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With iPads there is also the aspect that it's been relatively long (by Apple standards) since new models came out. Actually, the fact that we haven't gotten a retina iPad mini yet, nor specific information on it, is one of the chief reasons why I now dropped the money on a Nexus 7 (2013).
The decision to get out of the iOS ecosystem was the hardest part, but now that it's been made, there is only a slim chance I'll get another iOS device in the future (unhappy with Fairplay DRM for books and tired of having to go through poorly designed software like iTunes to put data on the device).
It's also not 2010 or 2011 anymore. Android tablets have really improved, both the hardware selection and the OS/apps/third party software support, which makes the inflated price of Apple products a larger factor. It wasn't two or three years ago because the apps quality was substantially higher in the iOS sphere, and Android was changing so quickly so that there was a lack of mid/longterm confidence -- these two made it easy to justify paying extra for an iOS device.
I'm also not surprised that the Fire is losing market share. It's too tightly locked into the Amazon ecosystem. It's convenient at first, especially if it's the first tablet, but I think once people get the hang of having a tablet and begin to use it for more tasks, they thirst for more freedom and more choice. What it has going for it is that it's sold at below manufacturing costs, so it's quite competitive.
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