Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Cellphones AI

Amazon Plans Smartphone Comeback More Than a Decade After Fire Phone Flop (reuters.com) 46

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
Amazon is reportedly developing a new AI-focused smartphone that doesn't rely as heavily on traditional apps. "The phone is seen as a potential mobile personalization device that can sync with home voice assistant Alexa and serve as a conduit to Amazon customers throughout the day," reports Reuters. From the report: As envisioned, the new phone's personalization features would make buying from Amazon.com, watching Prime Video, listening to Prime Music or ordering food from partners like Grubhub easier than ever, the people said. They asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters. A key focus of the Transformer project has been integrating artificial intelligence capabilities into the device, the people said. That could eliminate the need for traditional app stores, which require downloading and registering for applications before they can be used. Alexa would likely be a core feature but not necessarily the primary operating system of the phone, the people said. When Amazon launched the Fire Phone in 2014, it aimed to compete directly with offerings from Samsung and Apple. Instead, the device received mixed reviews and failed to impress reviewers, leading Amazon to abandon the effort just over a year later.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Amazon Plans Smartphone Comeback More Than a Decade After Fire Phone Flop More

Amazon Plans Smartphone Comeback More Than a Decade After Fire Phone Flop

Comments Filter:

  • This is just Amazon assuming that tossing some crappy Alexa + AI on the failed idea from a while ago will create a winning product. I expect to see a lot of failed ideas making a comeback as $failed_idea + AI!

    We're all waiting for the announcement of Zune+Copilot.

    • At least they should take this opportunity to think of better branding for their phone. "Fire Phone" is a terrible name for any product that contains lithium ion batteries.

      However, I don't see how "all AI" is going to work out. Computers were invented because they made predictable, repeatable calculations. That's important for things like safety and security. People aren't going to be happy if their phone hallucinates a custom map giving them driving directions onto the runway of their local airport, or tak

    • Holding out for Zune+Tay

    • I think what gave them the product idea wasn't the smartphone, but the various AI Lumps (from Humane, etc.) that have failed recently.

      They realize nobody wants/needs to carry a phone and an AI Lump, it's just duplicated functionality with added gadgets to charge. But they really, really want an Amazon spy gadget on every person. So they decided to make a mashup of a phone and a Lump, that may actually be a usable product.

      Of course, even if the product is useful, getting people to buy it is another matter. B

  • I don't expect this phone to go anywhere. But, hopefully it will add to the competition against each of the other players and keep them innovating and competitive.

    • The last semblance of competition in this space was Windows Phone/Mobile, and it ultimately croaked: there was a limit to even Microsoft throwing money at it. This was actually a good alternative - leveraging on the Windows desktop, had a good UI (Metro, while horrendous for Wintel laptops, was great for phones) and some good basic apps, like Office, HERE maps, OneNote,... Only problem: they failed to attract major apps, such as Videocalling apps (WhatsApp arrived pretty late), Uber & Lyft Drive, vari

      • Microsoft did not simply fail to attract developers, they actively drove them away by changing the systems they had to use to create mobile apps three times in about four years. So much for DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!

    • I don't expect this phone to go anywhere. But, hopefully it will add to the competition against each of the other players and keep them innovating and competitive.

      Back in the day when the Firephone was launched it was seen as a potential champion to remove the iron grip of Google from the phone. Instead what people got was Amazon's marketing platform with an App store devoid of anything useful, while you get spammed on the lock screen, home screen, and even pop-over banners over your apps advertising more shit from Amazon.

      Competition is good, I just wish it was from actual competition, and not just another mega corp lining up to ask you if you want to try the new But

  • Wtf does that mean? Will a user have to wait for the "AI" to phone home just to change the screen brightness or wallpaper because there's no settings app? Or are they planning that this AI will somehow supplant user downloaded apps? Well, good luck with that!

    • I do think what you're describing will be the future for the most part. We aren't going to be digging through layers of gui menus or doing keyword searches to try to find a setting. You'll just tell it what you want in plain speech and it will do it.

      As for the demise of apps could there be a platform based on an AI that knows how to generate information displays and retrieve various information, and each 'app' is just set of prompts for the AI? Not sure. But I'm sure it will be tried.

  • Do people find doing all the things this phone will supposedly be good at actually hard or inconvenient? I'm sure this is primarily an attempt for Amazon to profit off people using their products without feeding into Google and Apples ecosystem.

  • So basically it's going to be a brick every time you've got no internet, also your entire life is going to be on Amazon's servers?

    Yeah for me no fricking way thanks but I'll bet a whole herd of sheeple will still buy it for some shiny bauble feature.

    • Yeah, I even avoid shopping on Amazon altogether, unless it's a niche product that I can't find anywhere else. I prefer live shopping whenever possible, where I can see the things I buy, and even get to try it

  • Can you please put me through to Claude?
  • That's because AI has a limitless appetite for training data. So you need to constantly be monitoring what human beings are doing or your training data gets out of date and becomes useless. Try to imagine if you trained an AI on data from say 1970. It wouldn't be terribly useful.

    So it's no surprise Amazon is trying to create a smartphone because they need a platform where they can monitor and surveil users and then feed that data into AI models.

