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Amazon Fire Phone
- morsch 12y ago... because a dedicated button to scan QR codes is what I wanted all along. At least CueCat was free. http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/
- feld 12y agoI'll wait for the B&N Nook Phone
- gecko 12y agoDoes anyone know what actual mail and calendaring system this thing even uses? What about maps? All the other stuff aside, texting, mail, calendar, and maps cover about 80% of most people's phone use; if those pieces stink, it's going to be a problem, and I see absolutely no mention of where they're getting map data in particular.
- chippy 12y agouses Nokia Here maps apparently.
- the_watcher 12y agoThis very much seems like a v1 entry into the market for them. Improving the ease of 3D photos will probably be their biggest focus, as the "take a picture and buy" feature is the key for them being able to eventually reduce the cost.
- antjanus 12y agoThis feels like an April Fool's joke. Wonder how well it will do.
- infecto 12y agoWell at least that preview video makes sense now with the dynamic perspective. Curious how functional that really is. I cannot think of an immediate use of why I would want that on a communication/media device but would love to be wrong.
- stock_toaster 12y agoI could see it being interesting for games or for Augmented Reality type stuff. Without an actual compelling use though, it does seem a bit gimmicky.
- m0dest 12y agoThey've always been uniquely talented at creating indecipherable URLs for important pages like this one.
- ToastyMallows 12y agoTry http://smile.amazon.com/firephone http://smile.amazon.com/firephone
- lighthazard 12y agoToday, I discovered smile.amazon.com. Thanks!
- ToastyMallows 12y agoAlso check out this extension for Chrome that turns amazon.com -> smile.amazon.com http://www.smilealways.io/ http://www.smilealways.io/
- dnissley 12y agoSpeaking of which, I've never understood what the "dp" in product links means. Digital Product?
- RyanGWU82 12y agoDetail Page (page of product details).
- pwnna 12y agoDoes anyone know what version of Android this is based on?
- hind3nburg 12y agoCompatible with Android 4.2.2, API level 17 https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/devices/fire-phone/docs/fire-phone-specifications https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/devices/fire-p...
- ryanolsonx 12y agoProbably Gingerbread. lol
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- kllrnohj 12y agoThe question is very important because it's claiming Android app compatibility. What API level it's running is therefore critical information to any developer. Fire OS tends to be more a "skin" than a fork anyway, it's similar to TouchWiz or Sense. The core framework, services, and runtime are all Android.
- gecko 12y agoWell, yes and no. My understanding from talking to the Trello Android team is that Fire OS has a lot of subtle differences in its APIs from the official Google ones, especially around things like mapping and push notifications that otherwise rely on Google services. Sometimes that sounded like it was trivial to work around, and sometimes not, but the overall discussion reminded me more of porting between Windows 3.1 and NT than anything else.
- kllrnohj 12y agoMapping and push notifications are both Google Play Services APIs, not Android APIs. So it's not that Amazon forked the APIs as much as the app that implemented those not-platform APIs isn't installed.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- troyastorino 12y agoAre you serious? What part of integrating computer vision as central to user experience is cloned from the iPhone?
- kyrra 12y agoThe problem is that it's the only differentiator. For many users, their favorite apps aren't available on Amazon's appstore. Being so late means getting user traction will be hard without some amazing features. I don't see that from Amazon.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ewoodrich 12y agoHow can it be an "iPhone clone", when its marquee feature is something the iPhone lacks (head tracking hardware)?
- ctdonath 12y agoAt this point, the head tracking is a gimmick. It's not something people chose or switch ecosystems for. Might attract truly new smartphone users, but isn't a "killer feature". Apple already uses 6D accelerometer applicable to much of what the Fire's head tracker will be used for.
- mmanfrin 12y agoThis seems compelling if you're already sold on the Amazon ecosystem, but not terribly so if you're not -- especially at that price.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoWhile looking at the product page, I thought: "So, I'm tied to Amazon and AT&T, and I'm paying for the privilege. How is this any better than my cheaper Nexus 5?" Also, isn't this going to be decimated by Google X's Project Tango? https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/ https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/
- tachyonbeam 12y agoSo, they're going to use everyone's mobile phone to 3D map the entire world? Privacy advocates are going to scream, but roboticists are going to rejoice.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoThey're already building 3D virtual environments of roads/streets, which their self-driving cars use for navigation. Sometimes, I wonder if Google is going to collectively vanish out of our universe once it has collected every piece of data that it can from this one.
- MBCook 12y agoAs an iPhone user, I already have access to the important parts of the Amazon ecosystem (books, music, movies, TV shows). But I have a superior app store. The only big feature I think could prove important is their live-chat help.
- evilduck 12y agoIt seems like most of their Firefly feature is also available through Amazon's 'Flow' iOS app
- infinite_beam 12y agoBezos did not talk about the basic phone functionality of call/text.
- cory123444 12y agoThose should just be expected to work.
- mrweasel 12y agoThey should and yet they so often don't, at least not to the level you would expect.
- fudged71 12y agoOr the texting capabilities are in fact sub-par. Both Apple and Google have had to double down on messaging UX/functionality because they are used so much, plus Facebook, Whatsapp, and Snapchat. Messaging is really important.
