I haven’t played with nor seen Amazon’s smartphone, the Fire Phone. It’ll probably not even be available in my neck of the woods, much like the Kindle Fire tablets. It matters little for this piece though.
The tech media seem puzzled about Amazon’s decision to ”fork Android” (read Ben Evans’ piece on this if you’re interested) and go head to head with Apple, Google, and to a lesser extent, Microsoft. There are some interesting features in the Fire Phone, including the 3D UI, Firefly and Mayday, and the Buy button, and then there’s Amazon’s Prime service too. The general consensus is that the Fire Phone is an expensive yet underpowered high-end smartphone with Amazon’s limited app store, tailored for Amazon services. The question this beckons is who’d want this?
It’s a valid question, with an obvious yet complicated answer: Amazon’s customers wants this. The answer is obvious because if you do all your shopping at Amazon, if you use Prime, then the Fire Phone’s for you. On paper that might make sense, but in reality smartphones are personal devices and I doubt a lot of us want to be defined by where we buy adult diapers.