As to whether or not Amazon needed to make a smartphone of its own, that is for CEO Jeff Bezos to decide. In an interview with Bits, Bezos explains why Amazon opted to manufacturer its own smartphone and enter into a crowded, cutthroat market. He wanted to produce a device that was differentiated from today's offerings, but wanted differentiation that mattered.
When pushed on the fact that the company may have waited to long, Bezos said “I don’t want to judge before all the facts are in, but I think this wireless thing is going to be big.” He then recalls five years ago when Nokia and BlackBerry were massive players in the wireless industry. Bezos clearly shows no signs of hesitation. The interviewer then questioned price, to which Bezos did not even budge. He defended the storage (32GB) and the extras from Amazon Prime and bundling one year of that service for free along with the premium build quality. Durability in the long run is something he and the company admires when seeing older Kindle devices still roaming around in the world.
So before the Fire Phone was developed, what was Jeff Bezos' go-to? A Samsung smartphone, although he did not clarify which model. Interestingly enough, Bezos proudly said “the thing I’ve noticed is when I switch back to another phone, I’m still reaching for the gestures that work so reliably on Fire phone, like autoscroll.” But if he was using one of Samsung's flagship smartphones, he would indeed be able to scroll with his eyes, right? Just a little thought.
Hit the source link for the full interview with Bezos.
Source: Bits (The New York Times)
A misguided and arrogant man who is now the proud manufacturer of a MASSIVE FAIL of a phone… the android phone that has no Google applications AT ALL…
He thinks Amazon Prime trumps everything. $100 a year for old movies and outdated tv shows. I had it and for television you could watch a few episodes from year 1 from a show five years ago. If you wanted any current shows or movies then you have to pay the rental fee. Ripoff.
Take Prime away as a pretend benefit and what you have is a run of the mill phone choked by Amazon’s OS that sits on top of Android and a battery hogging screen. I don’t see anything about this phone that makes it a contender, except in Jeff Bozo’s mind.
Well there’s going to be at least one user for the Amazon phone, good for him