Kindle Fire’s rough edges reflect poorly on Android

With the holiday season upon us and tablets at the top of many gift lists, it’s all but certain that millions of new users will get exposed to an open-source-based Android tablet. By all accounts, Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire is expected to leapfrog into, at least, the No. 2 position in the tablet market. Although this would appear to be good news for Android tablets and the Android OS, it may actually be exactly what Apple and Microsoft had asked for Christmas (or any other holiday these companies choose to celebrate).

Great price and Amazon content versus clunky user experience

I’m not going to do a blow-by-blow review of the Kindle Fire. If you want a good assessment of how it compares to the iPad, my colleague Galen Gruman has covered that base for you. For a look at the Kindle Fire itself, Instapaper developer Marco Arment did a great job examining its user experience.

The first common thread across all the reviews is that the price of the Kindle Fire — $199 — can’t be beat. Some have referred to the Kindle Fire as the people’s tablet.

Second, reviews are virtually unanimous that the Kindle Fire is great when restricted to Amazon’s content, even if some magazines aren’t optimal for its 7-inch screen. But the Kindle Fire becomes less attractive as users venture outside of Amazon’s content garden. Even the new Silk browser, touted to speed up browsing, appears to be a letdown.

Finally, many reviews describe a less-than-delightful user experience when working with the Kindle Fire’s forked version of Android and its unique interface. Also, the Kindle Fire OS’s responsiveness is said to lag user input, sometimes forcing users to redo an action only to find that the first input was in fact registered. The 7-inch size, while easier to hold than a 10-inch tablet, presents the added complication of smaller targets to tap in order to carry out intended tasks. One of Arment’s issues with the Kindle Fire interface is that “many touch targets throughout the interface are too small, and I miss a lot. It’s often hard to distinguish a miss from interface lag.”

Like it or not, iPad is Kindle Fire’s comparison

There are many older users who don’t need a laptop and could benefit from a small and moderately priced tablet for email, browsing, and reading. A Kindle Fire seems like a great solution, and it’s likely that many of this cohort will receive a Kindle Fire from a well-meaning family member or friend. In fact, my wife suggested getting a Kindle Fire for several retired members of our family.

However, the usability issues that Arment brings up, especially around interface lag and smaller touch targets, will undoubtedly quell their desire to use the device. I suspect many will end up stored on a high shelf next to that “interesting” tie also received over the holidays. It seems that a lack of comfort with new computing devices, fat thumbs, and poor eyesight — which we can all look forward to — aren’t great ingredients for customer satisfaction with the Kindle Fire.

Even younger users, many of whom own or have used an iPod Touch or iPhone, are at risk of being annoyed with the Kindle Fire’s lag and the user interface’s roughness.

Some have argued that you can’t compare a $499 iPad with a $199 Kindle Fire. That’s true on paper. In practice, users will compare their Kindle Fire experience with that of an iPad. There isn’t a tablet market — there’s an iPad market. That’s the reason most Kindle Fire reviews compare it to the leading entry in the market, the iPad, and not other to other Android tablets or other 7-inch tablets like the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook.

A poor Kindle Fire experience reflects poorly on Android

When the Kindle Fire is perceived to deliver a less enjoyable experience than an iPad, the real risk is that the Android tablet market will be viewed in the same light. That may not be fair, considering that Amazon has forked the Android OS and Android continues to get better. However, because the Kindle Fire is expected to reach an order of magnitude more users than other Android tablets, and considering Amazon’s technical reach, don’t be surprised if typical users generalize their Kindle Fire experience to all Android tablets.

In fact, they already are: Earlier this week, Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Ashlee Vance wrote on his Twitter feed: “Just opened up the old Kindle Fire. Android sure has a Windows 3.0 feel, dunnit?”

That is exactly the type of comment that should make Apple happy and give Microsoft a faint hope in its Windows 8 tablet plans. If Amazon, with its great content and proven track record with the Kindle, can’t pull off a device that users prefer to an iPad, what’s the likelihood that any Android vendor can?

I should state: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.

This article, “Kindle Fire’s rough edges reflect poorly on Android,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Savio Rodrigues’s Open Sources blog and follow the latest developments in open source at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.