AMAZON : Fire Phone : Announced Today (1 Viewer)

[sbonomo]

Stock up about 2.5% on the news.

Good. I bought in a few weeks ago at 300 and change.

i just need it to get back to 370 ish!

 

[BoltBacker]

Big disappointment, and I am a total Amazon fan.

I think they are misunderstanding their customer base with this approach. The average Amazon customer doesn't care a ton about hardware specs imo. Just make a knock-off of the Moto G that has been out for a year and commonly been found for under $100 un-subsidized. That type of device can't cost much to produce these days. Give them out to Prime customers this year and promise a new "Fire Phone" for "Free" every three years of paid Prime subscriptions. Make a deal with one of the carriers to offer free text(costs the carriers almost nothing) and free streaming of Amazons new music service(T-mobile already offers music streaming to their customers without the music counting against their data). The carrier gets to up-sell the Fire Phone user for voice minutes and data packages on their "free" phones. Amazon gets specialized software to push ads and apps onto their customers phones. Amazon Prime customers get free texts/music streaming which I think most would care about more than the hardware differences between the current phone and the dated but certainly capable Moto G phone. It seems like T-Mobile in particular has been aggressive on building their customer base and have made deals with major retailers like the $30 unlimited data/text/100 min voice prepaid plan at Walmart.

Big opportunity lost here for Amazon imo. Seems to me it's just another phone in an already crowded market with very little differentiating it from the competition.

 

[Wingnut]

Another AT&Ter here. Been with them for over 10 years. No complaints. Like Hulk said, depends on where you are.

I also think Verizon is the devil, I loathe everything about them and will never buy or use their products or services if I can help it.

 

[flapgreen]

Another AT&Ter here. Been with them for over 10 years. No complaints. Like Hulk said, depends on where you are.

I also think Verizon is the devil, I loathe everything about them and will never buy or use their products or services if I can help it.

Yep. I'm on my way out.

 

[GroveDiesel]

Awful.

Exclusive carrier

exclusive app store

question able specs

pass

Sounds like you just rattled off things about the iPhone 4 before it started branching out to other carries.

I'm not trying to defend the phone, but doesn't each OS have an exclusive app store? I mean you can only get Apple's App Store on an iOS device. If anything, Amazon's App Store is available both on Amazon devices and Android devices.

Amazon's phone runs Android, they just changed it a bit.If Amazon wanted to, they could let it have the Google Play, and the vast majority of apps would work fine. But, they don't let you have that, because they want to make money selling you these apps instead of Google. The result is an app store that is much smaller, and if you already own an Android device you end up paying twice for an app.

Not to mention that even when Amazon has an app that Google Play has, it often is at least one version behind. The apps are very slow to update on Amazon's App Store.

 

[HellToupee]

Awful.

Exclusive carrier

exclusive app store

question able specs

pass

Sounds like you just rattled off things about the iPhone 4 before it started branching out to other carries.

I'm not trying to defend the phone, but doesn't each OS have an exclusive app store? I mean you can only get Apple's App Store on an iOS device. If anything, Amazon's App Store is available both on Amazon devices and Android devices.

Amazon's phone runs Android, they just changed it a bit.

If Amazon wanted to, they could let it have the Google Play, and the vast majority of apps would work fine. But, they don't let you have that, because they want to make money selling you these apps instead of Google. The result is an app store that is much smaller, and if you already own an Android device you end up paying twice for an app.

I have a Fire HDX and really don't like the Amazon app store but I side load apps. I wouldn't expect Amazon to give an easy path to straight android apps just like I wouldn't expect them to let me buy google or BN books on the kindle.

 

[HellToupee]

Awful.

Exclusive carrier

exclusive app store

question able specs

pass

Sounds like you just rattled off things about the iPhone 4 before it started branching out to other carries.

I'm not trying to defend the phone, but doesn't each OS have an exclusive app store? I mean you can only get Apple's App Store on an iOS device. If anything, Amazon's App Store is available both on Amazon devices and Android devices.

