Apple turned on streaming of purchased TV shows on the Apple TV for customers in the UK, Canada and Australia on Wednesday night. The change does not even require a user-initiated update, and it should be available on all current Apple TVs in those countries right now. It’s good for users, and it’s great for Apple, since it proves yet again that where the international market is concerned, Apple is ahead of the game on a global scale.

To use the new TV show streaming service, users need only an active Internet connection, an iTunes account and to make purchases of shows available for streaming, which you can do directly from your Apple TV. The selection isn’t great right now; only Aardman Studios, A&E, History Channel, PBS, PBS Kids, Vivendi Entertainment and Viz Media appear to have made their content available as of yet. But it’s a start, which is more than can be said for Apple’s biggest competitor, Amazon.

Apple is at least two steps ahead of Amazon in terms of making its content available internationally. Users still have to be in the U.S. to use Amazon’s VOD services, for instance, regardless of their device. Amazon Music has a bit more reach, with availability in a few European markets. Apple, on the other hand, not only offers both video and music stores to many worldwide markets but has also already managed to secure deals that allow for iCloud remote backup, automatic downloads of purchases in select countries and now TV content on the Apple TV.

Reach and an outsize share of the digital market probably account for much of why Apple is able to successfully negotiate international rights deals more easily than Amazon, but it may also be the case that selling abroad just isn’t as much of a priority for Amazon at this point. Still, whatever the reason, this latest development for the Apple TV, along with the likelihood that Apple is working on bringing iTunes Match to international customers sometime in the new year, puts Apple’s ecosystem out front. That could be a key deciding factor for keeping it ahead in the tablet game, now that the Kindle Fire is out and selling well, though again, only in the U.S. for now.

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Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu is predicting iPad shipments will be “a little light” for the last quarter of this year, reports AppleInsider. As a result, Wu says he expects Apple to ship 13.5 million iPads instead of the 15 million he’d originally predicted. Wu blames some of that on tablet shoppers opting for the Amazon Kindle Fire this holiday. But he also blames another Apple product — he says some people are looking at iPads and choosing a laptop instead: the MacBook Air.

Wu’s report comes a day after Cannacord Genuity’s T. Michael Walkley told his clients that he is also changing his expectations for the iPad from 14 million units sold to 13 million this quarter, which he also attributes to the Kindle Fire. He is estimating Amazon’s tablet could grab as much as 20 percent of Apple’s tablet unit share during the end of this year.

To be clear, Apple’s tablets account for three-quarters of all tablet sales right now. And even though those two analysts are downgrading their expectations to 13 to 13.5 million units, that would still go down as a record for quarterly sales of the iPad for Apple. (Previous record: 11.12 million sold last quarter.) But, as Walkey notes, that current 74-percent unit share could be reduced to just over half of the market by the end of the holiday quarter. So while Apple is still clearly in a dominant position, slightly fewer sales this quarter could be just the beginning of what’s to come as the Kindle starts to build up steam.

The entire tablet landscape is going to look much different a year from now. Corning’s recent earnings report showed that the maker of popular Gorilla glass for tablets will have to cut its global glassmaking supply by 25 percent “amid a glut of supply” by the end of this year due to a weaker demand for tablets.

That’s probably less to do with iPads, according to the analysts at UBS, and more to do with other PC makers. Some of them may start ceding the space to the likes of Apple and Amazon over the next year, and Dell has already begun: on Tuesday it stopped selling its 7-inch Android tablet, just months after ending sales of its 5-inch tablet.

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Steve Jobs sold 383,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week of sales, and it is also one of the fastest-selling nonfiction titles ever in the UK. The title broke records in many international markets, too, including Taiwan, where preorders were higher for it than for any previous book, and in Brazil, where it became the best-selling e-book ever in the country just two weeks after its initial release. Production plans for a movie are already reported as under way, after Sony Pictures acquired the rights.

I would wager there are a few records left for the Steve Jobs biography to break yet, since a lot of the holiday shopping season still remains, and interest in the book will likely spike when the paperback version is introduced. Subsequent major Apple product launches could also help renew interest in the company’s original driving creative force, so expect sales to remain strong throughout the new year.

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Amazon’s first foray into the tablet market, the Kindle Fire, is widely perceived as the first real competitor to the iPad. Whether that’s true or not will be discussed later, but for shoppers looking to gift a tablet for the holidays, it can be hard to decide which is the better gift. That’s why we’re going to compare the two on four points: hardware, software, ecosystem, and price.

Hardware

The hardware on the Kindle Fire is simple. It’s a half-inch thick slab of black plastic with a rubber back. The feel of the Fire is actually pretty nice considering the materials, and the rubber back makes it easy to grip. It’s not nearly as pretty as the iPad, of course, but its cheaper looks comes with advantages; if I were to drop the Fire, I wouldn’t be as concerned about damaging it.

