If you are a music lover, Spotify should now be part of your daily lifestyle anyway. It provides a thorough encyclopedia of all of your favorite tracks, the latest hits to some golden oldies and more. It has been available in desktop and mobile form for a long time now, but now it is branching out its tablet support.

Already available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, you’ll now be able to find it and download on the Amazon App Store as well. There’s some even better news as well, as if you don’t want to fork out on a premium subscription, you’ll still be able to download a free version, which is supported by ads but offers unlimited radio streaming.

Everyone has their favorite music apps, but we can’t really look past Spotify, it’s just that good. The obvious downside to the app is that it still isn’t available globally, with places like Hong Kong still yet to receive any love. If you were ever to make a $9.99 online purchase, you probably wouldn’t regret a subscription to Spotify Premium which gives you access to unlimited streaming without ads.

Now that Spotify has arrived on the Kindle Fire, what apps would you like to see next? Do you still see it lagging behind the iPad and now Nexus 7, or are you really happy with your $199 purchase?

Jelly Bean is set to make its official appearance on the Nexus 7 tablet at the end of this month, but those of you in possession of a Kindle Fire may be tempted with this impressive looking port of Android 4.1. The Kindle Fire ships with a customized version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but if you have already tampered with custom software on your Kindle Fire, you’ll know that there are even more possibilities waiting for you aside from what Amazon give you out of the box.

Aside from giving the Kindle Fire access to the spanking new interface that Jelly Bean brings, it more importantly gives users access to the Google Play store, as the Kindle Fire by default only allows users to connect to the Amazon App Store for their software needs.

The build is far from perfect, but for a first go it is very impressive indeed. We’re hearing that the likes of hardware video acceleration is not supported at the moment meaning that HD videos are a no go, but the good news is that this should be fixed up in a later build along with other missing features.

To give this a go, you’ll find detailed instructions over at Liliputing – you’ll also need to download the latest version of the Kindle Fire Utility app, which you can get from the XDA Developers Forums here. Check out a video below to see how Jelly Bean looks on the device.

We’re impressed at how smooth Android 4.1 runs on the Fire, let us know what you think.

If you have been keeping up to date with rumors regarding Google’s tablet, you’ll know that one of Google’s primary motives is thought to be releasing a tablet specifically to target Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which is very popular due to its $199 price point.

What better way for Amazon to counter this move by unleashing a brand new version of their Kindle Fire, one which offers a bigger screen and another value for money price tag. Information cited at Digitimes reveals that a 10-inch Kindle Fire tablet will release sometime during the third quarter and that it may even be equipped with a quad-core processor.

The 7-inch model with a dual-core processor is selling well as it is, so Apple and Google will have their work cut out if these reports are true. The new 10-inch is unlikely to come in at the same $199 price tag, but $299 would still be a great price for consumers.

Google are keeping quiet about their tablet project for now and Apple are unlikely to talk about an iPad successor at WWDC so soon after debuting the ‘New iPad’. How highly do you rate the Kindle Fire though as a viable competitor to tablet devices from Samsung, Apple and soon to be Google? Many consumers associate the Kindle Fire as just a fancy way to read books, but as we’ve seen with the device’s other features – it does a lot more than just handle e-books.

If you had to make an instant decision on the new 10-inch Kindle Fire, a new iPad with a quad-core CPU or a Google Nexus Tablet with Jelly Bean – what would you choose and why?

Amazon’s tablet PC saw strong sales after it was launched, and according to The Guardian this had led Tavis McCourt of Morgan Keegan, to lower his estimates of iPads sold during the fourth quarter. He now believes that Apple sold 13 million units instead of 16 million.

McCourt though has raised his estimates for the amount of iPhones Apple managed to sell during the same period, which was believed to be 29 million up from 27 million. It is thought that Apple will now report revenues of $37.9 billion, which is slightly down from previous forecasts but still a record for the company.

Meanwhile rival Samsung is thought to have managed to sell 35 million smartphones during the quarter, which is a new record for the industry. Samsung is expected to report guidance for the quarter this coming Friday.

Estimates for sales of the iPad were lowered by McCourt following news from Amazon that it sold between 4 million and 5 million Kindle Fire’s. This could mean that Apple lost between 1 and 2 million in sales of the iPad to the Fire.

While it looks like being Apple’s best ever quarter for the iPhone the company is still a way behind what Samsung has shifted. It has to be remembered though Apple does have far less handsets on offer compared to Samsung.

