Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

In the 60's, after President Kennedy's assassination, Simon & Garfunkel brought us the Sound of Silence. That tone can be sensed again this week in for the form of Fire, that has all but gone out. Amazon's gushing moment came from their new line of Kindle's launched this past Wednesday. But since Friday, the absence of any enthusiasm and chatter about the devices, specifically the Kindle Fire, has been deafening. 

Tomorrow, Apple launches their new iPhones, iOS 5 and iCloud products. And even though nothing has been officially announced by Apple, the company has managed to suck all the oxygen out of the room (and dare I say, that's never good for a fire).

While Amazon tried to bring Apple's magic to their launch, it came off as another wanna-be presentation. The show came complete with a geekified five minute engineering promo video, with guys who write code describing the guts of Silk, and why it's technically great – complete with white/grey Apple background.

Kudos go out to Amazon for trying, but it's now all eyes on Apple from here on out. Tomorrow's show with Tim Cook at the helm will be interesting enough, but with Jobs waving to the crowd from the front row, with the roar of applause likely to last minutes on end, this promises to be nothing short of riveting.

Amazon pitted their new Kindle lineup against Apple's fall launch, which is arrogant or foolhardy at best. As a result, I may be the only one writing about the Fire today... Newsflash: That isn't good news for Amazon.

Plenty has been said about it already, but these columns may also be the last musings on Kindle Fire, so I felt them worth a final look:

• CNET: "Big on my list is the limited 8GB of storage, with only 6GB usable (and no expansion slot) and the apparent lack of Bluetooth ..." – David Cornoy
• ShellyPalmer.com: "I won’t bore you with the geek-speak, but Amazon has control of the content you browse in ways that are, well … non-trivial.  Do you care?  No.  Remember, you’re in Amazon prison." – Shelly Palmer
• Electronista: "Amazon Kindle Fire may be 'stop gap" before big 2012 model." – Electronista Staff
• Tech2Date: "What Kindle Fire lacks that iPad has [list of features]." – Gourav Jain
• AllThingsD: J.P Morgan Moskowitz said; "We are not impressed with Kindle Fire." – John Paczkowski
• SNL: "In an effort to compete with the iPad, Amazon Wednesday unveiled their new tablet computer called the Kindle Fire, which will retail for $199. It's expected to sell well among parents who always buy the wrong thing." – Seth Meyers

With reviews like this... May the silence continue.

2 Comments

1. John Lockwood ~ October 4, 2011 11:51
   What you and most other bloggers/journalists/analysts/pundits/other have all failed to also point out about the Kindle Fire is that it is at least for the present only available in America. The iPad is available in dozens of countries including the humungous Chinese market. Even if the Fire is a success in America, it will still not amount to a hill of beans compared to Apple's global iPad sales.
2. steve ~ October 4, 2011 16:20
   Thanks for the nice roundup. I think news outlets liked it at first because they could do witty things with the name in their headlines. Me, I went with the $99 touch for the sole purpose of reading. (iPad for everything else!)

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