There are several odd choices Amazon made in the design. First, in portrait orientation the bezel on the bottom of the Fire is actually thicker than on the top, making it asymmetrical. Second, there aren’t any hardware volume controls; you have to use a software slider. Third, the power button and audio jack are on the bottom, making it easier to accidentally turn off and making listening to headphones harder.

One of the big draws of the Fire over the iPad is its seven-inch screen. I can easily wrap my entire hand around the Fire, which I can’t do with the iPad. The smaller form factor also has the advantage of portability; you could easily fit the Fire in a purse or small bag, unlike the iPad. The downside, of course, is that the iPad offers a bigger screen for watching movies or playing games.

The iPad has two cameras, one on the back, and another on the front for FaceTime. The Fire has none. This omission makes sense, both to cut costs, and because most people probably already have a smartphone with a better camera than what Amazon could’ve put in the Fire anyway. But it also means that the Fire can’t do video chat like the iPad.

There’s only 8 GB of space included on the Fire, half of what the cheapest iPad has, and the Fire has no SD card slot to expand that storage. Amazon obviously expects most users to access their media from Amazon’s cloud. It’s a problem for folks with lots of locally-stored media and less purchased through Amazon.

Software

More than anything, the software is what sets the Fire and the iPad apart. The Fire’s home screen is a dark faux-wood bookshelf; a search box is fixed on the top, and a list of media categories is spread out underneath it. Below that, recently used items appear on a “carousel” and take up most of the bookshelf, with the rest reserved for a scrollable “favorites” area, where you can pin apps, books, magazines, websites, videos, and even music. The interface is all about getting to your media quickly; rather than tapping on an app and then drilling down to the media you want, à la iPad, you can just click on the media itself. It’s an interesting concept, and it works well.

Amazon made several odd design choices with the software, as with the hardware. One of the first things I noticed is that the text in the top bar isn’t centered. Another is the distracting, persistent black bar which brings up the navigation buttons when video is being played in the Netflix app. In addition, the Fire’s software is buggy. Not show-stoppingly so, but enough to annoy. These kind of things show an inattention to detail and polish that iOS doesn’t suffer from.

The main navigation buttons on the Fire.

While the Fire runs a heavily modified build of Android 2.3, you can still feel Android when you’re using it, in the jerky scrolling, in the ever-present software Back, Home and Menu buttons, and in the slightly modified notification drawer. The Fire isn’t for people who can’t stand Android.

The browser on the Fire, called Silk, has a feature that’s supposed to accelerate page loading: Popular pages are monitored by Amazon and cached on their servers, so when you browse to one of those sites, it loads faster. The problem is that the service doesn’t seem to work well; Vimeo user Sencha did a video comparison of the Fire’s browser with acceleration turned on and off, and the results showed that Silk doesn’t make much of a difference. For now, the iPad’s browser is just as fast as the Fire’s, but Amazon will likely improve Silk in the future.

The Fire's text-slection tool in action.

Reading on the Fire is a no-frills affair; Amazon simply tweaked the Android Kindle app and put it on the Fire. The page turn animation is a boring slide, which isn’t as nice as iBooks’ realistic animation. Even the iOS Kindle app has an option for realistic animations, so I don’t understand why Amazon excluded them on the Fire.

Ecosystem

The Fire is heavily integrated with Amazon’s content ecosystem, as is the iPad with Apple’s. It’s worth pointing out that Amazon develops apps for iOS, most notably Kindle and Amazon Mobile. Apple isn’t likely ever going to do the same for the Fire.

Books

Amazon’s selection of books is as excellent as ever, and while Apple has greatly improved the selection in the iBookstore, it still can’t approach the Amazon store. The prices of Amazon’s e-books also tend to be cheaper. Amazon Prime customers get an extra perk: one free book every week. If your taste in books is broad, that’s a pretty good deal.

Video/Music

Amazon’s video offerings are pretty competitive with iTunes. Movies can be rented in standard definition for 48 hours at around $4, or bought at around $15, depending on if it can be bought. TV shows are $2 a pop. The video quality is about what you’d expect from a stream: watchable, but not great. Since iTunes only allows media to be downloaded, the quality is better, but with the caveat that you have to wait for the download to finish. Prime customers can get some of Amazon’s video content for free, with popular inclusions such as Lost, Firefly, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Music can either be streamed using Amazon’s free Cloud Player service, bought directly on the Fire, or transferred via USB. The price of music in Amazon’s store is also competitive with iTunes. The Cloud Player service allows you to upload up to 5 GB of music for free, which automatically shows up on the Fire. The songs buffer quickly, and the audio quality is the same as the uploaded file, which are both nice.

Apps

The app ecosystem is the biggest pain point with the Fire. It doesn’t have anything near the quality and selection of the iOS App Store. Most of the apps were designed to run on Android phones, so they get resized to fill the Fire’s bigger screen. Even worse, the Facebook and Twitter apps aren’t apps at all, but just links to the mobile websites.