Some consumers may have been putting off buying an iPad late last year though with all the talk of a new model coming early in 2012. As we reported before there is rumors that Apple could offer a cheaper version of the iPad this time round.

Did you purchase a Kindle Fire?

There has long been talk that Apple would release the iPad 3 in the first part of 2012, and now according to TechRadar the company could be set to launch not one, but two versions of the iPad 3. Apple is reportedly looking to have a variety of devices available for consumers looking to enter the tablet PC market.

Two new models are rumored to be on route that will offer something for all budgets, and to include more battery life than the current model. The supposed release date for the new iPad 3 release date is on January 26th, which is the date of the iWorld/Macworld event.

These two rumored devices will continue to use the same 9.7-inch screen size currently seen with the iPad 2, but one major difference will be the screen resolution. This is claimed to be increased to 1,536 x 2,048 pixels, and will be achieved by having a dual LED bar technology inside the device.

Other enhancements are said to include new A6 processors, and the more expensive model getting an 8-megapixel camera with the cheaper version getting 5-megapixels. The battery could be about to receive a major boost with a 14,000mAh unit installed, which compares to the 6,500mAh that is currently used.

Trouble is Apple previously have stated it would no longer exhibit at the Macworld conference after 2009. Apple normally does refresh their products within a year of release and there is no reason it won’t do the same again with the iPad.

There will be many consumers who would like to own an iPad but can’t currently afford one, so having a cheaper version available makes sense. We could see a slightly upgraded iPad 2 become available but for a cheaper price, and hopefully it will be priced to compete with the Kindle Fire that starts at $199.

If Apple has managed to source components for the current model at lower rates it will certainly enable them to offer it at a more affordable price. They have done something similar recently with the iPhone and the 3GS model, and allowed consumers who would not normally have the money to get hold of an iPhone.

Do you think Apple will offer a cheaper iPad?

For those of you that are not aware, the Kindle Fire was only released last month and shipped with Amazon’s customized version of Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Now though, the cunning community have even included the Kindle Fire in the ongoing unofficial Ice Cream Sandwich update bandwagon, and you’ll be pleased to know that a download is already available to try out.

One word of warning for those that are interested though – this is an alpha build only. That means that some functions of the Ice Cream Sandwich build are not working and one of the main reasons why the alpha build is still available to download is so that some of the bugs that be fixed more effectively than keeping it locked away.

Problems listed so far include no audio and video, while there is also a problem related to the SD card as well, with the Kindle Fire not being able to recognise internal storage. As with most custom Android ROMs, the pleasing aspect of this is that the problems are likely to be solved in future versions of the build, so you may wish to hold off from installing this until a finalized build is available with every aspect of the Kindle Fire working as normal.

For those that just can’t resist the temptation of having Android 4.0 on your precious Kindle Fire though, you’ll find the download links and instructions on how to install over at XDA Developers here. If you are ahead of the game and have already installed Ice Cream Sandwich then let us know your thoughts on the update and if it is running smoothly for you or not. There’s also a video to check out below courtesy of Liliputing, which shows you how the Kindle Fire handles Ice Cream Sandwich at the moment.

Are you pleasantly surprised that Ice Cream Sandwich has found its way to a device which is primarily used for reading e-books?

Rather than repeat what has been said over at AndroidForums.com we think it would be better if you headed over to the forum post for yourself for the full tutorial, it was written by a member who goes by the alias of “death2all110″ and we take no credit for his amazing work.

Here’s a quick overview of the procedure (you must check out the link in the paragraph above for specifics): Firstly you have to have the sdk installed on your PC (we are guessing that this is the Android SDK found here) and you must have used it. Secondly you must edit some important files and allow installation of apps from unknown sources, after this you will need to run a command to kill the Android Debug Bridge server. The final steps involves starting adb devices, downloading SuperOneClick v2.2 and running it, if all goes to plan clicking “Root” should complete the process.

Once your Kindle Fire is rooted it will open it up to a lots of currently unavailable capabilities and customizations, obviously the fact that the Fire has only been out for a day or so means there isn’t a great deal to do with your rooted tablet just yet, but we imagine that in a month or so there will be lots more on offer.

If you are new to rooting this article gives you a quick overview of what rooting a device can help you achieve, however please remember that rooting a device has the potential to end in failure so be warned!

Did the root work for you? If so, what capabilities are you looking forward to unlocking the most?

