[Prestidigitweeze]

I've never been a fan of Apple's gated garden. But if they ever bring the Retina Display to the iPad, I might have to get one for two technical reasons:

1. More viable professional music apps than any other tablet, smartphone or PMP.

2. Unlike every Android device I've used, minimally jerky UI and negligibly stuttering performance.

Those things are mere nuisances for most users, but for professional musicians who depend on maximum control, standardization and timing, they're absolute deal-breakers.

By the time there's a Retinal iPad, it's very possible other tablets will have caught up with its display's resolution. But that isn't the deciding factor for me: It pales before sufficient pro music apps and smoother UI/timing.

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Here, apart from the lack of power, is the main reason I won't be buying a Kindle Fire:

Its proprietary app store is so much more impractical than Apple's that it qualifies as a Sony-level strategic miscalculation.

As invasive and controlling as it is, Apple's app store is seamless for Apple devices. But for Android devices, Amazon's market is a third-party overlay on the true Android Market. This complicates the timely delivery, updating and performance of the apps one buys. And unless one allows Amazon's constant data/power-hungry app validation, after being installed, the apps won't even load offline on non-Amazon Android devices. That situation might be improved upon with the KF, but my Samsung experiences with the Amazon App Store don't bode well for the idea of ownership.

Supposing you buy an audiophile music player like Neutron and wish to sideload to a second device. First, your ability to do so will be complicated or even negated by Amazonian intervention depending on which sort of device is the object. Second, you won't be able to load Neutron's device-specific updates to the commercial app as linked to on the NMP web site, since Amazon Market purchases won't be recognized as Android Market purchases.

Mind you, I'm not a fan of the KF's passivity-honed specs. But the Amazon App Market makes it impossible for me to consider any Amazon tablet until the day Bezo understands that his third-tier app-store model is directly in the way of fair use, and that many customers will be unhappy about that and prefer to deal with Google directly.