Developers have been slow to submit their apps to Amazon’s Appstore, so Amazon’s making a bet on the Fire bringing more of them into the fold. But right now, there’s no guarantee that it’ll get better. One bright spot is that the Appstore offers one free app every week, even to non-Prime customers, but that’s little consolation.

Price

My dad summed this up nicely: “If the iPad were $200, I’d have an iPad. But it’s not.” Price is arguably the biggest feature of the Fire; it’s $300 less than the cheapest iPad, so someone could buy two-and-a-half Fires for the price of one iPad, something consumers should keep in mind if they want multiple tablets this year. Even so, with the iPad the adage “you get what you pay for” holds true; the iPad has more polish, better design, and more power than the Fire.

Conclusion

The Kindle Fire isn’t an iPad competitor. It’s a multimedia Kindle that’s tightly integrated with Amazon’s services. While integration with Apple’s services is certainly a big part of the iPad, it’s not its main purpose, which is to run apps. You can see this distinction in how the two tablets and their software are designed. The iPad has a bigger screen so that apps have more room to shine, and iOS at its fundamental level is a grid-based app launcher. The Fire is smaller, so it’s easier to enjoy media like books, and the software is designed for launching media. In short, the iPad is for apps; the Fire is for media, and media mostly sourced from a particular ecosystem.

There’s more, of course. To sum it up, the Fire appeals to people who:

• Buy most of their content from Amazon.
• Don’t need to create media.
• Want a more portable tablet.
• Can’t afford to spend a lot of money.
• Don’t mind limited storage.

And the iPad appeals to people who:

• Buy most of their content from Apple.
• Want to create media as well as consume it.
• Don’t mind the iPad’s larger size.
• Can afford to spend a little more.
• Need a lot of storage.

Which features of each tablet mean more to you? That’s how you decide.

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Amazon’s tablet was the device of choice for 22 percent of the 3,043 customers polled by ChangeWave for its latest survey. The next closest device was Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, with just 4 percent of those surveyed expressing a desire to pick up that product. The Kindle Fire’s emergence as a strong second to Apple’s iPad is mostly bad news for other Android-based competitors, and less of an issue for Apple, which currently enjoys around 67-percent market share, but that doesn’t mean it should quietly allow the Fire to dig itself in as the budget-conscious shopper’s tablet of choice.

How Apple can put out the Fire

The easy answer, of course, is to make a cheap iPad, but that’s not something Apple will do easily or without a very specific, measured approach. Apple’s brand cachet and success depend on consumer perception of its products as high quality; just pulling things out until a smaller iPad resembles a Fire in terms of specs but runs iOS isn’t likely an option. That said, Apple also isn’t afraid to take a good idea from the competition and make it better in order to move hardware. That’s what I think it’ll do in this case.

Take away the huge price gap

Amazon’s Fire is really appealing because it provides cheap access to content acquired and stored in Amazon’s extensive ecosystem of music and movies, and its growing AppStore. The hardware is really secondary to those considerations, and likely accounts for why Amazon is willing to sell it so cheaply.

If Apple wants to regain its absolute dominance of the tablet market, it needs to take price off the table, but also to avoid setting itself up for the kind of criticism Amazon and other low-cost tablet makers face because of corner-cutting. It’s a tricky balance to strike, but Apple has a lot of advantages that could make it possible, chief among them being Tim Cook and his masterful control of the component supply chain. And Apple doesn’t need to close the gap entirely. It needs to bring an iPad close enough that the Kindle Fire’s faults seem like unwarranted sacrifices for what you save.

Apple can go cheap with few sacrifices

Amazon is taking a big risk on a relatively unproven market (7-inch tablets), and in doing so, it probably can’t achieve the parts-ordering volumes Apple could manage. That should allow Apple to eke out more profit per device even at a much-reduced price point. Apple is also making great strides in achieving big price breaks by leveraging older hardware; the free (on contract) 3GS is a great example. A smaller iPad would automatically save on display costs, and Apple can also save money using the older A4 processor (or an A5 if it debuts alongside a next-gen A6 for the existing iPad).

It will likely be difficult for Apple to get Kindle-Fire-cheap with a product it can stand behind, but the entry-level iPod touch recently hit the same $199 mark, and a similarly specced, slightly larger device at $249 (same price as the Nook Tablet) or $299 isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine. It would likely mean the death of the iPod touch in terms of cannibalized sales, but Apple is famously willing to release forward-looking products even if they might hurt past top producers.

Ecosystem plus

Apple’s content ecosystem can go toe-to-toe with Amazon’s, especially in international markets where lots of Amazon’s content isn’t available. ICloud and access to past iTunes purchases help make the differences between the two minimal, and despite Amazon’s big advantages with books, Apple still wins in terms of digital movie and music sales. If a smaller, cheaper iPad can provide access to that content, with fewer hardware/software downsides, it’ll win over customers, even with a price disadvantage.

