Oh Amazon, you’re the new Apple. Whatever distortion field you got active, it’s working.

In the beginning, Apple wooed the “misfits” into Macintosh by offering a culture that went against the very mainstream nature of the PC. Today, Amazon does exactly the same thing, streamlining the tablet by giving people an answer to the very mainstream nature of its competitors.

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It’s like Amazon crept up from nowhere to announce such a great deal in the tablet space. At USD $199 it’s a steal. And with Amazon’s track record for pro-consumer business decisions, such as the DRM free music pegged at the same price as iTunes, the tech industry now has something more interesting to talk about. Amazon brought in some serious competition. And it’s not just going for Apple.

Dear Customer,

There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.

We are excited to announce four new products: the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199.

Kindle – USD $79.00
Kindle Touch – USD $99.00
Kindle Touch 3G – USD $149.00
Kindle Fire – USD $199.00

That’s it right there. It’s the antithesis of marketing trends. Look at how they’re positioning it. Look at the specs. No 3G. Only 8GB of space. And I quote “Just enough for 80 apps.” And yet we’re drooling over it. Why, pray tell?

Because they’re not trying to be Apple. Nor are they trying to be Android (well it is an Android tablet but heavily moded to not look like one — that’s the open secret and it’s epic that way). So how do you lure customers? Easy. Sell it dirt cheap. Give them what they need. These are, as they said, “…high-end products – the best Kindles we’ve ever made.”

Also, give them what they need. ONLY what they need. These are the best devices. The most elegant tablets. And how do you define luxury in an age of choice? Don’t give them too many choices. That’s why it only has 8GB. That’s why you can only connect via good ‘ol WiFi. That’s why it doesn’t have a camera. BUT give them what nobody else can — the best viewing experience ever to arrive on a tablet.

And no it doesn’t compete with the iPad. You know why? You won’t hear me go “I want an iPad but I can’t afford it.” On the other hand you will say “I want a Kindle Fire. It’s amazing and yes, it’s really affordable too.”

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I never bothered to pay USD $99.00 a year for Apple’s .Mac services. To be honest, if it’s one thing Apple was bad at, it was subscription based “value added” services such as MobileMe / .Mac. And somehow when it moved on to Cloud-based services, they never really hit the bullseye (which is why they tried to acquire Dropbox). But Amazon. Well, Amazon is a mean machine in Cloud computing. And this is what makes the new Kindle exciting.