As expected, Amazon announced that they are indeed entering
the phone market, with a device called the Fire Phone. It’s running a very
specialized version of Android that they call Fire OS, similar to what is
running on their e-reader. It’s got a 4.7” screen, putting it somewhere between
an iPhone (4”) and the Galaxy S5(5.1”). But let’s talk about what really makes
it different.
The Fire Phone has four front facing cameras equipped with
facial recognition which allows the screen to produce 3D effects. The screen
moves with you, changing the view based on the angle of your face. It also
allows you to tilt and swivel the phone in various applications, instead of
having to scroll or swipe (http://gizmodo.com/how-amazons-fire-phone-cameras-know-where-your-face-is-1592859925). Amazon is calling this technology ‘Dynamic
Perspective’, and it seems similar to what Samsung was trying to accomplish
when it allowed you to scroll down with your eyes. Most people turned the
feature off, viewing it simply as a gimmick, so we’ll have to see what the
world thinks of Amazon’s 3D screen capabilities.
The phone also has a ‘Firefly’ button which allows you to
take pictures of items or listen to songs and purchase them instantly from
Amazon (or add them to your wish list). I’m not sure that being able to buy
things should be that easy, but it definitely makes sense for Amazon from a
business perspective. Another feature that isn’t necessarily new to Amazon, but
new to the phone world, is the Mayday button. This is a feature that Amazon has
on their Kindle’s, which calls a customer service representative to help you
live. The response time is 15 seconds! Here’s a video if you haven’t seen it in
action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFYHF1w8w3g.
It’s certainly setting the bar high for customer service, and it will now be
available on the Fire Phone.
For now the phone also includes one free year of Prime,
which gives you access to Amazon’s huge database of movies, TV shows, songs,
books, and free 2 day shipping. It all sounds pretty great so far but there are
some downsides to not being Apple or Samsung. First off, the Fire Phone will
only have around 240,000 apps to start (about a quarter of what Apple and Samsung
have). It will also have some distribution challenges because it is only
available on AT&T in the states for now (although you can purchase it
directly from Amazon for $649 USD). A lot of experts thought that Amazon would
go for the cheaper end of the smartphone market, but they’ve loaded up their
phone and are ready to compete with the big names – including pricing their
phone the same, $199 USD with a two year contract. It will be interesting to
see how many current Amazon customers will buy a phone, or if the phone will
help increase Amazon’s overall sales.
Something else new this week is Facebook’s Slingshot app. It’s
drawing a lot of comparisons to Snapchat because of the way it allows you to
send pictures to friends. However, it’s different because to see what someone
sent you, you have to first send something back. This strikes me as kind of
strange because that’s not how a conversation flows – you don’t respond before
someone has asked you a question. The
pictures also don’t self-destruct, they stay there until you swipe them away. This
is Facebook’s third attempt at making a new app, preceded by Poke and Paper
(the newspaper like app), not to mention that they tried to buy Snapchat for $3
billion. 
The last new thing I want to mention is Blackberry’s
potential attempt at a Phablet called “Passport”. It’s the strangest phone I’ve
ever seen, a square blocky phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard and a 4.5”
screen. They will also be releasing the Z3 (an all touch device) and the
Classic (which looks very much like the original Blackberry’s). I’m curious to
see how all these devices and applications do, especially considering how
saturated the current market is.
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