Apple also still has a huge app advantage. That, plus value-add features like AirPlay, iMessage and other things iOS provides that the competition currently doesn’t, will be enough to win back Apple customers just looking for a quality 7-incher to fill out their gadget lineup. In terms of the early adopter crowd, that alone could pay big dividends.

Groundwork

Apple has the elements of a low-end market play in place: the pedigree of the iPod touch, its recent willingness to target mid-market by leveraging older tech, the lessons and supply chain control it has amassed in making the iPad a huge success, and the market-leading content ecosystem that continues to drive and be driven by its hardware device purchases.

Amazon’s ability to win out over other Android devices and take a big chunk of tablet interest by undercutting Apple on price might not even bother Cupertino. If it can’t work out how to make a competing device with a reasonable profit margin, it won’t bother. But if it can, that’s when we’ll see the real sparks fly in the tablet mark

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Apple was second only to Amazon.co.uk, and beat out Argos, which has been at the top of the list along with Amazon’s U.K site since Hitwise began its rankings. In October 2011, the Apple site accounted for 1 in every 25o visits made by U.K. browsers, according to the information gathered by Experian Hitwise.

Part of the reason for the huge volume increase in traffic, which spiked in October, is the death of former Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs. Jobs passed away Oct. 5, just a day after Apple announced the iPhone 4S. The combination of the two led to Apple reaching its highest-ever levels of Internet traffic, with 14 million visits coming to the site in October alone.

Hitwise also cited the iPad as another cause of high traffic for Apple, since tablet popularity overall is a growing driver of web traffic. Amazon experienced a lift thanks to its Kindle Fire, for instance, and in addition to its U.K site topping the list, Amazon’s U.S. shopping portal even made the U.K. rankings, coming in ninth.

Apple’s surge in retail web rankings may not last, but a six-place jump is nothing to scoff at, even if it is a temporary boost dictated by extremely unusual circumstances. If Apple dips back down next quarter, it probably won’t fall all the way back, since some of those new visitors will probably stick around to keep tabs on what’s coming next, specifically to look for clues about iPad 3, which is starting to become a popular target for the rumor mill.

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Apple’s filing with the U.S. District Court for Northern California argues that the modified use of Amazon’s product name threatens to negatively affect perception of Apple’s brand:

Amazon’s use is also likely to lessen the goodwill associated with Apple’s App Store service and Apple products designed to utilize Apple’s App Store service by associating Apple’s App Store service with the inferior qualities of Amazon’s service.

That’s some mighty fine trash talking on Apple’s part, but the company has to portray the effect of Amazon’s practices as blatantly negative in order to reinforce the legitimacy of its claim. But if the court agrees that Amazon’s decision to de-emphasize the “for Android” portion of the Amazon Appstore name, it may help strengthen its case.

Back in July, a judge ruled that while Apple hadn’t sufficiently established grounds to secure a preliminary injunction, Amazon’s argument that the mark was generic also didn’t fly. Accordingly, any move on Amazon’s part to close the perceived gap between the two probably won’t help Amazon’s case.

It’ll be interesting to see if this indirect volley is just the first attempt on Apple’s part to involve the Kindle Fire in its ongoing legal war against Android devices. Samsung, which is currently the hardware maker best-positioned to challenge Apple in smartphone and tablet sales, met with swift legal response from Apple, and is now facing patent infringement lawsuits in courts around the world. With the Kindle Fire doing well in its early days, might it not be Apple’s next target?

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The languishing iPod touch

Apple “updated” the iPod touch when it unveiled the iPhone 4S, but it’s not what you would call a revolutionary change; in fact, it seems like the only thing Apple changed was to add a white color option for its touchscreen iOS-powered media player.

I think that’s because the role the iPod touch played is becoming less of an issue now that the iPhone is more widespread worldwide, and especially now that Apple makes an iPhone that can be had for $0 on contract in many markets (the 8 GB 3GS). The touch is an iPhone for people who otherwise couldn’t have one; with far fewer barriers to entry for an iPhone, the touch’s role in Apple’s line is less defined.

Some pundits have described a smaller iPad as a larger iPod touch, and they’d essentially be right. But simply adding some screen real estate to an iPod touch, while keeping it slim and small enough to hopefully fit in a back pocket (to borrow a standard for portability held dear by my colleague Kevin Tofel), changes the role of such a device in significant ways. It becomes a third category of product, one that might offer something to both existing iPhone and iPad owners, unlike the iPod touch.

Apple can diversify the category it created

The tablet is still in its infancy, but Apple has already shown that its interpretation of the device can threaten long-established products like the notebook PC and help Apple take a lead position in how computing will look ten years from now.

The upheaval Apple spearheaded means we’ll soon think about tablets as a different sort of category of device from others, I believe. It will be more like PCs, where people often have both desktops and notebooks to suit different purposes, but lower costs could make it viable to own multiple tablets with similar, but distinct niches.

