Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

I recently had lunch with a friend who had purchased a Kindle Fire for his wife. "She's always on the iPhone, surfing or on FaceBook, so I got her a Kindle Fire." he said. His statement was somewhat shocking, but on the surface of things, his decision made a lot of sense to me, in that a larger screen device just made more sense. But I questioned why he didn't go iPad? He had thought of going iPad, but the iPad is $500, just so his wife can surf around and check FaceBook? "The Kindle was just $200 bucks..." he said, so he went for the Fire.

His answer shot holes into Apple's iPad underbelly – price. But whether or not Apple chooses to fill the "good enough" or "throw-a-way" hole is the big question.

Rumors persist that a smaller screen iPad is due to enter the market. But before jumping into whether that's even a valid move for Apple, the best way to approach the subject is to ask:

• Q: What are the iPod touch and Kindle Fire products?
• A: They are not tablets.

The Kindle fire is nothing more than a large screen iPod touch, but lacks many iPod capabilities. In the simplest of terms, both devices are merely content consumption devices. Apple could step into the market with a larger screen iPod touch, whipping Kindle Fire from the face of the earth, but if it's a low to zero margin product, why would Apple enter that space?

What the iPod touch already does, and Kindle Fire will likely to do, is move people into an iPad with their next purchase. The only snag with this positive iPad outlook is understanding what Amazon will do next. Apple must assuming Amazon moves north in 2012 with a 10" Kindle, with more tablet-like capabilities. But Amazon has one major issue with taking the iPad head on.

It's got to be amazingly good.

A 10-inch Kindle can't just be another player in the $400+ space, it's got to be vastly superior to an iPad, or why by it? That has been the exact problem with wanna-be iPad's to-date, and there is no reason why a wanna-be iPad Kindle would be any different.

Examining the Kindle Fire for any length of time, it quickly becomes apparent that Amazon is only interested in beating Apple on price, which won't work in a 10-inch space. Apple has set the expectation with iPad, in that any other product in the large-screen arena must be a fully capable Leatherman tool, that can handle virtually any task. If Amazon does not deliver a quality product with across the board consumption and creation capabilities, and cannot undercut the iPad by $200, expect Amazon's run to be short lived. Amazon will quickly be niched into the cheap, sub-iPad market – training wheels for iPad.

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