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Amazon tablet: Apple should ‘prepare for war’
Excitement grows as analysts say Amazon tablet could challenge iPad
Apple may have seen off one competitor to its iPad when HP ditched its TouchPad earlier this month, mere weeks after its launch, but analysts are already getting excited about a new challenge to the market leader. Amazon's as-yet unreleased tablet computer is getting rave reviews despite a distinct lack of comment from its manufacturer.
On Monday, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps published a report saying: "Amazon's willingness to sell hardware at a loss combined with the strength of its brand, content, cloud infrastructure, and commerce assets makes it the only credible iPad competitor in the market."
Rivals to the iPad have been held back so far by a lack of software, which has made them a boring alternative to Apple's tablet, with its vibrant app store.
All that could change when Amazon enters the market - before Christmas, it is assumed.
Epps believes Amazon will use 'Honeycomb', Google's Android tablet operating system as the basis for its device, and add another layer of Amazon services on top of that. Because it is likely to sell its tablet at a loss, it will need to make money by selling these services, which will doubtless include film and music.
Epps says Amazon should sell 3-5 million tablets in the final quarter of this year, if it prices its device in the US below $300 - a snip compared to the iPad's $499 price tag.
Other manufacturers could use the Android-Amazon software complex in their tablets, making them an attractive alternative to the iPad - and the more attractive these Android tablets become, the more likely developers are to spend resources on new apps.
Apple, Epps said in the bellicose terms familiar to observers of the tech industry, should "prepare for war".
She isn't the only analyst to believe that Amazon could be onto a winner if it can shift its tablet using a competitive pricing strategy.
Tim Bajarin writes at PC Mag.com: "Amazon already has the trust as well as the credit cards of over 200 million users. And its 'one-click' buying model would make it quite easy for an Amazon tablet user to buy often through both the Android Appstore and the Amazon store in general."
Over at Forbes, meanwhile, Brian Caulfield compares Amazon's presumed strategy to Microsoft, which won the PC war against Apple back in the 1990s by selling an operating system - Windows - that other manufacturers could use in their computers.
"Sounds a lot like how another Washington state company responded to Apple many, many years ago," writes Caulfield. ·
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I am sorry?, 'the only credible iPhone rival'?, I already own a far superior product.
The Tablet format especially in 10" size is a cumbersome and awkward format, yes, it has its' uses but as the default form it is very poor.
The Asus Transformer TF101 is a far superior product it is as default a netbook with a very useable keyboard but can become a tablet with a click of a button on the few occasions when a tablet format is needed.
Far superior to the posers tablets, I haven't tried one yet but I would imagine the new Sony unit will also find many users fed up with the stupid Tablet form factor, I can see it maybe replacing many a faithfull Psion 5mx.
Of course for the normal gadget sheep the Tablet will continue until something else comes along, gotta have the latest whether it is useful or not.
This is long overdue and will be very welcome by both consumers and professional users - as long as they don't give it daft name for example kindle, playbook, zune. How about aPad, aTouch...?