Remember the Kindle Fire? Revolutionary product that was more than a Kindle but less than an iPad? Turns out* people might have wanted either a Kindle or an iPad or both but maybe not the hybrid. A new report from International Data Corporation says shipments of the Fire are collapsing.

From the Telegraph:

The firm said total worldwide media tablet shipments for the quarter reached 17.4 million units in 1Q12, 1.2 million units below IDC’s projection for the quarter. This was a quarter-on-quarter decline of 38.4 per cent, which was even steeper than the projected 34 per cent.
The sharpest decline, however, was the Kindle Fire: it fell from 16.8 percent to “just over 4 percent” global market share. This puts Amazon in third place, behind Samsung, while Apple continues to dominate tablet sales.

It’s becoming one of the most common refrains around here: Apple is flat crushing in the tablet market. It’s miles ahead in terms of technology and loyalty and everything else. Even the iPad 2 is arguably ahead of other companies’ latest models.

* My pal the musician John Roderick points out that any time you use the phrase “Turns out”, you can just as easily substitute “What the Duke boys didn’t know was that”. Ex.: “What the Duke boys didn’t know was that people might have wanted either a Kindle…”