I would say it's more like "Amazon + Google is the real Apple competitor".

Amazon brings to the table everything the article mentions but they are standing on the shoulders of Google.

Google did all the heavy lifting building Android. It sure is a lot easier to make a competitive tablet if you a given a feature complete OS instead of having to build it and eat the R&D yourself.

I am not faulting this strategy, only making the point that Amazon alone could probably not do this.