
What about the Kindle Fire?
Google's Nexus release will do well in the UK because Amazon can't be bothered to push the Fire outside of the US.
If they're considering going after the iPhone will that be in the US only too?
It was only a matter of time before rumours started circulating that Amazon wanted to build a smartphone, since every tech firm worth their salt these days has to be rumoured to be taking on either the iPhone or the iPad. Since Amazon has already sort of taken on the iPad with its hugely successful ereader, it could now be …
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It would have to be either super cheap, or so much better than the iPhone, S3 and HTC efforts for anyone to even consider it.
It can be both, Amazon doesn't need to make an insane profit margin on their devices, they are a portal to Amazons primary service (selling stuff) so they could produce a high quality device at cost, or even at a loss and recoup the money through selling e-books or apps or anything else through their onine store.
Once a company gets their claws into you, it's hard to leave, you tend to upgrade to the same supplier (Apple, Android etc.) because all your stuff won't work if you jump ship, so a customer now will most likely be a customer in 10 years time because they will have spent hundreds (or thousands) on content which they lose should they change OS.
Well, yes and no.
I have a Kindle, however i'm format independent as my books are from Baen ebooks (baen.com) and just downloaded in a format that the Kindle can use. Baen lets you download or read online as much as you want in any format you might want.
Hence switching to a competing format will be fairly trivial in the future, should it be required.
You say that as if Amazon was a stranger to patent litigation themselves:
1-click patent litigation, anyone? Plus a nice arsenal of "Electronic gifting" and a ton more of both business and utility patents.
If they're going to use an Android base and are buying patents themselves I'd be a bit worried if I was another manufacturer...
Amazon haven't had the need to use them, since reportedly they took their then biggest competitor - Barnes & Noble - to the cleaners in that settlement. Unfortunately the Internet screams didn't do much in B&N's case...
We'll see what they do when armed with patents and competing again. Since they'll be running their own ecosystem, do they really have to play nice? Ummm...
...I'd say that Apple would be running down the iPhone market and be ready to jump out with something new.
My reasoning is that I find myself reading up on the iPhone and iPad and wondering what else can be done which would energise all but the hardest of fanbois to buy the next iPhone, and I have to admit to scratching my head; any extras can be done with software.
2012/early 2013 would be the ideal time for Apple to steal another product march.
This is all just personal thinking, I've got nothing solid to back this up.
I know what you mean - the iPhone just isn't sparkling in some aspects compared with Samsung's offering.
However, one of Apple's biggest cash cow's the App Store. It makes huge amounts of free money so why they'd choose to cut this off just because they couldn't be bothered to keep incrementing the iPhone each year with a slightly better spec, wouldn't seem sensible.
That said, there's plenty they *could* do with the iPhone and yet still manage to disappoint the hardcore fanbois by not fulfilling 95% of their wet dreams.
Then you'd be losing the bet. A generational stepchange in hardware power when available is generally combined with one of Little Jonny Ive's finest brand new designs to make it painfully apparent to all and sundry that you don't have the latest and greatest.
Of course, they could do something other than what works, and trash the product line- but something tells me that love or hate them, Apple's strategists are a little brighter and well-informed than you.
That would be a serious fail. Follow google, buy a ton of FRAND-encumbered wireless patents, try denying apple the right to make a phone at all, get thrown out of court and investigated for patent abuse.
They need to buy an early pioneer in smart phones who have plenty of non-FRAND patents covering things the iPhone is likely to be using.
Or, they could develop something different enough from the iPhone that it doesn't infringe a huge number of patents, it stands out as fresh and unique in the market, tons of people buy in and it actually kills the iPhone in the market. Then they can patent it all, and stop other companies from copying them. Nah, that sounds like hard work.
"develop something different enough from the iPhone"
Huh? iPhone is very generic, very common in it's looks - really: Candybar phone with different aspect ratio a screen size.
At leas original iPhone was something new, unseen before.
And as far as OS - Android is already different from iOS, Win8 is different from iOS - yet Apple keeps suing. That's why Amazon needs patents.
"and easily understood tariff:"
That will be dead in the water then. The networks have been shafted once (by Apple) so they will be reluctant to bend over again. You can be sure that the tariffs will be constructed in the most perverted way so that they will wring out the last drop of cach from the poor punter. SOP/BAU for them especially in the USofA.
Amazon's existing data coverage is paid for by the astronomical download fees they slap on top of the commission charged to content publishers for every sale on Amazon's digital stores.
It's still roaming, they haven't changed that, so they'll never give you the full - data intensive - web on it.