But mostly it’s the price. It has also become clear in recent weeks that the Kindle Fire is a piece of crap. The tablet has no physical volume buttons; no privacy, security or parental controls to speak of; a clunky user interface; not enough storage; an old version of Android; and a host of other problems.

The Amazon Kindle Fire fits the description Steve Jobs once gave for the netbook. The problem with the Kindle Fire is that it’s not better than anything. It’s just cheap.

The Kindle Fire is far less expensive than the iPad for two reasons. First, Amazon is selling it at a loss, while Apple makes a huge profit on every ipad (ipad converter mac). But second, the Kindle Fire is a 7-inch screen device and the iPad is a nearly 10-inch one. The screen, the battery, some electronics and some materials are far cheaper on a smaller device.

Now there’s a rumor that Apple plans to replace the iPod Touch with a 7.85-inch iPad. The rumor looks as solid as such rumors get. Plus it makes perfect sense for Apple to do this. Given Apple’s economies of scale, it’s likely that Apple could sell the iPad (ipad related: convert avi to ipad) at the same price as the current iPod Touch — $199 — which is also, of course, the same price as the Amazon Kindle Fire.

Merely announcing such a product would immediately hammer Kindle Fire sales. And actually shipping it would be devastating. Why would you buy a Smart ForTwo car if you could buy an Infinity M37 for the same price?

Consumers love the iPad (ipad related: playing video on ipad). But the unprecedented success of the iPad is laying waste to products, product categories, companies and even entire industries, and nobody can stop it. Never before in the history of consumer electronics has a single product earned so much love – and so much hate.