Amazon unveils its first smartphone with “breakthrough” tech
Amazon has unveiled its first smartphone, fitted with new technologies that allow users to see and interact with the world through a “whole new lens”.
Alongside integration with Amazon’s ecosystem, including 33 million songs, apps, games, TV shows and books, Amazon Fire has been designed with two “breakthrough” technologies that aim to give users experiences not possible on other mobile devices.
Firefly recognises things in the real world – web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, films, music and products – and lets users take immediate action, while Dynamic Perspective uses a new sensor system to respond to the way users hold, view and move the device.
Built with the ability to recognise where a user’s head is relative to the device, Dynamic Perspective aims to offer customers a “more immersive experience, one-handed navigation, and gestures that actually work.”
“Fire Phone puts everything you love about Amazon in the palm of your hand,” said Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos.
“And this is only the beginning – the most powerful inventions are the ones that empower others to unleash their creativity – that’s why today we are launching the Dynamic Perspective SDK and the Firefly SDK – we can’t wait to see how developers surprise us.”
The basic version of the Fire Phone, with 32GB of storage, will cost $199 (£117) on top of a two-year contract with AT&T – the only network to offer it initially – on 25 July. There will be an introductory offer of 12 months of Prime included for a limited period.
However, according to Ian Fogg, director of mobile and telecoms, head of mobile at IHS Technology, making the device available on just one carrier in one country means that Amazon is “artificially capping” its addressable market at a very low level, with AT&T shipping approximately 8 million smartphones each quarter.
“The limited scale will make the Fire less appealing for the third party app developers which Amazon needs to tailor their apps for the Fire’s differentiated features such as dynamic perspective,” said Fogg.
“Amazon will either need to accept fewer apps supporting the features and so reduced differentiation for the Fire, or it will have to pay for developers to code for its smartphone, raising Amazon’s costs and making it even harder to push its smartphone strategy into the black.”
Ashley Smith, strategy director at Carat, said: “On the face of it, the Fire Phone will hold up to just about any equivalent device in the market at present. However, combine the large HD display, processing power, and stereo speakers, with a suite of great Amazon services, and Amazon is better equipped than ever to do what it does best: sell stuff… and lots of it.
“Furthermore, with a smartphone in its arsenal, Amazon has yet another platform in which to collect valuable customer data, and package it up in form of convenient, and targeted, product recommendations.
“In reality this is all down to eco-system. Our phones are increasingly becoming the centre of our digital lives, our personal hubs, which contain our most precious information, and help control and co-ordinate our lives. Amazon are keen to become the facilitator of this, like Google and Apple before them, as it will only help further establish our reliance and relationship with the brand moving forward.”