There’s a healthy consumer appetite for Apple tablets, and I think Apple will test that appetite with variations on its original theme, the same way the iPod spawned a bevy of model types during its rise to prominence. Apple admittedly seems to be simplifying its iPod line now, but that’s because interest as waning as consumers turn their gaze to iPhones and iPads.

Kindle Fire demonstrates interest in small done right

Consumers have only been cool to lukewarm on smaller slates to date, but the Amazon Kindle Fire seems to be proving there’s a definite interest in that category of device, if done well. Amazon is selling lots of pre-orders to customers based mostly on its reputation, a few slick product demos, and pricing.

Amazon may have a decent head start, but Apple doesn’t have to be first to a smaller tablet to be the best. It has proven time and time again that a strategy of taking what works for its competitors, and then polishing that concept and presenting it as new and magical works well with consumers. The latest example of such a strategy is Siri, which owes at least somewhat to Android’s Voice Actions on Google phones. Apple’s reputation, combined with a stellar experience, could help it swoop in and steal Amazon’s thunder after the e-tailing pioneer proves there’s a strong consumer demand.

Final thoughts

The iPhone 4S kept the iPhone 4′s screen, which is 3.5 inches. One reason Apple did that may have been to make it optimal for use with one hand, but another could be to keep the phone territory distinct from the tablet space. Large, unwieldy phones don’t seem like something Apple would create, but slim, portable tablets, despite Jobs’ past comments, could definitely fit the company’s design history.

As to past comments denying such a device is forthcoming, don’t take those too seriously; Apple knows what to say and when to say it in order to promote its agenda at the time, and when to release something that flies in the face of earlier statements in order to capitalize on a market opportunity. If an iPad mini makes sense as a growth opportunity for Apple, it won’t let anything stand in the way of releasing one.

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My recent experiences during a major power outage showed to me the one big downside to going 100-percent digital on books: When your battery dies, you can’t read a book, even in the daylight. Plus, the iPad was a little too large to just toss in my pocket when I left the house. Some people can’t leave the house without a pack of smokes; I can’t leave without a book.

I started becoming more interested in Kindle hardware in light of those problems. However, the prices just weren’t at a point I was happy with for a supplemental device. Today’s announcements have changed that.

Kindle Fire

While the Kindle Fire is likely to be a fine tablet, for me, it underscores some problems I have with the iPad: The IPS screen is going to be  nightmare to read outside, and at eight hours of battery life, it doesn’t have the month (or two) of long-lasting power that the e-ink Kindles do. My mobile gaming needs are met quite well with the iPad. As a technology commentator, though, I expect I’ll get one. The $199 price tag for an n0n-iPad tablet is a much easier pill to swallow than the $499 and up for other Android tablets. I do find it interesting that Amazon merged two distinct approaches: taking advantage of an open operating system (Android), yet creating a curated experience like Apple’s.

Were I not a tech commentator, and instead the average iPad user, I could see myself getting a Fire in these scenarios: Either I use Amazon steaming a lot, or I want a second tablet that travels better owing to its small size. In this economy, unless you can pretend you need one for “work,” I have a hard time seeing anyone needing a second tablet, no matter the price. But for those who can justify the expense, the Kindle Fire fills in some gaps, especially for users already heavily invested in the Android ecosystem.

The new Kindles

Now we’re taking. Books are my primary media consumption. The iPad isn’t good for reading in any situation where light is being cast on the screen. Ten hours of battery life is nice, but I’d like to not have to worry about that at all, which is what the e-ink Kindles offer. The size of the new e-readers is also right for “throw it in my jacket pocket” situations.

A Kindle reader under a hundred bucks perfectly fits my price point for buying a second reading device in addition to the iPad. I’ve ordered a Kindle for $79. Sure, it’s ad-supported, but from what I’ve been hearing the ads aren’t intrusive to my reading experience anyway.

A tale of apps

The big difference between Amazon and Apple is that Apple wants to sell you hardware, and Amazon just wants to sell you content. I believe Apple releasing iBooks for Android would be a sign of failure for its strategy. Amazon, on the other hand, doesn’t give a hoot what you read your book on, just that you the book from them.

Up until today, my e-reading plan was to buy the book on Amazon, and read it on my iPad. Now, I’m going to be mostly using the Kindle to read my books. Whispersync will do its job and I can read on my iPad, too, without losing my place. The lack of a keyboard or touch interface on the new entry-level Kindle doesn’t bother me. Almost all of my Kindle books are purchased via the web on my Mac.

Amazon has done something very smart with its table and e-reader strategy: priced its devices at a point where owning them in addition to other devices makes sense. The new Kindles don’t have to beat the iPad, especially when Amazon’s app strategy means that they can all play nice together.

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Credit: Amazon.com

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is now a known quantity, thanks to details supplied to Bloomberg ahead of the official announcement at Amazon’s press event Wednesday. The Android-based tablet has an attractive price, but to get there, it cut so many corners it probably won’t make much of a dent in Apple’s market lead with the iPad.