Firstly we will look at design, both tablets feature a 7-inch display, therefore there are many similarities, however it is the fine details which separate a good device from a great one, so let’s take a closer look. The Nook Tablet measures in at 8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 inches and will apparently weigh just 14.1 ounces, this makes it 0.5 ounces lighter than the Kindle Fire, however Amazon’s tablet is smaller in every dimension (7.5 x 4.7 x 0.45 inches).

There is not much to separate the two tablets if you compare the displays against one another, both feature a 7-inch diagonal, a 1024 x 600 resolution, 169 PPI and 16 million colors, Barnes & Noble’s IPS2 display utilizes VividView technology to keep the display clear in bright conditions, whilst the Kindle Fire’s IPS display has had an anti-reflective treatment applied. Sadly we have not seen the devices alongside eachother, therefore we can’t really tell which display looks better, but things look close.

In terms of grunt there is not a lot a great deal of difference. The Kindle Fire runs Android and features a Texas Instruments OMAP 4 dual-core processor along with 512MB of RAM. The Nook Tablet also runs a 1GHz TI OMAP4 dual-core processor, but it has 1GB of RAM. In terms of storage the Kindle Fire boasts 8GB internal (6GB available yo the user) and free cloud storage, it would be fair to say that the Nook Tablet’s 16GB of storage and microSD memory card slot (which supports cards of up to 32GB) has the edge, especially as they also throw in free Nook cloud storage.

Neither of these tablets feature 3G connectivity, however they both offer WiFi b/g/n. Once again you could argue that Barnes & Noble has the edge in this regard as they throw in free Wi-Fi in all Barnes & Noble stores, but this is not important to everyone.

Lots of people pay a lot of attention to battery life, once again the Nook Tablet outdoes the Kindle Fire, but not by a great deal. From the mains the Kindle Fire will fully charge in approximately 4 hours, with the wireless switched off it will then deliver either 8 hours of continuous reading, or 7.5 hours of video playback. The Barnes & Noble offering is said to fully charge in roughly 3 hours and with the WiFi off you can expect 11.5 hours of reading or 9 hours of video playback – that’s pretty impressive.

From a consumer point of view these are the things which are most important when comparing these devices side-by-side, however if you want to take a deeper look into technical specifications you can see full Nook Tablet specs here and full Kindle Fire tech specs here.

In terms of pricing the Kindle Fire costs $199, whilst the Nook Tablet costs $249 -a ll in all there isn’t a lot in it, but it has to be said that technically the Nook Tablet should be slightly better, that said it is very slight and perhaps not enough to justify spending an extra $50 for.

Which tablet will you opt for?

The lawsuit was filed against Amazon at the end of last week by Texas Eastern District Court, and according to a report from CNET News, the Kindle Fire violates four patents. Acacia Research owns Smartphone Technologies, who is in the business of buying patents, there doesn’t seem to be much love for that kind of business.

The firm is not afraid to go after other big fish, as they also have ongoing lawsuits with Apple and RIM. Although Apple has enough on its plate with its continued issues with Samsung – although Sammy could end up turning the tables and bring up a patent issue with the iPhone 4S, which you can read more on here.

The patent issues are basic features that are employed on both smartphones and tablets, and are to do with a method of using the touchscreen. Another issue is how calendars are stored on a PDA. We fear that these continued lawsuits will stop any real progress in the industry, they should learn to get along and if patents have been infringed, then sort out a licensing deal.

This can become a very lucrative deal, as Microsoft earns over $200 million each year on this alone. All technology gets borrowed from time to time, don’t try and stop a product from launching, make money from them instead.

According to The eBook Reader, the Nextbook comes in at $299, but the Fire beats that at $199. So let’s have a look at the specs of each to see how they compare. The new 8-inch tablet from E Fun will come with Android 2.3, a 1.2GHz CPU, 4GB or storage, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, Wi-Fi, Flash support, and microSD card slot.

Now compare that to the Kindle Fire, which has a 7-inch display, dual-core processor, which could be the TI OMAP4. It also comes with just under 1GB of memory, and 8GB of storage. We are not certain which version of Android it will be running, but we would guess 2.3 Gingerbread.

The new NextBook Premium 8 is now on sale, but we do not expect stellar sales figures, as it does not offer anything that we have not seen before. Okay so we know that the price looks very attractive, but nothing like the Kindle Fire. It seems as though Amazon has gone for a whole new segment in the tablet market, one that will be though to follow.