- BrandonY 12y agoPhones do that now?
- Raphmedia 12y agoMost of the features are really new. However, they are one little step ahead, well designed and fit into a nice looking ecosystem. I like it. I really do.
- fortepianissimo 12y agoDoes anyone worry about the privacy implication of being constantly watched by your phone?
- mahyarm 12y agoOne thing I find annoying with my sony z1 compared to an iphone 5 is how the camera just dies half of the time whenever I try to take a picture from a locked phone. In iOS it's never a problem. Lets hope amazon doesn't screw it up with their phone. Another annoying thing is how it refocuses between each photo, decreasing burst speed.
- natelam 12y agoFor all developers who want specs, etc. Check out their site here: http://bit.ly/1yjPpkA http://bit.ly/1yjPpkA
- owenversteeg 12y agoI'm guessing you were downvoted because of the URL shortener. It goes to https://developer.amazon.com/public/community/post/Tx2SBWI728CPXHZ/Announcing-the-Amazon-Fire-App-and-Game-Experiences-Never-before-Possible https://developer.amazon.com/public/community/post/Tx2SBWI72...
- curiousphil 12y agoI'll definitely be interested to see what compelling applications people find for Dynamic Perspective. Currently most of the applications that they previewed look like they aren't very far off from what could be accomplished with accelerometer data. It's mostly people tilting the device and seeing a different perspective which isn't too hard to simulate with an accelerometer... Still excited to see a new player in the space that will hopefully help push innovation.
- dmazin 12y agoDynamic Perspective thing... The shake to undo is possibly the most hated interaction on iPhones. I don't know if I would want to have to do physical stuff to the phone itself to reveal information that should be accessible via touch (or visible at all times).
- danabramov 12y agoNot sure why you're downvoted, I also hate Shake to Undo.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- talles 12y agoKinda unfortunate for Firefox OS guys. Amazon's Fire Phone OS is called Fire OS... definitely gonna confuse some folks...
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoSounds like a trademark case waiting to happen but looking it seems neither "firefox os" nor "fire os" is trademarked in EU or US.
- e15ctr0n 12y agoFirefox OS is trademarked with the USPTO. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/list/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/list/
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoIt didn't turn up in a TESS search (at http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4802:8drgag.1.1 http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4802...), perhaps it's an image mark, not words.
- oniTony 12y agoThe "Fire OS" has been around for a couple of years now, previously powering Kindle Fire devices.
- gambiting 12y agoSo hang on....are you telling me that $199 is the cheapest price WITH A CONTRACT?? Obviously things are different in the US,but in UK it's almost unfathomable to be paying anything for the phone if you are getting a contract. Sometimes the latest iphone will have an upfront cost of 29 pounds, but it's rare.
- smallegan 12y agoIt is worth mentioning that they are including a year of prime which is worth $99 and a $10 credit on their store so the actual price compared to say an iPhone is $90.
- acron0 12y agoMy experience of EE this week was that they attempted to sting me with a £150 up front charge for a phone (HTC One m8) on a £35pm contract. So, this does happen.
- STRiDEX 12y agoI wouldn't jump to conclusions yet. I image they will do whatever is customary on a per region basis to be competitive.
- mech4bg 12y agoThat's normal in the US. The difference here is that there is no specific price point you have to get on - I've been moving up and down with how much I pay each month on my contract, which I couldn't do in Australia. The contract termination fees are also much lower, and if you're on family plans the month to month costs can go down drastically.
- mattste 12y agoThe SDKs are exciting, but being an ATT exclusive really limits the ecosystem.
- thrush 12y agoThe Amazon Phone seems to capitalize on content consumption of text, audio, video, and the abstract (through purchases). In my mind, this is what the smart phone should be all about.
- jamesbritt 12y agoThe Amazon Phone seems to capitalize on content consumption ... I'd much rather phones (and computational/communication devices in general) focus on content creation.
- reeses 12y agoWell timed after prime music imports your itunes library. no hairy workarounds to replace an iphone in your mac ecosystem, which is something google has not achieved. (yes, other than apps, but that will follow)
- justrudd 12y agoFor music, I agree. But there is other content - TV shows, Movies, books, etc. My iTunes purchased video aren't going to play on an Amazon Fire unless I remove all the DRM from it.
- akilism 12y agoCant wait for day when you get to use all the new fancy press conference smartphone features and not recharge your phone multiple times in 24 hours.
- otec 12y agoI will buy LG G3 or Galaxy S5 for a cheaper price and MUCH better specs. This phone is a joke.
- ultimoo 12y agoI am always a little skeptical about gestures that involve physically moving or tilting or swivelling the phone. Maybe it works well for others but I find it getting very much in the way when I use my phone in bed, or lying around on the couch, or walking even. On my iPhone 5, I have the screen rotation locked for about 99% of the time.
- lightblade 12y agoRemember this is paired with Dynamic Perspective. So maybe we'll see it detects the orientation of your face before deciding on what to do.
- happyscrappy 12y agoThat seems like the only way to prevent it from being some kind of torture chamber. Although it still could be, hopefully you can turn it off if necessary.
