In a rather, ahem, incendiary finding, a recent survey by TechBargains found that more than half of Kindle Fire owners will buy an iPad 3 when the hotly anticipated third-generation Apple tablet is released.
In fact, Kindle Fire owners were even more likely than non-tablet owners to report that they would buy an iPad 3, showing that people don't mind having two tablets, as long as one of them is an iPad. To be precise, 53 percent of Kindle Fire owners said they'd buy an iPad 3, while 43 percent of the survey respondents who didn't own a tablet said they planned on purchasing one. The stats are a bit surprising given that the Kindle Fire has only be out since November -- are people sick of their Fires, or were they always eager for the iPad?
In a press release that was emailed to The Huffington Post, TechBargains' President says:
When it comes to tablets, Apple's iPad will continue to remain the leader, but what's very interesting is that Kindle Fire was released just three months ago and yet more than half of Fire owners already know that they will, in fact, buy the iPad 3. This could be a commentary on consumer dissatisfaction with Amazon's product or simply a message that the iPad's user experience remains unparalleled.
Indeed, 74 percent of those who said they planned to buy an iPad 3 also said that "no tablet compares to [the] iPad," not a shocking admission coming from people who had already decided to buy the product in question.
The survey, which asked what people were looking for in the new iPad and whether they planned to buy one, included the responses of over 1300 people who accessed the survey through deal aggregation website TechBargains.com or one of its social media platforms. The survey was live for about one week according to an email from a TechBargains spokesperson.
The survey also revealed that although price was most popularly cited as a reason for not buying an iPad 3, income appeared not to have a huge effect on whether or not someone planned to purchase one. Of those respondents in the lowest income bracket, defined by the survey as people earning $50,000 a year or less, 45 percent said they planned to buy the iPad 3, while 55 percent of those in the highest income bracket, or earning over $150,000, said they planned to buy the tablet.
As far as hoped-for changes in the new 'pad, people reported wanting a quad core processor (85 percent), USB port (82 percent), better speakers (82 percent), memory card slot (81 percent), and a less reflective screen (72 percent).
Speculation about what features the new iPad will be packing have been running rampant as the rumored release date approaches. According to Apple blog iMore, the iPad X (We don't know if it's going to be called the iPad 3 people!) is expected to be released on Wednesday March 7.
According to The Huffington Post's roundup of iPad 3 rumors, the brand new tablet will likely look very similar to the iPad 2 from the back, but will (probably) boast a super high resolution Retina display. According to MacRumors, which somehow got ahold of a purported iPad 3 screen, the new display will have twice the resolution and "much" sharper images than the previous iPad.
The real question of course is whether owners of the Kindle AND the iPad 3 will pick up a Kindle Fire 2 as well. The second generation of the Amazon tablet is also expected in Spring 2012, according to DigiTimes. The new Fire is rumored to have a more iPad-sized 8.9-inch touchscreen. The iPad 2's screen measures 9.7 inches.
Not to be outdone,The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Apple is rumored to already be working on a Kindle-sized tablet, which is rumored to have a screen measuring between seven and eight inches. Computer World reports that the so-called "iPad Mini" could be priced as low as $299. Analysts who spoke to Computer World are quoted as saying that the smaller tablet would "crush the opposition."