The Kindle Fire has a 7-inch display, no camera and no microphone. It can only connect to a Wi-Fi network, and there’s no built-in 3G connection. It also only carries 8 GB of on-board memory, with no options for memory expansion. These barebones features enabled Amazon to reach the Fire’s low price point of $199, while the Barnes & Noble Nook Color costs $249, and the iPad begins at $499.

Amazon’s goal with this device is clearly to offer something cheap that provides enough features and functionality to appeal to the general public. The company also hopes that Amazon’s ecosystem of digital goods can help it bring in customers; it provides video on demand, e-book and music sales, and it can store much of that content in the cloud.

The problem is that Amazon hasn’t really unveiled much with the Fire besides a fairly basic delivery method for sales of its digital offerings. Limited storage means Amazon’s cloud services are almost a necessity for buyers, and yet the lack of 3G means that accessing content when you’re away from home will be difficult. The lack of both camera and microphone also mean that people can’t easily use this for taking or sharing mobile photos, or as a phone replacement with VoIP apps.

The new Silk browser tech that does much of the processing work on Amazon’s EC2 servers is also interesting, but again severely limited by the Wi-Fi-only network access. Amazon also didn’t talk about battery life, and a decision not to talk about it could mean it doesn’t compare favorably to the iPad’s all-day power.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talked a lot about early skepticism in the media about the original Kindle’s chances at success at today’s press conference — skepticism that didn’t end up coming true. But the Fire is entering a different market on different terms. Bezos also noted that Amazon has a strong ecosystem, and that’s been a large part of its success, but that alone won’t make sub-par hardware appealing. Especially considering that Amazon’s streaming media services are generally U.S.-centric.

A fresh coat of paint on Android will help set the Fire apart, but repackaging an OS that’s already struggling to match Apple’s in terms of tablet success, and then putting it on hardware that’s basically a stripped down PlayBook isn’t a recipe for an Kindle-iPad killer.

The Kindle Fire could admittedly do well; it’s a very portable device with a smart UI that provides access to an extensive ecosystem, and I fully expect it to give the Nook Color a run for its money, or even bury that device. But what it won’t do is knock the iPad off its pedestal, not when it feels like yet another Android tablet rushed to market in an attempt to stem the tide of users to Apple’s ecosystem.

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TechCrunch’s early look on Friday of a pre-release model tells us the Amazon tablet will be a 7-inch color touchscreen tablet running a non-tablet version of Android on a single-core chip, with very little local storage. It will probably cost $250 and be Wi-Fi only to start, and it’s going to be called the Amazon Kindle. The name implies Amazon is not selling it as a tablet, but more as an e-reader that does much, much more. That makes it sound less like an iPad and more like the Barnes & Noble Nook Color. That’s the first of many ways that the two differ in their approach.

The cores of their businesses are also fundamentally different. Apple is a hardware company. The iTunes Store and App Store do well and they are important parts of  its business, but the purpose of the hardware isn’t just a pretty and pricey vehicle to sell music, videos, games, apps and software. The videos and apps are there to enable people to enjoy their iPod, iPhone or iPad. Amazon is an e-commerce company. They sell books, makeup, jewelry, electronics, etc. And, of course, lots and lots of e-books. That’s why Amazon sells the Kindle: principally as a way to sell more e-books.

Amazon also sells $79-per-year subscriptions in Amazon Prime that lets you get all the stuff you buy from them really fast for one low shipping price paid up front. Amazon’s forthcoming tablet is said to be integrated with Amazon services (think Amazon’s MP3 store, Cloud Drive and video-on-demand) you’re signed up for and, very significantly, free access to Prime. As Morgan Stanley says in a research note Tuesday, the latter is the key factor in what will make this tablet successful for Amazon:

The Tablet will accelerate customer adoption of Amazon’s Prime offering through potentially pairing the service with Tablet purchases. We estimate Prime customers annually spend 4-5x the amount of non-Prime customers and that global Prime customers total ~12MM of which ~7-8MM reside in the US (144MM total active users). Between new accounts and current, non-Prime accounts upgrading to Prime, net sales per active account has plenty of room to grow.

The idea of Amazon giving away free Prime subscriptions isn’t just a gimmick to get people to buy hardware. It’s one of the reasons they’re selling the hardware in the first place, since people buy more things when it’s easier for them. And people who have Prime, according to Morgan Stanley, buy more things from Amazon than those who don’t have Prime.

So those who use Amazon Prime or have accumulated music, videos, and are users of other Amazon services are going to be very excited by a new Amazon Kindle. The new Kindle is attractive in that it’s an e-reader that also does other stuff, whereas the iPad is positioned more as a general device.

In terms of specs, Amazon is apparently not attempting to build a technically superior tablet to the iPad. (A good move, since we’ve seen how well faster, more robust tablets with “access to the full web” have done versus the iPad.) Again, Amazon’s business is selling stuff.