Amazon's phone runs Android, they just changed it a bit.If Amazon wanted to, they could let it have the Google Play, and the vast majority of apps would work fine. But, they don't let you have that, because they want to make money selling you these apps instead of Google. The result is an app store that is much smaller, and if you already own an Android device you end up paying twice for an app.

Not to mention that even when Amazon has an app that Google Play has, it often is at least one version behind. The apps are very slow to update on Amazon's App Store.

probably a lot less incentive for developers . I would assume they would cater to where their $ was coming from .Some of the apps are less refined than their iOS counterparts

 

[HellToupee]

Big disappointment, and I am a total Amazon fan.

I think they are misunderstanding their customer base with this approach. The average Amazon customer doesn't care a ton about hardware specs imo. Just make a knock-off of the Moto G that has been out for a year and commonly been found for under $100 un-subsidized. That type of device can't cost much to produce these days. Give them out to Prime customers this year and promise a new "Fire Phone" for "Free" every three years of paid Prime subscriptions. Make a deal with one of the carriers to offer free text(costs the carriers almost nothing) and free streaming of Amazons new music service(T-mobile already offers music streaming to their customers without the music counting against their data). The carrier gets to up-sell the Fire Phone user for voice minutes and data packages on their "free" phones. Amazon gets specialized software to push ads and apps onto their customers phones. Amazon Prime customers get free texts/music streaming which I think most would care about more than the hardware differences between the current phone and the dated but certainly capable Moto G phone. It seems like T-Mobile in particular has been aggressive on building their customer base and have made deals with major retailers like the $30 unlimited data/text/100 min voice prepaid plan at Walmart.

Big opportunity lost here for Amazon imo. Seems to me it's just another phone in an already crowded market with very little differentiating it from the competition.

I thought there was going to be something on the service side like you mentioned that was going to grab people. Camera + storage is cool but didn't knock my socks off.

That said my wife wants one and is giving her 5S to our 15yo D

 

[[icon]]

Big disappointment, and I am a total Amazon fan.

I think they are misunderstanding their customer base with this approach. The average Amazon customer doesn't care a ton about hardware specs imo. Just make a knock-off of the Moto G that has been out for a year and commonly been found for under $100 un-subsidized. That type of device can't cost much to produce these days. Give them out to Prime customers this year and promise a new "Fire Phone" for "Free" every three years of paid Prime subscriptions. Make a deal with one of the carriers to offer free text(costs the carriers almost nothing) and free streaming of Amazons new music service(T-mobile already offers music streaming to their customers without the music counting against their data). The carrier gets to up-sell the Fire Phone user for voice minutes and data packages on their "free" phones. Amazon gets specialized software to push ads and apps onto their customers phones. Amazon Prime customers get free texts/music streaming which I think most would care about more than the hardware differences between the current phone and the dated but certainly capable Moto G phone. It seems like T-Mobile in particular has been aggressive on building their customer base and have made deals with major retailers like the $30 unlimited data/text/100 min voice prepaid plan at Walmart.

Big opportunity lost here for Amazon imo. Seems to me it's just another phone in an already crowded market with very little differentiating it from the competition.

Well put here. Nice post

 

[cstu]

Now .99 with a 2 year contract.

 

[[icon]]

FIRE SALE

 

[(HULK)]

It's 99 cents too expensive, off contact

 

[(HULK)]

Not at all suprised:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/amazon-sitting-on-83-million-of-unsold-fire-phones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29

 

[(HULK)]

Wow, horribly overpriced for what it is.

I predict: epic flop

Sell your Amazon stock on this bounce imo. No one is going to buy this phone.

Wish I'd thought to short them.

 

[SacramentoBob]

Not at all suprised:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/amazon-sitting-on-83-million-of-unsold-fire-phones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29

So they have 83 million phones?

 

[Das Boot]

Not at all suprised:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/amazon-sitting-on-83-million-of-unsold-fire-phones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29

So they have 83 million phones?

83838383.83838384 by my estimation

Repeating of course.

 

[cstu]

Why the Fire Phone failed.