- DannyBee 12y agoWhat is the power usage of running 4 different cameras to do this? I can't imagine it's small, so they must be not "always-on", which means there is some tradeoff here.
- toddmorey 12y agoI think the subtle tilt-to-scroll paradigm, if it works well, could become widely adopted. It seems to make one-handed scrolling much more approachable without any fingers obscuring content. Question: Does it seem like it requires the camera system to make it usable or could it be done reliably with just the accelerometers now common in smart phones?
- _up 12y agoThey also need to know (z-axis) how far the face is away from the phone. So gyroscopes are not sufficient.
- bryanlarsen 12y ago"Great phone for reading?" If they really cared about the reading experience, they would have put an AMOLED screen on it. AMOLED screens are far superior for night-time reading, which is when most people do their reading.
- devindotcom 12y agoAgree - he said they were "lavish" in their attention to make it a good phone for reading and I'm like how much can you actually do? It's a 4.7 inch 720p LCD, there's your reading experience. Reading on a phone plain sucks for anything more than a couple articles. Autoscroll doesn't float my boat either.
- lnanek2 12y agoCan't get the videos to load, guess their site is overloaded...pretty rare for amazon
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- JohnTHaller 12y agoFrom my post in another thread: It's $199 with a 2 year contract with AT&T, meaning it's a $649 phone (now confirmed). It's priced with other 'premium' phones like the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy S5 (both $199 with a 2 year contract, $649 off contract at AT&T). Unfortunately, Amazon's other products like the Kindle Fire are anything but premium hardware and software-wise. On the software side this is partially due to the Amazon-first mentality for all media and partially due to the extremely clunky Amazon UI and app store. Then again, I wouldn't consider Samsung a 'premium' phone software-wise either due to my poor experience with the Galaxy S4's clunky setup after coming form 'pure' Android. It's still far better than the Kindle Fire, though.
- sampo 12y agoYou can also click the "Without a Service Plan" to see the price, $649.
- JohnTHaller 12y agoI had typed this up before they announced the off-contract pricing in another thread and was quoting it here. The off-contract price was an assumption at that point.
- drzaiusapelord 12y agoHow is this remotely competitive in a world full of $179 Moto G's? $219 Moto G LTE's? Or even a $350 Nexus? This seems like a phone from two or three years ago where $650 for a non-premium brand would have been passable. I just bought a Moto G LTE for my wife and its a wonderful phone. I don't see what Amazon would bring to the table for an extra $420. That's almost 10 months of service right there.
- JohnTHaller 12y agoI don't think it is. Except for people who buy on-contract and don't know better about the pricing and features compared to other phones. Heck, you're even stuck with Amazon's Silk browser... there's no Firefox or Chrome in the Amazon App Store... so most users can forget about syncing this with anything.
- btrombley 12y agoAmazingly ambitious move by Amazon, which I have to respect. Yes, it will be extremely hard to take market share from Samsung and Apple, but there also hasn't been much innovation in the smart phone market recently, so the opportunity exists if Amazon takes a novel approach. Or maybe they just compete on price, as they have so many times before.
- Haul4ss 12y agoThe funny thing is, they're not competing on price. Sans contract, this phone is a hefty $649. When I heard Amazon would have a phone, I thought for sure it would be very cheap, possibly even free with Prime membership. That would be a game-changing move. Now, it's just another Android phone, albeit with a couple extra bells and whistles. But with an inferior app store.
- drcode 12y agoThe compelling feature on this phone everyone's missing: Let's say you have to browse through a bunch of stuff on your phone. The very moment you start doing this, you have a problem: There's a #%&! finger covering up the screen now! The idea behind this phone is simple: All browsing of information is done by tilting the screen, leaving the display completely unobstructed... sure, other phones have tried to do this before. However, they were shit, because they didn't involve 4 years of AI research to develop the world's most sophisticated head positioning system ever, like Amazon apparently did. This is probably the only way to make the tilting accurate enough to not be annoying. Only a company run by a fantically focused guy could put that much R&D towards such a specific and non-obvious feature. That said, until I can hold the device in my hand and verify that this "tilt to browse information" is 100.00% perfectly implemented, this phone can still end up being a failure, like all similar devices that came before it.
- __david__ 12y agoThat doesn't really seem compelling to me. I've never felt the problem of having my finger in the way while scrolling, and I'm pretty dubious of tilt scrolling. I'll reserve final judgement until I've had my hands on the phone or seen other people's hands on reviews, but right now this really seems like a solution in search of a problem.
- drcode 12y agoMy hypothesis is that adding this feature to a 4.7 inch device has the potential to make the user experience equivalent to maybe a 6.7 inch device, because a finger covers up the equivalent of 2 inches worth of screen real-estate. Wouldn't you like a 6.7 inch phone that only takes 4.7 inches of space in your pocket? (That said, only time will tell if I am right)
- rayiner 12y agoDo you keep your finger on your phone while reading a page? I flick, read, flick, read, etc.
- abc_lisper 12y agoWhat's amazon angle here? Why are they doing this?
