Fire Tablet Bad News from Amazon Shows The Importance of Real Retail Channel

(2/4/2015) Amazon's Fire phone was a failure (causing $170 millions of write-down on its book), but its predecessor - Fire Tablet was not. Well, at least, before the Fire Phone was launched. Just within 5 years after the first generation of iPad was launched, the global tablet sales has entered its "mature stage." In 2014, the tablet sales dropped for the firs time (still before Tablet is 5 years-old), even Apple's iPad has 17.8% of sales drop. But once the biggest contender of iPad -- Amazon Fire Tablet -- had a even bigger drop of 68% in 2014, almost 70% of in sales. How can that be? This news has a very good analysis: Amazon's Fire tablets are only available on Amazon and very limited channels. But many smaller brands tablet maker had encroached a good chunk of the market share: 35.2% and was the 'only group' that saw tablet sales growth in 2014. $40 after gift card for 10" Android tablet (see captured picture below), How can Amazon's Fire beat this price? Can Bezos dodge this miscalculation again?

Learning Curve from iOS to Android (A Personal Story)

(4/18/2014) In the last several months, I have switched from Apple's iOS to Google's Android both on smartphone and tablet. It started with Apple's stubbornness in it's slow-upgrading strategy in iPhone to catch up its competitors. I am sick of the small screen, slow 3G network and slow processor on my iPhone 4. When Bestbuy had a $0 Black Friday sales on Samsung Galaxy S4, I got me one. Switching from iPad to Android tablet is another story. Within 2 months, my iPad 2 screen cracked 3 times without big drops. I had it fixed twice through local a repair shop and paid $120 (2nd break with discount to repair). After the 3rd break, I decide that won't pay the third time. You may think it's because I am cheap and didn't send it back to Apple to repair. However, it is unjustifiable to fixed a 2 year-old iPad 2 screen and costs me $250+tax, when new iPad Air is probably twice of that repair cost. Maybe it's iPad's revenge on my betrayal of Apple. Fine, I am done with iPhone or iPad at this moment. (However, my old iPhone 4 still works and I use it to play music and FaceTime with my parents most of the time.)

How painful was that switch? I would say, it takes time to get used to it because all command, interfaces, and applications are different. I experience 2 months of time of low usage on my Galaxy S4, and most of 'missing usage' are the game time on my iPhone 4 and txt messaging. Before, iPhone or iPad did provide me a good time in gaming and reading. I have used iPad to read ebooks and PDF files intensively and that was the part I 'felt lost' in the beginning when my iPad died.

After 5 months, I realize that there are some changes in my smartphone and tablet usage.

I started to use Galaxy S4 like a small computer because of its power, which my iPhone 4 could not offer. You may say it's because I still use old iPhone, not the newest iPhone 5s. But I hate Apple's stingy screen size even on iPhone 5s. But small screen size is not the only turn-off. Why is that the case? Apple's iOS does have more and better quality applications than Android at this moment after looking for substitutes right following my switch. But the interfaces between my Macbook Pro laptop with iPhone 4 can only go through iTune or iPhoto, and this is really the deal breaker between me and iOS. Definitely Apple has its strategic concern in this part, because it wants all users use more iTune and buy more apps or musics from Apple. But if you have many musics, photos and videos like me, your iTune and iPhoto library probably have grown so big such that they slowdown your laptop significantly.

Another thing you may notice that many mobile applications now are 'free' and they are pretty powerful. Some of the free apps you will 'pay' by 'being tracked by the app developer or the ads,' some free apps are even 'Ad-free.' Not only that, some apps on tablet or smartphone can do jobs as well as some laptops software( or apps), which you often need to buy. For example, the video cutter apps on Android are free (with ads) to download; but the desktop version video cutters will cost around $30 and it's free version often has expiration dates. So if I want to edit some home videos, now I just connect Galaxy S4 with my laptop, switch video files for editing or cutting, then switch back. Those bulky home videos "are not supposed to be" in the iTune/iPhoto library to be 'transferred' to iPhone or iPad because they are on my home media server. Apple's "sticky strategy" to make users can only stay with iTune does the opposite: it expelled me to Android.

However, as a teach-savvy person, this type of control not only irritate me also feel 'being controlled'. When I need to transfer files for some iOS app from/to my laptop, going through iTune or iPhoto means I have to add files and delete files on iTune or iPhoto library all the time, which take triple times of effort to do a simple file transfer. Don't forget, if you don't delete files on iTune or iPhoto correctly, those files are still in your library like 'ghosts' and it will take many painful steps to clean your iTune or iPhoto libraries. If I don't do add-and-delete, my Macbook Pro laptop's hard drive will be full. You may challenge again that: "why don't you upgrade your hard drive or laptop?" My answer will be "My laptop is fine and why do I have to spend $$$ to upgrade to some works that I just want transfer between my smartphone/tablet and my laptop? The key point is: I REALLY don't want to keep those file on iTune or iPhoto library because I don't use them on iTune or iPhoto.

The technology has proved that smartphone can work like a small computer and the file transfer or utilizing other functions on smartphone (or tablet) does not need to be 'so painful' for the users. As many users have more and more music/video/movie files that they want to easily transfer between their computer and mobile devices, I see a big mistake that Apple's strategy is making. 

For tech-savvy people like me, I bet many of them will jump from iOS to Android. For those who don't want to or cannot do complex techy works, yes, Apple's iOS is a cozy platform to play with as long as they can afford to pay pricy Apple products.

You may wonder whether I stop using tablet since I don't want to pay for repair or buy a new iPad. Well, I found a cheap 10" Android tablet, which only costs half of Apple's screen repair cost. The specification of this Android tablet cannot compare with iPad Air (or even my iPad 2), but I also realized that this cheap tablet is good enough for all things I expect from it.

Microsoft Is Conservative on Surface 2

(12/18/2013) Once burnt, twice shy. Microsoft's revenge product -- Surface 1st generation -- costed $900 million USD charge due to product glitches and overstock. This time, Microsoft's Surface 2 is sold out in many retail stores. The reason it is sold out is because Microsoft is conservative with its production and inventory. Surface 2 received positive reviews and the app crashing and dropped Wi-Fi issues have been improved. With conservative production forecasts, at least Microsoft does not have to be forced to write off inventories or has huge price-cut.

iPad Only Daily News will be closed

(12/3/2012) This iPad-only news overestimated the influence and user's reliance on iPad. The Daily is over. It lived only 22 months. Is Huffington iPad Magazine still on Apple's news stand?

World Cheapest Tablet

(12/2/2012) The world Cheapest tablet DataWind's Ubislate 7ci will cost $40 in India and some developing countries (The article is from Fast Company). Will it close the digital gap between the haves and the have-nots?