Appeared in The New Republic on September 30, 2011

At its widely anticipated September 28 press conference, Amazon unveiled the $199 Kindle Fire, a full-color e-reader tablet with a 7-inch multi-touch display. The announcement puts the e-retailer in direct competition with Apple’s iPad 2, which dominates the media tablet industry with a 68.3 percent market share. Because of its low price point and unrestricted access to Amazon’s end-to-end media services, the Kindle Fire has been christened the latest and greatest “Apple-killer.” But is the Fire destined to fail like the many usurping gadgets that have come before it? In honor of the fallen, TNR presents the graveyard of failed Apple-killer devices.