Tag Archives | Tablets

WebOS’s Moment of Truth

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 11, 2011 at 10:06 am

According to AppleInsider’s Daniel Eran Dilger, the fate of HP’s WebOS may be decided this week:

While webOS is now largely finished and its hardware was ready to sell, HP’s cancellation of the hardware side of the equation, motivated by dismal sales, means that a spinoff of Palm would result in a return to square one for the group, forcing it to formulate a new licensing business in a market where even Microsoft has had a very difficult time assembling a viable ecosystem of mobile licensees.

I hope it lives, even though I’m afraid it’ll break my heart again.

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BlackBerry PlayBook Sees Kindle Fire, Drops in Price $200

Posted by Matt Peckham on September 30, 2011 at 8:36 am

BlackBerry PlayBook price, come on down, you’re the next—or actually, first—contestant on The Price Wasn’t Right, But We’ll Fix That, in view of the Android-based Kindle Fire, which Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled Wednesday for just $199.

RIM’s PlayBook had been going for between $299 and $499, depending on model, but retailer Best Buy just slashed the price on all three models (16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB) by $200 each. If that sounds like a desperate, reactionary move to you, you wouldn’t be alone: Analysts are saying as much in the Kindle Fire’s wake left and right.

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Amazon to Buy Palm?

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 30, 2011 at 8:32 am

VentureBeat’s Devindra Hardawar is reporting that Amazon.com is seriously interested in buying WebOS from HP, the company that bought Palm for $1.2 billion and then killed the TouchPad after six weeks.

The Kindle Fire is powered by Android, but it’s been heavily customized by Amazon to the point where you can barely tell. By purchasing the remnants of Palm, Amazon would have free rein to redesign webOS to its own liking, and it would be able to further differentiate its Kindle devices from the slew of Android tablets in the market.

It would be swell if the WebOS saga ended happily, and I can’t think of a better candidate than Amazon to figure out how to do well by the software. Then again, I once thought that HP could be a good home for it, too…

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Mace on the Fire

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 30, 2011 at 3:17 am

Michael Mace of Mobile Opportunity blogged some of the smartest thoughts I’ve seen on Amazon’s announcement of the Kindle Fire and related products and services this week. One worthwhile nugget, of many:

I may be indulging in wishful thinking, but there’s a possibility that ten years from now we’ll look back on Silk as the single most important thing in today’s announcement.

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Whatever Happened to the iPad Rivals of 2010?

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 30, 2011 at 1:45 am

Back in August of 2010, it was clear that Apple’s iPad–which had gone on sale on April 3rd–was a gigantic, game-changing hit. The rest of the industry was scrambling to respond, and there had already been a steady stream of announcements, pre-announcements, sneak peeks, and rumors, along with a few products that had actually shipped. I chose that month to round up as many of them as possible. I called them “iPadversaries,” and published a story with brief profiles of 32 of them.

And then the world continued to change. Some of the products I wrote about shipped in more or less the form I’d described. Others evolved further, or failed to show up at all. Windows, which was supposed to provide meaningful competition to the iPad, didn’t. Scads of tablets based on Android arrived, without any of them being a clear-cut success. And two of the most interesting rumors of August 2011–a WebOS tablet and a BlackBerry one–turned into the two highest-profile flops to date.

More than thirteen months after we ran that iPadversaries story, I decided it might be instructive (or at least perversely fascinating) to follow up on all 32 machines.

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Here’s Yesterday’s Amazon Kindle Fire Event

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 29, 2011 at 12:40 pm

I was lucky enough to be at Amazon’s press event yesterday in person. (I enjoyed the company of about 16,500 of you who attended our liveblog, cohosted by Macworld’s Jason Snell.) Amazon has now posted the full video of the event, so you can see what I saw:

 

In many ways, Amazon’s presentation mirrored Apple’s iconic Steve Jobs keynotes: CEO spouting stats, announcing products, and saving the best for last, interspersed with videos. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is a gifted speaker and did a good job. I was startled by one major difference between an Apple event and this one–Bezos received only sporadic smattering of polite applause. There were no thunderous ovations or wild cheering. I don’t think that was a sign that the audience wasn’t impressed–but the ratio of journalists to employees and VIPs may have been higher at the Amazon event than at typical Apple ones.

(Yes, there are some journalists who clap and hoot at Apple events, but it makes me cringe when they do. Non-journalist types, however, are entitled to get as raucous as they please.)

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Amazon’s Kindle Fire vs. the Competition: A Spec Shootout

Posted by Daniel Ionescu on September 28, 2011 at 8:36 pm

Amazon compromised on several hardware features of its Kindle Fire to deliver the most affordable mainstream 7-inch media tablet. Arriving on November 15 for $199, the Kindle Fire will enter a crowded market dominated by Apple’s iPad.

Since the market also contains several other Android competitors, can Amazon claim the number two tablet spot? Let’s take a look.

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Amazon Anounces $199 Kindle Fire Tablet, Clutch of New Kindle E-Readers

Posted by Jared Newman on September 28, 2011 at 1:16 pm

Amazon Kindle Fire tabletAfter months of hype, Amazon today announced the Kindle Fire, a 7-inch tablet with a $199 price tag. Amazon also refreshed its line of e-readers with a $149 Kindle Touch 3G, a $99 Kindle Touch without 3G, and a non-touch $79 Kindle.

The pricing alone is sure to spook both Apple and Barnes & Noble. Here are the details on the Amazon Kindle Fire and the new Kindle e-readers.

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