- ctdonath 12y agoTo make it easier to buy stuff from Amazon. Right down to the "press dedicated button, get picture of arbitrary product you're looking at, get Amazon.com product page for it". Just like Apple making a closed ecosystem that deeply persuades users to buy apps from the App Store, music & video from the iTunes Store, store data on iCloud, buy more same-ecosystem devices, etc.
- abc_lisper 12y agoHmm.. This makes sense. So they would offer suggestions on what to buy based on what your general interests are.
- igravious 12y agoMy guess is, and I'm not trying to be funny, that they are trying to provide an alternative to Apple/Google/Microsoft. They are also trying to make shed-loads of $ € ¥. They don't strictly have their own OS the way those guys do but they plumb Android to remove everything customer facing from Google (App store, music store, book store, browser, ...). I wish them well because I think that the more competition there is the better off the consumer is. As an open-source advocate I feel that anyone building on top of Android is the open-source model working as it should.
- frik 12y agoHow does the Mayday on-device tech support work? Amazon expert will appear to help you via live video Will it be a Siri/Cortana like AI agent or a human from a Amazon call center?
- mcpherrinm 12y agoThey've already got this on the Fire tablets. It's a real person.
- fudged71 12y agoShould have called it SnapFire
- Zelphyr 12y agoBased on some of their other commercials it'll actually be a human in a call center.
- jsmthrowaway 12y agoThat exists on certain of their products already and they marketed the hell out of it, so it's an interesting reflection on said marketing that you're asking this question. Nothing against you, mind, just interesting about the messaging. (I actually forgot it was called Mayday, so the "Mayday" bullet point was confusing to me.) Although I've never used it, Mayday is a human being with a camera and they can control your device. I first assumed that they saw you, as well, which made me sad about the horrors they'd be inflicting upon poor contractors, but I'm told they cannot see you. I still don't know.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- comatose_kid 12y agoMultiple cameras are interesting. It would be neat if the phone could use eye-tracking to auto-scroll content as your eyes reach the bottom of the screen (books would be good use-case - perhaps they are already doing this)
- asafira 12y agoMy two cents: First, I'm actually surprised as to how much they are selling the dynamic perspective, and I think I'm actually more interested in how well firefly works. Dynamic perspective may be very "cool", but I'm not convinced it's not just another fad --- will it change the way I work with my device? Will it empower people? I don't see it as a transformative technology, and it's almost as gimmicky as (if not as gimmicky as) some of the extra "features" you get when you buy a galaxy S phone. Firefly has a chance though. I've spent some time with google goggles before, and I wasn't super impressed (have they updated it much recently?) --- on the other hand, I've had some success with Amazon's Flow app, in which you point your camera towards a product (in a store, for example), and it tells you the Amazon price for it. Will Firefly work well enough for people to rely on it on the host of use-cases that Amazon gave in its presentation? Other quick thoughts: Amazon claims some great battery life on the page, but didn't mention it at all in their presentation today. Also, it's kind of weird to think I would have 6 cameras on me at any point in time. Are those cameras accessible to developers, beyond their dynamic display apk? Lastly, how will this compare with google's "Project Tango" efforts?
- sswezey 12y agoThe battery life alone would be impressive, but I don't know how you can get a phone battery to last almost 12 days except maybe by having the phone off.
- ignoramous 12y ago3P Android apps will not have access to the "other 4" cameras. As for the battery life, there have been some amazing initiatives and innovations to squeeze every ounce of juice from it. I wouldn't be surprised if the stats claimed on Amazon.com were indeed right. Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but I do not represent them, or speak on their behalf.
- asafira 12y agoI hope the battery stats are right, but I would guess they probably aren't. Overestimating the battery life seems to be an industry standard thing =/
- TrainedMonkey 12y agoThis phone will find a market amongst amazon addicts. While not bleeding edge, specs are somewhat solid[0]. However what set Kindle Fire apart from competition and allowed it to gain foothold in the market was competitive pricing, I see none of that here. Amazon is obviously making a bet that software they are shipping with the phone will be a killer feature that will overcome the shortcomings, I do not think broader market will agree. [0] Until you look at the price and AT&T only lock in, considering that, specs are mediocre at best.
- stcredzero 12y agoAmazon is obviously making a bet that software they are shipping with the phone will be a killer feature, I do not think broader market will agree. If the barriers to get users to spend money are lower on Amazon's phone, then this is exactly the right move to capture developer and content producer mindshare for their ecosystem!
- TrainedMonkey 12y agoGood point, made the edit to clarify that I meant that I do not think that software alone as a killer feature would be enough, considering the price of the phone.
- Zelphyr 12y agoSounds like this phone does a good job of solving Amazon's problem of getting customers to buy more from them. I don't see how it makes my life any easier though. 3D? Ok, that is really cool. 2D hasn't really been a limiting factor for me though. One-handed navigation and autoscrolling? Wow, that just sounds terrible. I'm trying to read and my kid bumps my arm. Now where am I on the page? And how do I quickly get back to where I was? Mayday seems nice but then if the phone is that intuitive I can't see needing it much. Loss leader for them I guess. Tangle-free premium headset. Finally, a feature I would pay money for. Seriously. Do they sell these separately? Because I want.
