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Amazon Reportedly Plans Smartphone
AlistairCharlton writes "Online retailer Amazon is developing its own smartphone to take on the Apple iPhone and handsets that run the Google Android operating system, according to media reports 'Foxconn International Holdings Ltd. (2038), the Chinese mobile- phone maker, is working with Amazon on the device, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Amazon is seeking to complement the smartphone strategy by acquiring patents that cover wireless technology and would help it defend against allegations of infringement, other people with knowledge of the matter said.'"
maybe amazon should hire some engineers and make something new?
oh wait, that's going to take years and they need something this quarter
I'm sure Amazon will innovate in information harvesting and content steering with their Kindle phone. I trust Amazon as much as I trust Facebook to design and control my phone.
It's going to be a great smartphone, it will be very smart, every pixel on it will be personally supervised by Bezos and you'll be able to use the smartphone for everything!
You can browse Amazon with it.
You can email to Amazon with it.
You can buy from Amazon with it.
You can sell on Amazon with it.
You can Amazon the Amazon with it.
It's so great, that they will put Amazon into Amazon because they heard that you like to Amazon while you Amazon.
You can't handle the truth.
Virgin Mobile.
That is the same reason I won't use Android. Google is a marketing company, nothing more.
For the record, I won't use Apple products either.
Let me guess, you only trust phones from RIM, a company that can neither market nor innovate!
Everyone's worried by apple and google and microsoft, but do you notice Foxconn is manufacturing them all? :)
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
T-mobile $30/month if you are ok with only 100 minutes of voice. If you also want unlimited minutes it is $60. Only a portion of the data is at 4G(not really 4G , just like the rest of them), but they do not cut you off.
They are going to patent 'One-Click Dialling'!!!
I guess I'll hold judgement until I see an announcement, but a mini Kindle Fire springs to mind. IMO (price aside) the Kindle Fire is the worst of all worlds in the mobile space - laggy and locked down. It's everything I don't want in my next phone. On the bright side, it'll probably be cheap.
Let me guess, you only trust phones from RIM, a company that can neither market nor innovate!
I guess that's a better guess than Windows Phone.
So you don't currently have a smart phone? How do you know you need an unlimited plan? I just took my first foray into smartphone world about a month ago and found that I don't use nearly as much data as I thought I would. My usage for the first month is just a shade over 2GB and that's using the smartphone like a fiend since it's still a new shiny toy to me. FWIW, the T-Mobile Value plan, Straight Talk, Virgin Mobile, Simple Wireless, and Cricket all have plans with data in the ballpark of $50/mo.
Amazon Plans Smartphone to Rival Apple iPhone and Google Android Devices
So if it's competing against Android, is it running Android? Or is it running some other OS that Amazon put together?
Finding God in a Dog
Such a pity that it has come to this. You can't make a smartphone without infringing patents. That's not entirely what they were meant for.
-- Cheers!
I ditched that one for an iPhone long ago. And I'm still alive, so Apple can't be all bad.
-- Cheers!
I'm less impressed with new phones entering the market. There's a ton of smart phones and everyone can find something they like.
Where we do need more competition is decent service providers. There's a handful of majors (I won't even go into the pay as you go crap vendors). The majors like Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc... have all settled into a pricing structure where they barely compete. There's no dynamic at work driving the price of service down. If anything, they occasionally increase their prices. I'd like to see someone with the financial means to compete enter the arena and change the game.
We have the iPhone and we have Android. Unless Amazon intends to develop it's own OS, then their phone is just going to be another Android phone. Oh joy... because it's not like there are any Android phones on the market that allow browsing and shopping with Amazon, are there?
Seems to me that their interests would be better served by developing apps that run on existing phones that work better than the ones they have out there right now.
you can license FRAND patents to connect to the network and make a workable phone. the patent owners have to agree to license them to you at the same rates which they license to everyone else which are pennies per handset.
its the OS patents you have to worry about
Oh fuck off you moron. If you'd cared to look at my user ID you'd see that I had the name tsa in 1996 already, waaaaaaaaaaay before you were even potty trained.
-- Cheers!