The two are different devices, and the Amazon tablet is clearly not designed as an “iPad killer.” And whether or not Amazon can catch up to Apple’s 24 million iPads sold in 15 months, isn’t the right rubric for whether it’s been successful for Amazon.

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Developers were granted early access to iTunes Match Monday afternoon, via a sign-up page included in a newly released version of the iTunes 10.5 beta. Our sources say Apple appears to have cut off new iTunes Match registrations for the time being, saying that it will be expanding its initial pool of testers over the next few days. Developers still have to pay the $24.99 yearly subscription fee, which allows you to store up to 25,000 songs on Apple’s servers, but the period between now and the service’s public release, as well as an additional three months of service will be free of charge. Developers are also warned that any music stored during the beta period will be deleted at the end of testing.

In addition to the ability to download music directly to up to 10 devices (including a maximum of 5 computers) associated with a user’s iTunes account, iTunes Match provides another feature that hasn’t been specifically advertised by Apple: the ability to remotely stream tracks from the cloud instead of having to download them first.

That iTunes Match is now live for testing is good news, since it means we’ll hopefully see it arrive on time this fall alongside iOS 5 and iCloud. The website Insanely Great Mac has a video of iTunes Match streaming in action, which you can see below. It’s a feature that many thought was missing from Apple’s music service when compared to similar offerings from Google, Amazon and Spotify. It’s still possible the streaming aspect won’t make it into a final release version of iTunes Match, but if it does, Apple will have an even stronger contender on its hands than most people anticipated.

Note that iTunes Match will be U.S.-only when it launches in fall, probably due to issues with obtaining international licenses for all the music streamed. Apple will no doubt be trying to roll out the service to other markets through negotiations with major record labels, a process which could be helped along if the U.S. launch goes well.

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• Updated: 4 reasons Pandora could win the fight for digital music

Even though the app lets you quickly and easily scan barcodes to hunt for better deals on Amazon than might be available from your school bookstore, really, there’s little here that’s necessarily student-specific, besides graphics. In fact, if you’ve used the Amazon Mobile app for iOS, then you’ll probably feel a slight sense of déja vu. As mentioned, both let you can scan barcodes using your device’s camera, as well as search the Amazon.com catalogue, manage your Wish List, view the Amazon daily deals and check out your account or recommendations. Both also let you view your cart and actually make purchases as well.

Unlike the standard Amazon mobile app, Amazon Student lets you quickly and easily access Amazon’s Trade-In program, which lets you sell select used goods using Amazon as the go-between, complete with free shipping. The only catch is that you won’t get cash for your used stuff; instead, Amazon offers up gift cards of varying value, depending on the item you’re selling. So, as you can see from the screenshot, my used copy of Infamous 2 would net me up to $25 in Amazon.com credit.

It’s actually a great feature, and one that makes using the app probably better for a wide selection of Amazon shoppers, not just students. I know I’ve got cabinets filled with unused books, DVDs and video games that aren’t doing me any good here, and since I’ll probably spend the money on Amazon anyway, I might as well get it in gift cards.

Amazon Student also allows users to sign up for a free, six-month Amazon Prime membership, which provides free two-day shipping and release-date delivery for books, video games and other products. This feature really is student-only, however: You need to have an active and valid .edu email address to take advantage of the offer.

Still, thanks to Trade-Ins, Amazon Student is a pretty solid free download, even for non-students.

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Amazon introduced Kindle Cloud Reader on Wednesday, an HTML5-based web application that runs in mobile Safari on the iPad, Safari on the Mac and PC, and Chrome on the Mac and other desktop operating systems. Amazon has promised support for additional browsers and platforms soon, but the fact that the iPad is in the launch group of devices makes clear Amazon’s main goal with this endeavor, which is to provide its customers with a full Kindle experience on the Apple tablet, including access to the integrated Kindle Store.

So how does it work? Once you navigate to http://read.amazon.com in your iPad’s Safari browser, you’ll be greeted with an invitation to sign in with your Amazon/Kindle account. Signing in will bring you to a screen featuring your library of Kindle book purchases, as well as a prompt directing you to allow Safari to increase the size of the database permitted for the site. This is used for the offline cache Cloud Reader maintains for reading without an active internet connection. Kindle Cloud Reader lets you tap and hold books from your library to download them to local storage for offline reading, and also stores books you are currently reading offline automatically, so that your reading won’t be interrupted if you lose connection.

Actually reading books in Cloud Reader is a pleasure, and you’d be hard-pressed to tell that you aren’t using a native app, especially if you place a shortcut to the web app on your iPad’s home screen, which launched the reader in a chrome-less, full-screen browser. You can change the font size and color of your books in Cloud Reader, and also view highlights, notes and bookmarks you’ve made on other devices. You can’t make new notes or highlights using the web app, but you can add new bookmarks just by tapping the upper right-hand corner of any page, even offline. It also works in both landscape and portrait orientations, as does the integrated store.

