Amazon Becomes The New Apple
On September 12th, Apple took to the stage and did two things. They made several key product announcements, and seemed to lose the very essence which gave the company their unique place in the technology space. On September 6th, Amazon presented themselves as a company with the ability to 'Think Different,' taking that same value from Cupertino and superseding their ambition.
Amazon Now Confirms You Can Opt-Out Of Kindle Fire HD Ads, For A Fee
Forget the hype and premature praise for the Kindle Fire HD for the moment, because the past couple of days has been quite the storm for Amazon, and not for reasons it would have hoped. A backlash has since followed Jeff Besoz's so assured presentation, with many criticising Amazon's decision to make the HD an ad-supported device, with 'Special Offer' ads set to adorn both lock and home screens.
Editorial: Apple's Post-PC vs Amazon's Post-Web computing
So Wired published an insightful interview with Amazon's Founder Jeff Bezos, discussing all things content consumption, cloud computing, consumer culture disruption and an odd side-track about his financial pledges into public space travel. The bit that formulated opinion is where he starts to discuss the Kindle Fire as more than just a competitor to the iPad.
This pushes forward the two competing concepts of how computing should be done, aforementioned in the title. The Post-PC device, as predicted by Steve Jobs and the general trend of products from Apple is to be the new "car" when Personal Computers become trucks. On it's lowest base: Post-PC devices rely on new input / output methods and allow a new population of non-expert users to use the product more cheaply and simply. There is a focus on the OS, the experience is centralised around the device, and content is downloaded to the device.
The Post-web device is something that is best demonstrated by the Kindle Fire: a culmination of the services that Jeff has accrued over his illustrious 15 years. Taking the concept of computing up into the cloud, streaming media, taking the focus off the OS and the hardware, instead forming a more literal definition of a window to your content.
This has presented two interesting concepts for the future of computing, both have a bright future for sure; but which would be of preference in a world where many only choose one?