Report: Amazon To Use Two-Finger Touchscreen To Keep Tablet Competitive With The iPad
Details about the Amazon tablet are slowly emerging as its supposed release draws closer. The latest news out of the Chinese manufacturing scene is that Amazon, like others, are opting …
Context & Ripple Effects
The rumored tablet has been assembling piece by piece since early last year: Amazon was said to buy a touch-screen company in February 2010, and this month the Wall Street Journal reported a tablet planned before October, with Jeff Bezos himself offering only a 'stay tuned' when pressed on it back in May. Today's report from the Chinese supply chain adds the first hardware detail: a two-finger touchscreen, framed explicitly as an answer to Apple's iPad.
The detail matters because it suggests Amazon is not simply shipping a cheap Android slate but differentiating on touch input itself — plausibly drawing on the touchscreen acquisition it made more than a year before it ever confirmed a tablet existed.
First-order effects
- If the two-finger touchscreen ships, Amazon's tablet enters the market with an input capability positioned against the iPad rather than against price alone — and Apple faces its first direct hardware rival from the company that owns Kindle content distribution.
Second-order effects
- Other Android tablet makers, already trailing Apple on touch responsiveness, would see Amazon raise the baseline for what counts as competitive capacitive touch at consumer prices, pressuring their own component choices ahead of the holiday season.
Third-order effects
- A content-rich retailer building its own touch hardware points toward tablets consolidating around ecosystem owners — companies that control storefronts and media libraries — rather than around device manufacturers competing on specs alone.
The trend: Tablet competition is shifting from spec sheets to vertically integrated ecosystems, with Amazon's touchscreen investment showing retailers buying their way into hardware differentiation.