Mere weeks after the feverishly hyped $199 Kindle Fire tablet hit the market, dissatisfied customers are howling with discontent. Users were supposed to embrace the Fire as an inexpensive competitor to the iPad, but instead, they're complaining about the touchscreen, the annoying lack of external volume controls, and many other problems. "All this would be enough to send some products directly to the graveyard where the Apple Newton, the Edsel, New Coke, and McDonald’s Arch Deluxe languish," says David Streitfeld in The New York Times. Amazon has promised to release a software update in the next two weeks to address some of the issues. Will that be enough — or is the Fire headed for a burnout?
Amazon's tablet will crash and burn: "The Fire is going to be a failure," Jakob Nielsen, a partner in a Silicon Valley consulting firm, tells The New York Times. "I can't recommend buying it." The device delivers "a disappointingly poor user experience," Nielsen says at his blog. The screen is so small that unless you have dainty fingers, it's hard to use the touchscreen without error. The touchscreen is also sluggish, the user interface poorly designed, and the device too heavy to comfortably hold for long periods of time.
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