Some of the frills of the native app are missing, like page turn animations, access to Kindle periodicals, and the ability to search through a book for keywords. You also can’t look up terms in the dictionary the way you can in the full-fledged native Kindle app. But if you use those extra features sparingly, and go through books quickly, then Cloud Reader’s built-in bookstore might make up for those omissions.

The Kindle Store included in Cloud Reader makes browsing for books on your iPad a pleasure. You get a scrollable selection of recommendations at the top of the interface, and a list of best sellers and category navigation below that. You can search the store at any point, and navigate back and forward as you browse. The individual book listings actually provide you with more info at-a-glance in a more sensibly organized way than on the Kindle Store in the desktop browser, and you can try a sample of any book in the Amazon e-book library, which loads up right in the standard Cloud Reader reading interface. Unfortunately, it doesn’t remember where you were when you switch to your library; jumping back to the store brings you to the front page.

In the end, Kindle Cloud reader works, and works well, but purely for e-reading purposes, it doesn’t really match up to its native app counterpart. That said, the ability to shop for books and read them immediately might outweigh the disadvantages for some. For me, Kindle Cloud Reader will remain on my home screen, but I won’t be using it primarily for reading; I’ll be using it to buy. The iPad-optimized Kindle Store is a pleasure to shop, and thanks to iOS multitasking, I can pretty easily switch back and forth between the native and web-based Kindle apps. Even if I don’t use Cloud Reader as a native app replacement, it does prove one thing: Keeping integrated e-book stores out of native apps benefits no one but Apple.

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Many, myself included, were hoping that Apple’s implementation of new rules that prevent e-book retailers from linking out to their own storefronts had permanently fallen by the wayside when they didn’t immediately go into effect after the original June 30 cutoff date. Unfortunately, events this past weekend proved that may not be the case.

The biggest development is that Google Books is no longer available on the App Store. The app, introduced in December of last year, allows users to read books from Google’s e-book service. It also provides access to the web-based Google eBooks store, which is against Apple’s new rules. The banning of outside links seems designed to prevent e-book resellers from bypassing Apple’s own in-app purchase mechanism, from which Apple garners a 30 percent cut of revenue.

While Google hasn’t yet confirmed that the rule change is the reason for the app’s removal (we’ve contacted them and will let you know if they do provide comment), given changes that have taken place in other e-book apps in recent days, it seems very likely. E-reader software from Kobo and Barnes & Noble has been recently updated, and the links to their respective online stores are now absent from the app.

The last major holdout is Amazon, which still hasn’t issued a change for its Kindle app. Kindle for iOS still prominently displays a button that links out to the Kindle store on the web. Amazon is arguably the only e-book retailer in a strong-enough position to be able to negotiate with Apple regarding the new rules for e-book stores, since it reaches a very large audience through its presence on virtually every platform. Amazon is also known to be working on its own tablet device, which could give it even more bargaining power. Barnes & Noble and Kobo would likely stand to gain a lot if Amazon decides to leave the Apple ecosystem and go it alone, since users who decide to stick with iOS will need a replacement e-book resource.

As a Kindle user and iOS-device owner, I’m hoping that we see a solution that allows the Kindle app to remain in the App Store. But as an industry observer, I’d be very interested to see who would fare better if users are forced to choose between Amazon’s better e-reader software and library, or Apple hardware. Anyone care to place any early bets?

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Source: Asymco

When Apple announced iTunes Match, a scan-and-match service for your entire music library, not just for songs bought through iTunes itself, it seemed to many that it could open the door to even more piracy of digital music, which is already a rampant problem. At the time, I suggested Apple might be anticipating the future of digital music distribution and getting out ahead of the competition early. Apple might also be less worried about the prospect of digital music piracy now that App Store revenue looks poised to overtake money made from iTunes music sales in just a few short years.

Asymco (via Silicon Alley Insider) estimates that based on current trajectories, income based on app sales will pass income based on iTunes music sales in just three years. iTunes music only generates about twice the income of App Store sales, owing to a much higher amount of retained revenue on app sales. Users buy about 67 songs per iTunes account on average, but also about 62 iOS apps, so revenue from apps is growing at a higher rate than is revenue from iTunes music sales.

iOS is a platform designed with the future in mind, and since it’s only three years old, we’ve probably only just seen the beginning of its success so far. Digital music, by contrast, is being attacked from all sides by alternative content delivery methods, including subscription services, and even free, socially sourced options like newcomer turntable.fm. Amazon and Google are offering cloud streaming services, and iTunes Match is a way to stay one step ahead of the competition. But as users increasingly turn to services like Spotify, and those services begin to play nice with record labels, the pay-per-track and download is beginning to show its age.

Apple knows apps are key to the future of its content revenue picture, and Asymco’s analysis serves to make that clear. Apple is still king when it comes to digital music, but to stay there in the long term, it has to shake up the way it does business. With the App Store, Apple still has the smartest business model around, and the one that’s most appealing to developers and consumers alike.

Featured image courtesy of Flickr user Paul Sapiano under CC BY 2.0.

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