Amazon seemed just a little iPad mini-obsessed last week when it turned the second half of its Q3 earnings release into a “why the Kindle Fire HD is better than the iPad mini” release.
But that's nothing, it turns out. The online retail colossus has now used its own front page to escalate the war of words – and by a good few notches, too.
Front and centre when you fire up amazon.com (as in the main US site, not the UK one) is a side-by-side comparison of the Kindle Fire HD and iPad mini titled “Much more for much less”, containing the same points made in the press release the other day.
Those mainly centre around the higher-resolution 7in display and lower price of the Kindle Fire HD ($199 versus $329 in US currency), though mention is also made of the former's dual stereo speakers and MIMO Wi-Fi too.
But the real insult comes in the snippet from a recent Gizmodo article that's been pull-quoted in large text above all of that, and reads:
“Your [Apple's] 7.9-inch has far fewer pixels than the competing 7-inch tablets! You’re cramming a worse screen in there, charging more and accusing others of compromise? Ballsy.”
In case you're wondering, it's an article on Tim Cook's recent explanation of why the iPad mini doesn't actually contradict Steve Jobs pronouncement that 7in tablets are two small – the reason basically being that 7.9in is in fact waaaay bigger than 7in.
Lewis gave the whole idea a semi-respectful snort of derision in his own write-up the other day, but Gizmodo being Gizmodo, the point was made far more directly – to give you an idea, the paragraph quotes by Amazon actually starts “Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.” That bit didn't make the quote, though.
Still, strong stuff. But while Gizmodo was (rightly) ridiculing Cook's effort to spin one feature of the iPad mini that's been questioned, what Amazon has done is use the quote out of context to directly attack one of the world's biggest companies on one of the US' most visited web pages.
Now that's ballsy.
versus the 7 is 35 percent. And when you look at the usable area, it's much greater than that. It's from 50 to 67 percent." What is this "usable area," exactly? Is he talking about the back of it? Like, it's a solid surface you can use when you need to sign checks? And how you add 0.9 diagonal inches and come away with 67 percent more useable area is a conundrum that will have mathematicians scratching their heads for eons to come (okay, maybe not). Then he goes on:
