Well "game changer" may be a bit strong... but I'll give you my thoughts (take 'em for what it's worth).
The most simple thing to predict is that this machine is going to be in the hands of a *LOT* of people at this price point. I think it's crazy to call it an iPad "killer" but it doesn't have to be to be significant in its own right. A lot of current Kindle owners will be passing their devices on (to kids, etc.) and upgrading themselves to the Kindle Fire. A heck of a lot of iPhone users that don't own iPads will be looking hard at this device (with their capability to use the iPhone as a hotspot for the Kindle). Its ability to run Flash will make it especially interesting to many people who don't like that part of the iPad experience. (I realize other android tablets share this feature, but not at $199). M$ has indicated that its upcoming Windows 8 Metro will not run Flash also.
As such, I think it opens up the door to another huge chunk of consumers of Android Apps (especially those who jump through the hoops to get into Amazon's app marketplace).
I think that the thing that will get some play in the news is the privacy concerns with the Amazon cloud-based web browser "Silk" which appears to track
EVERYTHING you look at and click on the internet. Do I think that is going to stop millions of people from buying/using it? No. The terrorists won a long time ago. From the article above:
To Amazon’s credit, you can opt out of Silk’s cloud-enhanced mode. To quote Amazon, “You can also choose to operate Amazon Silk in basic or ‘off-cloud’ mode. Off-cloud mode allows web pages generally to go directly to your computer rather than pass through our servers. As such, it does not take advantage of Amazon’s cloud computing services to speed-up web content delivery.”
The word "generally" may give one pause, as may the question of how much this policy changes in the future (ala Facebook).
The thing that will be most interesting to watch is how the hackers bust this thing open. I also think that it is no stretch to say that this is just the first model of such "Fire" devices. Future models will probably come with more RAM, onboard storage, and perhaps different screen sizes and connectivity options.
One issue that I just thought of has to do with the Amazon caching of content. For time sensitive pages like we use in chasing, cached content could be the "kiss of death".
Gonna be interesting to see what comes next... Amazon will make all sort of grabs for CONTENT that they can lock up and make available only from their cloud. Sounds like they have the inside track to buying Hulu, for example.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Amazon-Has-the-Inside-Track-in-Buying-Hulu-220170.shtml
I probably should have the mods move this to it's own Kindle Fire thread so as not to further hijack the Pykl3radar thread
