An iPad Lover Plays With Fire, Part 1

The Kindle Fire

I'm a happy owner of an iPad 2, but I bought a Kindle Fire anyway. It seems like a silly purchase, on the surface -- after all, what can a Kindle Fire do that an iPad can't?

Hmm.

Not much of anything, really, except run Android apps and play nicely with Amazon.com's growing world of content.

In fact, if you pose the question the other way -- what can an iPad 2 do that a Kindle Fire can't? -- the answer list starts with a few key things, like the ability to take pictures, do video calling and even check your pulse.

There's no GPS, either, which means the mapping functionality is limited and your ability to use the pleasantly-sized Kindle Fire as a navigation tool means you're going to get lost in traffic or run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. If you aren't in WiFi range, it becomes even less useful (though certainly still usable).

But this isn't so much about why the iPad 2 is great as it is about playing with Fire -- what's interesting and hot about the Kindle Fire, coming from the perspective of an iPad 2 user?

Start at the Beginning

When I first received the Kindle Fire on my doorstep, I was impressed -- it came in a tidy, specially designed box. It said "Kindle Fire" on the side of it, and because I live in a relatively crime-free suburban neighborhood, I wasn't too worried about some kid swiping it from my porch before I had a chance to retrieve it. But the box, it has a 45-degree slice cut out of one edge, giving it a distinctive look. With the pull string thing set along the cut face of the box, there's only one real way to open it: Pull the string and the lift the box top, which hinges up to reveal your new Kindle Fire.

I did the moves that someone at Amazon obviously thought out, and boy was I surprised. First, the box worked great. Second, the moves revealed the Kindle Fire nestled in an interior pressed paper form, along with a pull out tab of paper on the lid of the box that said, "getting to know your kindle." The words were all lower case, by the way, aiming for a casual and friendly feel, I'm sure. The tab had a simple set of instructions on it.

Why am I sharing all this minutiae?

Because it all worked. When I opened the box, I let out a low whistle and said, "Wow," with appreciation.

Jeff Bezos has learned from Steve Jobs: Presentation and packaging count. First impressions, you know, are powerful stuff.

How It Feels

The Kindle Fire feels both heavy and light -- because it's lighter than an iPad 2 (and smaller, with its 7-inch screen) but heavy because there is a big battery in it. Overall, it feels solid, but there are many more seams in its construction than on that of the iPad 2. There aren't a lot of buttons or ports -- in fact, there's just one small button, a headphone port, and a micro USB port, plus two small rectangular speakers. The back is somewhat rubberized, giving it a nice grippy feel, which I appreciate greatly and that I wish came standard on the iPad 2.

The display, when lit, is bright and clear, and the feel of the glass is wicked smooth.

It's no iPad 2, but the build quality is excellent -- especially for just $199 compared to the low-end $499 iPad 2.

The Fire in Action

Assuming that you already have an Amazon.com account, getting started with a Kindle Fire is pretty easy and intuitive. In fact, as I was setting up the device, I thought I was going to have to manually enter in all my details, but the Kindle somehow recognized that I was its owner -- maybe through the IP address on my WiFi home Internet connection? Preloaded somehow? I don't know for sure, but the Kindle figured out who I was quickly and easily and near instantly made my Amazon.com content available: I could read all my Kindle e-books right away. Nice.

Oh, one more thing: The touch interface starts up with a bunch of pre-loaded writing and media themed wallpaper photos -- the tips of old ink pens, colored pencils, vinyl records or film, for example. They are rich photos and give a sense of context and beauty to the Fire every time you turn it on. Like I said, it's clear that someone at Amazon is paying close attention to the user experience, which is an area that Apple typically excels in, too.

The Fire comes with a user's guide, but I only whipped through it quickly, skipping lots of pages. I know there are features I'm missing right now, but I wanted to see if I could start using my Fire without reading a guide -- kind of like the iOS experience in action. The interface should be intuitive enough without instructions, right?

Right. The Fire delivers. For the most part, it's intuitive and easy to use. Amazon's proprietary interface with Android works well. There's a flickable line of your recently used content and apps, as well as a super clean search field at the top with just seven menu items: Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps, Web.

Each menu item is easy to use, and the Newsstand, Books, Docs and Apps sections give you a nice metaphor for viewing your items: a black/gray bookshelf. Music and Video isn't quite as handy, but these sections also let you access your music and video from Amazon.com's cloud services, as well as easily buy or rent new media. Your Kindle Fire comes with one free month of Amazon's Prime service, which gives you expedited shipping as well as access to free movies and TV shows to stream. If you opt to keep it, it's $79 per year. The free movies and TV shows are similar to what you find via Netflix -- populated with older movies, B movies, and lots of TV shows. But hey, there are thousands of choices, all ready to consume through your Kindle.

Email works quickly and easily. If you have Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail, email setup is super fast, though I didn't try additional accounts. If you don't like the default email app, you can install other email apps from Amazon's Android app store.

The Web browser, which is called "Amazon Silk" and uses a split browser architecture to deliver content faster, is indeed pretty fast. It also supports Adobe Flash Player, which is handy for those Web pages that leave iPad 2 owners out in the cold. Overall, the experience is pretty good, but I did manage to lock up the browser -- and the rest of the Kindle Fire -- by browsing at Esquire.com. I'm not sure what the cause was, but the result was a totally unresponsive screen. I held the power button for several seconds and the Fire restarted for me. I closed the Esquire.com browser screen immediately so I didn't repeat the problem.

It's No Apple, But It's Pretty Excellent Anyway

All in all, I've noticed a few minor quibbles. The first is that when I misspell a word, I can't hold my finger on the word and drop in a cursor position to fix a letter. If I misspell "macnewsworld.com" by tapping an "s" where the "a" should go, I've got to backspace through the entire word to get to the "a" position to fix the spelling. The iPad 2 is much nicer in this regard.

Also, at times I seem to tap items and nothing happens, leaving me to wonder if I've somehow died, lost the electrical charge in my finger tips, and am just a ghost who believes I'm in our regular reality. I've had this happen with the iPad 2 and my iPhone, so I can't blame it all on the Kindle Fire. I bet there's a usage learning curve where I'll intuitively understand how long and hard I have to make a tap to be to get a consistent response. I'm not there yet, but I expect my interaction to improve. If it doesn't, it would be only a minor irritation because, after all, I only spent $199 on this device.

And iPad 2 or no iPad 2, a Kindle Fire for a $199 is clearly a good deal.

Bigger Questions

There are bigger questions looming, though, which I'll visit in future coverage.

What does it mean to buy into the Amazon.com Kindle Fire world vs. the iOS-based Apple ecosystem? Is it a path with no turning back?

And beyond the free movies and media, can you put the Fire to work?

We'll see.

An iPad Lover Plays With Fire, Part 2