the amount of content. Kindle Fire users will have automatic access to more than 18 million movies, TV shows, songs and books already available on Amazon’s virtual shelves.
Free file storage. If you want to take all your content with you, the basic iPad offers just 16 gigabytes available for free storage of information. If you need more, there is an opportunity, but you will have to pay extra for it. Therefore, Amazon’s offer – free cloud storage for all files from Amazon — looks very attractive. Especially when you consider that this is the largest online book store in the world, the second largest (after Apple) mp3 file store and one of the leaders in many other categories.
Quality and availability of applications. One of the disadvantages of the Apple App Store is that it is a closed system. If the store didn’t like the app, it won’t be sold at all. Google Android has the opposite situation: its system is too open, and users have to break through a bunch of low-quality material to get to a worthwhile application.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire will try to bridge the gap: it will have only high-quality applications, but it will remain fairly open.
Easy to manage. A 10-inch (approximately 25 cm) iPad is not very easy to manage because of its size and weight. The 7-inch Kindle Fire is much easier to control: it is lighter and much more mobile.
Of course, the Kindle Fire also has drawbacks: its screen is three times smaller than the iPad, and this is not the best option for watching videos or games in HD quality. Moreover, the Kindle Fire does not have a camera and microphone, so it cannot be used for photo and video shooting or for video calls.
But for a tablet that costs less than $200, these are things that users can easily do without.