    And absolutely everyone wants their own AI models becau
  • If he tries to make it run Vega OS like the firesticks its going to fail. Vega is more of a data collection tool than on OS.
  • It doesn't matter how thinly veiled the whirling blades of privacy laceration are--someone will buy it. The Googlings and their AI will comment here.

    • Technopeasant (apparently) here.

      Google already knows everything I do on the web, whatever OS I use. Microsoft already knows everything I do on a Windows computer. Apple already knows everything you do on a Mac or iPhone. *ALL* of them sell your data. Amazon isn't worse, they're just the same.

      But I in fact don't care. They want to use my data to sell me stuff. For me, it's a reasonable trade. I get "free" services, they get my data.

      Many studies have shown that privacy-focused, paid services don't sell well.

      • I think marketing is the difference though, not freeness. After all, many people pay for subscriptions to Adobe, Office (or whatever they're calling it now), etc. instead of using free open source alternatives.

        • The reason people get those subscriptions, is because the free open source alternatives aren't equivalent.

          I've tried other PDF editing software, paid and free. They're all crap.

          As for LibreOffice, it's fine if you just want to edit documents. But these days, the editing part is only an afterthought. The main use for Office documents, is multi-user collaborative editing. LibraOffice doesn't have anything that can do that effectively. You're forced to send copies of documents around to your peers, and inevita

          • the free open source alternatives aren't equivalent.

            They're all crap.

            I completely disagree, but, it's not like people won't use things that are crap (look at Windows).

            MS Office and Google Docs fully solve this problem

            So why does anyone pay for MS Office when Google Docs is free?

            • I'm sure there are many reasons people pay for MS Office when Google Docs is free.

              Personally, I wanted a real-time cloud backup system, so I chose OneDrive, which costs about the same as other cloud backup systems, and comes with Office thrown in.
              Others prefer to have a desktop application; Google Docs has the collaboration, but not the desktop applications.

              • I'm sure there are many reasons people pay for MS Office when Google Docs is free.

                Personally, I wanted a real-time cloud backup system, so I chose OneDrive, which costs about the same as other cloud backup systems

                But you said "People will always choose the free versions".

                • OK you got me. I should have said "People will always choose the free versions, all else being equal." Google Docs is not "equal" because it doesn't have a desktop version and doesn't have feature parity with Office.

      • Surely you know that data can be used for much more than "sell me stuff". You seem confident that Amazon and the people above them are, and will forever be, uninterested in anything besides making a sale.

        What is it that gives you that confidence?

        Also, Windows isn't free. There's no tradeoff, you get double penetration.

        • What risk are you concerned about, besides companies trying to "sell you stuff"?

          Do you think the government has its eyes set on you, and they're secretly spying on you to put you in a secret detention center and disappear forever? Guess what, you're not that important to the government. And the things they do want to know about you, they can already find through all kinds of other means, whatever website or OS you choose to use.

          • This idea that the government needs to be interested in you, personally, for surveillance to matter, is rooted in an outdated understanding of surveillance.

            They no longer need to send someone to your house to tap a phone line. They no longer need to allocate man-hours and a vehicle to have someone follow you. It's no longer a manual process for someone to listen to your recorded conversations, summarize them, and transport that information to someone who can make a decision negatively impacting you. Even

            • And you think that this new Fire Phone is somehow key to their ability to track you?

              All these things you described, have been possible for decades already. And they do still cost a lot of money. Even for Uncle Sam, money is not unlimited.

              • If you buy one and carry it around with you and type everything into it, it most definitely is key. Probably the easiest and most accurate way to get the most amount of your data, instead of scanning each account and service separately.

                If you're looking at "the things I described" as what I'm scared about, you failed to comprehend the post. The things I described are specifically the things they don't have to do, which you seem to have in your mind they do.

                Modern-day electronic systems and monitoring don't

                • Meta just wants to sell ads. That's what makes them money. The tracking part, that costs them money.

                  The NSA doesn't make money, their budget is $74 billion a year. That's a pretty nice chunk of change.

                  And neither needs a Fire Phone, any phone will do. iPhone, Android, even a dumbphone can be tracked. The Austin package bomber was located in part by cell phone triangulation, which works with any device that connects to cell towers. https://www.foxnews.com/tech/h... [foxnews.com].

                  So if you don't want to be tracked, you'd b

  • Make a dumb phone. Something with integrated AI Besoz Trump love child journalism.

  • Amazon ...
    - AI-focused smartphone
    - doesn't rely as heavily on traditional apps.
    - potential mobile personalization device
    - can sync with home voice assistant Alexa
    - serve as a conduit to Amazon customers throughout the day,

    So much, No.

  • att only killed the firephone don't do that again

  • is it a brick in disguise?

  • Even if it's not a resounding success. Trust them ! Pinky swear

    Or not. And buy from a manufacturer that promises 5-7 years of security updates, with a track record of doing so. Don't buy the Fire phone and let it become ewaste due to lack of updates.

  • If anyone has tried to navigate the Amazon Prime Video site recently, I don't see how they could conceivably consider an Amazon phone as the Prime Video website is so, so, so bad. Add in the privacy concerns with the Alexa devices, and I can't imagine using one of their phones. Amazon really is Captain of Team Enshittify.

Slashdot Top Deals

RADIO SHACK LEVEL II BASIC READY >_

Close