If I go with something other than Kindle, it won't be another iPad. I hate iPad. I hate Apple. Any time I've ever bought an Apple device it's been a PITA and I've always been sorry. Their products should stand alone and not require one to use another. I don't want to be tied into iTunes or i-anything; if I have to be monopolized by something like that I'd rather it be Amazon because they're not flighty like Apple and they offer more.
What do you think of Galaxy? I have the S4 phone and like it okay.
Oh, I wasn't asking to steer you toward a new iPad. Very few people do I try to convince that they should choose an iPad over other possibilities. I was asking because you sounded like you were on the fence about even getting something new, and not being able to use some Prime content seemed to be part of why you felt like you needed to get something new. So I was trying to figure out why you couldn't use that content (other than the Lending Library). Sometimes people aren't aware of stuff that they can do until someone points it out to them - e.g. watching Prime movies on their iPad.
Anyway, I think the Samsung phones are really good now. Starting with the Galaxy 3 they really stepped up their game, as is the case with a number of Android lines. For my own part, it's just not what I want and doesn't emphasize some of the things that matter most to me when it comes to a phone. But, again, that's a lot of subjective type stuff. I don't have a problem recommending the S4 for people, so long as they pick one up first and play with it a bit.
Do you like the size of the S4, as compared to something like the iPhone, e.g.? I know that a lot of people are liking the bigger phones now, but I'd hate having one of them (even the S4, and certainly bigger stuff like the Note). And almost everyone I know has an iPhone and most of them love it, in part, because it's small. I guess the question I'm getting at is do you like the S4 because of its size (in part) or in spite of its size?
I also like the newer HTC stuff. Unfortunately, Samsung has pretty much taken over the Android phone market and a number of good phones have been relegated to largely unknown status.
About iPad being tied to a computer / iTunes... it hasn't needed that tie for about 3 years. Yes, in the beginning there were some inconveniences with this new form factor - again, Apple was the first to make it work and they didn't have the whole thing as finely polished in the very beginning. But they got there pretty quickly and they were certainly better than the competition even then. You had to hook up to a computer to upgrade the OS, but at least you could upgrade if you wanted to - at that time, other competing products generally didn't even get the option to upgrade the OS, you were likely to be stuck with what it came with. Apple's always been ahead when it came to the ability and/or ease to upgrade old products, and continues to be today - a reality that's borne out by how many Apple devices are running the latest OS. They get incredible upgrade rates, far better than any of their competition.
Okay, I'm digressing some... but, to the point, as it is now you don't have to hook your iPad up to a computer for any reason do you? I mean, there are reasons why you might want to, but you shouldn't need to. You should be able to download updates (to the extent there are OS updates) over the air and backup to the cloud and install apps and content without using a computer.
Oh, and about the tied into thing - I'm not sure what you mean by that, could you elaborate a bit? If you mean the ability to get various content on the device, then Apple certainly doesn't close people in to the extent Amazon does. Apple allows competing content sellers onto their devices - e.g., you can use Kindle on it, you can use Nook on it, you can use various other media sources on it. Amazon is the one that generally doesn't like to do that (e.g. I don't think you can use Nook on an Amazon device?). And that difference goes along with the different revenue generation philosophies I referred to earlier. Apple - and Samsung and others - want to make the devices themselves as desirable as possible, so they let all kinds of stuff work on them and there are lots of ways to easily get content onto the devices. Amazon on the other hand doesn't make money from the devices, they want you to buy stuff from them as much as they can get you to do so. If you mean apps, then yeah, Apple (unless you jailbreak) only let's you load apps from the Apps Store, but the same is true of the Amazon devices as far as I'm aware. And the (Apple) App Store is at least as rich (in variety and quality and mix of free or paid stuff available) as Amazon's app store - and probably considerably richer.
Dang it, in responding to your points you made made me look like I was trying to sell you on something.
I absolutely am not. I think, if you like the Kindle Fire, that's what you should buy. I start and end at the same place when it comes to these things - what feels right to you is what matters most. And I think the Kindle Fires are good stuff and Amazon is a good source of content (I probably buy half of my music from Amazon and a larger portion of my books).