- derekp7 12y agoTalk about losing your place -- I just want a phone that I can hand to someone when I'm showing a picture, and not have it exit the app or something when they inevitably touch the screen. Would be nice to have a touch screen lock gesture, which keeps the current app active and displayed. Oh, and the 3D -- is that really a 3D screen, or does it just change the screen when you move the phone, based on the position of your face relative to the front camera?
- acchow 12y agoSoft buttons drive me crazy. When I hand my Android phone to someone to help me take a picture, about half the time they inadvertently close the camera app.
- GFischer 12y agoYou're not the only one. I'm very close to giving up and using an Android phone as my main phone, but I love physical buttons. The most painful one is the camera button, it's the one killer feature of Nokia phones and Windows Phone. (I have a Nokia N86 currently as my main phone).
- tothepixel 12y agoHow do you know that this phone has that problem? I would certainly hope that Amazon's engineers thought about those use cases... Until I read some reviews that actually find those problems with the phone, it's meaningless conjecture to believe them.
- moe 12y agoI wonder how the hardware (esp. camera) compares to the other high-end androids and whether you can run stock android on it.
- asafira 12y agoI'm convinced it's actually a very hard problem. Cameras on android have been subpar across the board for years now, but it's a feature everyone looks for in a smartphone. There's no way manufacturers aren't dedicating some focus on them but just not succeeding much yet.
- contingencies 12y agoDynamic Perspective: Perhaps both less accurate and slower than today's alternatives, though nice if you're one-handed browsing or need the full screen visibility during scroll. Real world use cases? Reading porn. Conclusion: pretty gimmicky. Firefly technology: Advertising wet dream, in reality a cheap OCR meets keyword database (pay to be listed?). Not indifferent to certain Firefox plugins re: post-OCR recognition, not indifferent to other phones re: OCR capability. It's just a wrapper. Real world use cases? Limited. Conclusion: gimmicky. Mayday: Video support? Totally gimmicky. Bonus US-market centrism. Unimpressed.
- DontBeADick 12y agoI wonder if Mozilla will put up a fight over the name now that they could be directly competing. FireFly also sounds very similar to FireBug.
- e15ctr0n 12y ago... and Fire OS to Firefox OS.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ChuckMcM 12y agoOk, that is pretty neat. There seems to be a lot of interesting innovation here that Google just sort of missed. (in particular the orientation aspect of accessing alternate views, which could be very powerful if done well). In some ways it seems like Amazon is disproving my theory that if you open source a big chunk of code that is ok because your level of expertise with the code will always insure you can out execute folks who are not the 'originators.' But that doesn't seem to be the case with Amazon here.
- nostromo 12y agoThe market positioning here seems very un-Amazon. "Your margin is my opportunity" is probably my favorite Bezosism. Given that perspective and Apple's very cushy margins, I expected Amazon not to approach the market with an expensive phone packed with new features, but to approach the market from the bottom, with a good phone that is free or nearly free. The problem, of course, is that Google seems to have that segment wrapped up. Instead of competing with the iPhone, this seems to more targeted at Android -- only priced uncompetitively. The features themselves seem slightly gimmicky. I tend not to want to move my phone physically as a way to interact with apps. (Doing that figure "8" when my GPS goes out for some reason is incredibly awkward.) Searching via photos is awesome, but the only use case it seems well suited for is shopping. The built-in Genius Bar is cool, but it seems targeted toward smartphone noobs, which is oddly coupled with features targeted to smartphone pros. If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, this will probably be a novelty, like Windows Phone, for a while to come.
- the_watcher 12y ago>> Searching via photos is awesome, but the only use case it seems well suited for is shopping. So it's useful for the single thing Amazon is most interested in encouraging.
- asafira 12y agoWhy does this seem to be targeted at Android? If anything, I would say the price differential between this and good android phones reflects that it might be more an iphone competitor if anything, and so it seems to be more targeted at Apple.
- nailer 12y agoiPhone has the build quality though. This is rubber and glass, not metal. There's also a degree of app quality that iOS still has over Android - I'm an Android user: 'Secret', for example, only just came out, and it's very unstable. This is a mid-range smartphone at a premium price.
- 12y ago
- smegel 12y agoNo Youtube in list of apps...interesting. Not cheap either...
- stonogo 12y agonone of the kindle fires have a youtube app either. you browse the youtube mobile site and the videos play in the default media player.
- marincounty 12y agoI was hopeing the Amazon phone would do something really novel like lower digital rates? I saw AT&T and the steam was gone.
- the_cat_kittles 12y agoi still dont understand why someone hasn't put a sensor to scroll on the back or the side of the phone- i would prefer that you tilting since thats so imprecise
- r00fus 12y agoIt's clearly not implemented due to the phone case lobby :) Seriously though, implementing hardware features that make cases unworkable would put a damper on sales.
- Holbein 12y agoBoth the object detection and that 3D tracking seems to be focused on consumption. Consume more movies, more music, more books, more apps! How sad. A phone is the most intimate piece of technology we have, and all Amazon can think about making it a machine of consumption. I wish they would have focused more enabling people to create things. You know, help them be active. Help change the world. There's just a slight hint here that Amazon considers its users more like mindless money-spending media consuming drones. A new device very rarely push the human race forward. The Kindle Phone is clearly no such device.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoAmazon can't make folks do anything. So they have to concentrate on what makes money. They can sell features to developers as ways to make more money, thus making their phone more desirable. Those are the creative folks anyway. So Amazon enables them, and makes a buck too.
- VikingCoder 12y ago/sigh I really wish Amazon would just make all of their obviously Android devices into actual, Google-approved Android devices. Google Apps and all. I get that they want their own market for apps, etc. But yuck. Also, I wish things like Amazon Movies would just stinkin work on Android devices, like a normal app. I mean, come on... I have like 6 Android devices, 1 Kindle Fire, 1 TiVo, and 1 Roku. Why are the 6 Android devices left behind? Ug. /whine
- slm_HN 12y agoThere's a lot of info, but I can't find what the phone is made of. Using nice metal phones has convinced me never to buy a cheap plastic piece of junk again.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- stcredzero 12y agoHow about a stand that makes it easy to use the phone as a game console? (HDMI output for TV) With all of those front cameras, would it be workable to have motion sensing games?
- JeremyNT 12y agoSo, essentially, a high end Android phone, only with Amazon's ecosystem rather than Google's. As others have mentioned, the price seems to be difficult to swallow. They'll be fighting against Samsung's flagship Android device and the iPhone. What sells the Amazon phone at that price? I don't think 3d tilting gimmicks will. Its primary differentiator versus other Android phones is that Amazon controls the ecosystem for this device, rather than Google, and while that will appeal to some, it will be a negative for others, and a non-factor to many. I think the price needs to drop for this to be a real competitor, but I certainly am glad to see Amazon entering the game even if the initial offering doesn't seem to be a home run. More competition against Samsung and Apple is good.
- fiatmoney 12y agoSo who's the actual manufacturer? I had read at one point that Google has locked up most major cell manufacturers so they are prevented from offering handsets with non-Google-integrated Android. That and the somewhat lackluster screen leads me to believe it's a no-name OEM.
- iffycan 12y agoThe only smartphone with... Emma Watson was my first reaction.
- jrub 12y agoMaybe someone can enlighten me; but why does AT&T seem like a popular launch partner with new mobile handsets? The only reasons I can come up with are a) money (AT&T taking a smaller cut of subsidies/paying the manufacturer more for the device) and b) "portability" between the US provider and International providers. Are there any other reasons? Or is it really that simple?
- fixedd 12y agoI'm guessing it's cause they're bigger than T-Mobile and Sprint and less inclined towards crippling phones than Verizon.
- mrweasel 12y agoWeeee it a phone... like any other, but with it's own currency (Amazon coins) so I don't know the value of anything. If Amazon build a phone that they believe is better than other smart phone on the market, wonderful, I hope they sell a bunch of the an make a profit. Honestly though: It's a smart phone like any other, but with a gimmicky feature and similarly priced (over-priced).
- awestley 12y agoFinally a solution other than thumb removal! High four to Amazon!! (I already had my thumbs removed).
- stcredzero 12y agoFrom the "About Fire Phone" video: "It's almost like the world is a hyperlink." That right there is gold! That is UX victory and low friction for users in a nutshell.
- lancer383 12y agoI can't tell if you're joking or not - personally, I cringed and felt like I was watching an episode of Silicon Valley for much of that video.
- stcredzero 12y agoTake it both ways at once. That is the essence of reducing friction. Amazon does better at that than at marketing.
- johnvschmitt 12y ago"Phone" Such an anachronism. When the device is used for phone calls <1% of the time, can we now call this something else? Maybe: "Pocket Internet System"? PIS? If you use your phone for actual phone calls more than 5%, let us know.
- jayseattle 12y agoAll the effort and cost behind physical and software interaction innovations but not a hint of speech interaction/recognition. Did they cripple 'Ok Google', Voice Search from their Android fork as well?
- ufmace 12y agoAll of the features they demoed in that video seem pretty gimmicky at best. The kind of stuff that you show off once in a while, but never actually use. Tilt to scroll sounds like it would be maddeningly imprecise compared to finger scrolling. With so many functions apparently tied to various gestures, it seems like you better be real careful using this phone when doing anything but sitting still and devoting your full attention to it. Meanwhile, where's email, photography, calendering, web browsing, contact management and sync? Who's their map data provider? You know, all of the stuff that you actually depend on a phone to have day to day?
- gcb0 12y agofire phone? fire OS? what are they trying to do? put nails in the firefox phone/firefox OS coffin?
- beyondcompute 12y agoWhen will people stop building map apps that are reacting to gestures or the device position in a confusing manner? I love my paper map so much! When it lays on the table I can touch it with my finger and it won't wiggle or wobble. I can just use it without fear that one subtle movement from my side will obscure everything I see and I'll have to search the place I were looking for from the beginning.
- jayshahtx 12y agoI'm always surprised by Amazon's lack of fanfare. Even for such a huge release, their product page is literally the same as that of something as random as a blanket
- t3st3r 12y agoNice phone :)
- boxcardavin 12y agoThe trojan feature for Amazon is the eye-tracking. Tracking a user's gaze while they are shopping is the ultimate way to increase sales, and this extends to eye-tracking while a user is browsing. I imagine that even Google would want the information that Amazon is going to generate.
- MikeCapone 12y agoYou shop while holding your phone in front of your face? Mine's in my pocket when I'm at the store.
- boxcardavin 12y agoNo no, watching where your eyes are looking on the screen itself. Where the dart to on a website or shopping app.
- mkr-hn 12y agoIf this is as smooth as my Kindle Fire (newest one), I might want one in 2-3 versions. I keep finding things on my first Android phone that could have been fixed with a little more polish. My Kindle Fire is perfect in every way. Amazon seems to understand how important it is to get expensive consumer electronics right and not leave a lot of rough edges.
- dark_night_tim 12y agoTry a nexus 7...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mkr-hn 12y agoA Kindle Fire was the only tablet I could afford at the time.
- you_dont_know 12y agohttp://goo.gl/GPrHx8 http://goo.gl/GPrHx8
- xxxmadraxxx 12y ago"One-handed reading" —at last. A phone designed for mobile porn.
- thisjepisje 12y agoI can already see on the cover of the magazine that it's the Elle of April 2014.
- herf 12y agoEye tracking that works will be useful for yet-unimagined augmented reality apps. Or at least Mission Impossible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydIPKkjBlMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydIPKkjBlMw
- miles_matthias 12y agoThe gestures, especially auto scroll, seem to lend themselves to phablets especially well. Market fit is really interesting and confusing (see nostromo's comment at the top for great discussion). I'm a little tired of the tech giants trying to convert every digital thing I do in my life to their platform. I like my iPhone with my Amazon Prime with my Dropbox thank you. I realize they're trying to include more people on the platform and just want another point of entry, but I hope people still standup for their own choices instead of going all in on one of the big players. Lastly, what does this continued push on custom android oses mean for Android development? You already have a host of operating system versions and screen sizes to deal with when developing for android, now there are more and more custom OSes with different features. You'll submit to different stores and have different apps? Blagh..
- cnst 12y agoIt weighs 160g! Only has 1280x720 resolution. They want me to buy it at 649$? Are they insane? Google Nexus 5 is already huge, but it still weighs only 130g, and at least it has 1920x1080 resolution and only costs 349$. For 649$, I might as well buy iPhone 5s, which only weighs 112g. Yet it probably has the exact same battery life, due to the more efficient software! Keep in mind, both Nexus 5 and iPhone 5s are almost a year old now, and this thing is a brand new platform with such unappealing specs? Gimme a break!
- m0dest 12y ago+1, weight has a huge impact on the user experience of a smartphone and doesn't get enough attention in specs. There is a significant comfort difference between light phones in the 100-150g range (latest iPhone, Nexus, Galaxy) and heavy phones in the 150-200g range (e.g. most Nokia Lumia phones, phablets). 720p for 4.7" doesn't bother me, as that's still full fidelity at 11". http://isthisretina.com/ http://isthisretina.com/
- cnst 12y agoI think there's a big difference between 720p and 1080p in how much shit fits on the screen. I love 1080p @ 4,95" on my Nexus 5; the 720p @ 4,65" on Galaxy Nexus is clearly not as good to have as much shit fit on the screen. It's not so much the fidelity as it is about the screen real estate. People tend to hold the phones much closer to their eyes than tablets, so, the extra pixels don't go wasted.
- mtsmithhn 12y agoThis will be great for people driving and reading a book on their phone with one hand....
- asimpletune 12y agoThe 3D capability of the phone has a lot of potential in terms of shopping. Imagine not this generation, or the next, but the one after that, being able to just lay the phone down flat and swipe through holograms of different products for sale on Amazon. You could draw your hands outward and that would scale the item. You could flip your thumb like there's an imaginary coin on it and a coin would appear next to the item your shopping for to show scale. I'm not interested in making any predictions as far as how the phone will fare against Apple and Android, as this is literally a few hours old.
- evolve2k 12y ago"For a limited time, Fire phone comes with 1,000 Amazon Coins (a $10 value) for apps, games, and in-app purchases. Plus, save up to 10% anytime you use Amazon Coins."
- r00fus 12y agoIs there any consumer who actually desires virtual credits/currency in lieu of hard cash?
- evolve2k 12y agoWith 24/7 on demand video support I'm wondering if this could be a good 'phone for Grandma'.
- rgawdzik 12y agoWhy are they showing off auto scroll lag at 1:30 in the "See what customers have to say"?
- tiglionabbit 12y agoPeek? Seriously? We have to tilt the device in order to see certain things? We have to look at the device sideways? That can't make it easy to read things.
- JohnTHaller 12y agoIt'll be great in the sun :)
- mverwijs 12y agoI would think that constantly tilting the screen will consantly change the view. And the reflections of the suroundings. Just when you have a good view of the screen, you need to change it in order to navigate.
- guelo 12y agoWhat sucks about this, and Android in general, is that if you have an app that uses Maps or Push or a bunch of other basic features, you have to write tricky duplicate code to make it work with both Amazon and Google's systems and jump through hoops to make it work on both devices. And it's getting worse with Google's moving more functionality into their proprietary Play Services lib. You would think that Android's vaunted Intent system would be perfect for this, but Intents are basically dead for cross-system functionality, there few open Intents published with android.intent.action., a lot of the good stuff is published by google as com.android. (which should really be com.google.*) so you can't rely on it unless you know you're running on a google phone. Google is not really working towards the interest of AOSP, it should be taken from Google's full control and placed under a neutral body so its full potential for developers can be realized.
- racl101 12y agoUm, does it make phone calls? Find it weird how the primary feature of the device is glossed over.
- flippyhead 12y agoIt's nice to see Seattle being promoted. 'cuz, you know, maps and photos are almost always of SF. Go Seattle!
- bteitelb 12y agoA tilt UI is ridiculous. In many environments, there will be horrible glare at many angles due to overhead light sources. If you want to solve the finger-in-front-of-the-screen problem, put a capacitive touchpad on the back.
- ecoqba 12y agonot a bad idea. having your index finger do all the scrolling or mouse-like movement.
- antihero 12y agoHonestly I preferred it when Amazon just delivered physical items to me. This bullshit tie-in with Prime and some stupid streaming crap I don't want has just left a sour taste in my mouth.
- glasz 12y agomayday seems like someone's wet dream.
- cnst 12y agoBTW, it's not even released yet! > Pre-order Now > This item will be released on July 25, 2014. E.g. even http://oneplus.net/one http://oneplus.net/one will likely come sooner than this! And at half the price, plus much better specs! I still think that 4.7" Fire @ 160g and 5.5" OnePlus One @ 162g is way too heavy for a phone. At least OnePlus One has a much bigger screen, comes at half the price, and has more DYI OSS under the hood. iPhone 5s is only 112g, Google Nexus 5 is 130g, iPhone 5c is 132g, Amazon Fire Phone is 160g. The extra 30g to 48g is very noticeable in your pocket, and you're not even getting a bigger screen, plus if you compare with iPhone, those extra 48g don't even seem add extra battery life, since iOS is just so much more efficient.
- neovive 12y agoThe price will clearly come down over time and the hardware will improve just as they did with the Kindle. The value proposition for Amazon is very similar to the Kindle: sell a device that adds further value to the Amazon ecosystem and drives demand and ad-hoc purchasing. They also have more room to experiment with a phone vs. a book reader since there is less focus on the reading experience.
- sundvor 12y agoSlightly off topic regarding the phone, however still related to Amazon: As an e-reader enthusiast, I was scanning the news this morning hoping there'd be a new Kindle e-ink / e-paper reader announced. Alas, there's no news on this front yet? Currently I have the old DXG and the first Paperwhite, having also had the unit preceding the Paperwhite. Whilst the Paperwhite is fantastic for novels, the DXG whilst nice and big is dragging its heels now with no software updates in a long time. I am wishing for an even higher higher resolution screen with colour for reading technical books (some illustrations tend to become unreadable in grey-scale), and reintroduction of side buttons.
- bndw 12y agoNice Amazon affiliate link
- krisgenre 12y ago'Fire' Phone? seriously? That would have sounded better if was by Mozilla.
- chemmail 12y agoUnfortunately that thing looks terrible. Looks like a generic iphone with ugly android wrapper. They really need something flashy to somehow pull it over rather than have any new features. Afterall smartphones are still status symbols for a couple more years.
- LeicaLatte 12y agoGood show by Amazon. The "gimmick" poised to be a sure hit in Asian, African and European markets. Anything that competes with Apple, Samsung, Google is by default good. There is definitely space in the market for a phone like this. Amazon phones set to sell much more than Amazon tablets.
- Kiro 12y agoWhat's with the negativity? If I lived in the US I would buy it immediately.
- jagermo 12y agoInteresting. Did you see that they replaced the Google App Store with their own? That means an additional revenue stream from app purchases. Clever
- sidcool 12y agoI am very impressed with the phone. The technology is a giant leap from the current Android phones. Kudos to Amazon and the design team.
- tchai_ 12y agoLooks like every other generic 'droid smartphone. Yawn.
- foobarbecue 12y agoCan someone explain the real reason why the kindle fire phone has six cameras? All the articles say it's for tilt scrolling and similar features that are already easily accomplished without using any camera data. Are they trying to do some Google Tango style stuff?
- chrismorgan 12y agoLooks like it has features only designed for use in the right hand? That’s poor accessibility, providing severely degraded behaviour for around ⅒ of the population, the left-handed people. I wonder whether they would sell a left-handed version…
- _halcyon_ 12y agoIt doesn't seem like this phone offers enough to differentiate itself from what's already on the market. Bezos warned everyone though that previous Amazon products started out with underwhelming reviews and later were successful. If anything I see this phone getting cheaper/better very quickly, much like they did with their tablet product.
- oxama 12y agoBezos is the new Jobs, except that Jobs introduced his phone in 2007
- oxama 12y agoIntroducing a phone with some fancy options as an innovation! seriously!