Moving On From Fire Phone Turmoil, Amazon Plans New Android Smartphones: Report (bit.ly)

Reader joshtops writes: Amazon plans to have another go at selling its own branded smartphones, according to a new report. The ecommerce giant, which killed off its Fire Phone in 2015, is working on a new lineup of smartphones branded as 'Ice', the report said, citing unnamed sources. Unlike the Fire Phone -- for which Amazon focused largely on the US and a couple of other western markets -- the company is eyeing emerging regions like India for selling its new phones. Amazon's upcoming smartphones run the latest version of Google's Android operating system with Google Mobile Services (GMS) such as Gmail and Google Play, the people said. Incorporating Google Mobile Services in its devices is a major change in strategy for Amazon, which currently offers a range of Android tablets without Google apps on them. The smartphones are being referred to as 'Ice' internally, in what could be a move to distance itself from the disastrous Fire Phone brand, though it's not clear if Amazon will eventually bring the devices under the Ice name. A source cited in the story said the phones will ship with Alexa, Amazon's AI assistant.

Comments

Failed because it didn't live up to its name

[iampiti]

They should've left the "fire" name to Samsung

Lesson learned

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fire Phone failed because it was overpriced, and it didn't support Google apps. If Amazon could make cheaper phones and offer latest Android version with Google Mobile Services, that might be enough for it to make a dent on the market.

Re:Lesson learned

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing with Amazon is, they really obsess about customers' behavior. For a company that has a popular Android fork, giving people what they want -- Google apps -- that's a user-friendly approach. They are putting customers' needs over their business plan. Good on them.

Re:Lesson learned

[Salgak1]

It would be nice if they allowed their Fire Tablets to access the Google ecosystem without having to root the devices, though. . . .They've sold a metric buttload of Kindle Fire Tablets. . .

Re:Lesson learned

[ctilsie242]

I wish they would at least offer and support them here in the US. Not everyone needs a flagship Android phone.

Oh, and they should have some method for a bootloader unlock.

Re:Lesson learned

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is seeing some of their ad-supported phones (built by Motorola, etc with Amazon ads on lock screen and elsewhere) FLY off the shelves. I mean, I don't understand it at all, but apparently they are doing monstrously well. So it makes sense that they could customize the data collection better if they did the phones themselves with high end specs at a low-end, ad-supported price (and a high price for non-ad supported versions).

My bet is that they think that they have a darn good business model using a super cheap high end ad-supported phone to gain a foothold. Time will tell though whether they'll be a trusted enough name....

Re:Lesson learned

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this even allowed with the current Android terms? Given they maintain an active fork of Android, I think they would be excluded from participating in the OHA, and if they can't do that, then they can't sell Android branded devices, nor can they include GMS. With that in mind, I'm not sure how they can get this 'ice' off of the ground without killing off 'fire' first.

Captcha: frigid

Re:Lesson learned

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never buy Amazon hardware after how shitty and locked in it's been in the past. Still love buying other things from Amazon though.

Re:Lesson learned

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... It is trivial to load Google Play onto a Fire tablet without rooting it. Just google "Install Google Play on Fire Tablet".

If you're willing to go so far as to connect it to your computer, you can even get rid of the lock screen advertising, without paying the $15 Amazon tax...

Re:Lesson learned

[farble1670]

Is this even allowed with the current Android terms? Given they maintain an active fork of Android, I think they would be excluded from participating

Every manufacturer has a fork of Android. To be able to call it "Android", you just need to pass CTS,
https://source.android.com/com...

Which isn't hard, proof being the vast number of Android devices out there.

Hopefully Amazon is getting smart. Their devices should be subsidized standard Android + Google devices that are cheap $-wise at the expense of having Amazon crap pushed in your face night and day. Not a trade off that's particularly attractive to me, but I think there's a market for it.

Steps in the right direction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon's upcoming smartphones run the latest version of Google's Android operating system with Google Mobile Services (GMS) such as Gmail and Google Play

I'm guessing Chomecast will still be blocked somehow.

Re:THIS JUST IN:London Westminster Attack Hoax Bus

[dreamchaser]

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Game of Groans

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire and Ice, really?

Re:Game of Groans

[Anonymous Coward]

David and Nigel are like poets, you know, like Shelley or Byron, or people like that. The two totally distinct types of visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, and I feel my role in the band is to be kind of the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.

but.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will they also be doing a decent speced phone this time or are they just going to be basic phones for emerging markets ? an up speced one doesn't need to be cutting edge 2017 tech,a decent cpu/gpu from last year,but with plenty of ram will do,5.2 inchHD lcd would be enough to tempt me,specially if they do it with "real" stereo front speakers..
Bugger the cameras, as long as it can take half decent pics in focus,I don't care,personally,I don't expect miracles from tiny little sensors and lenses,if I need decent pics,I use a dslr..

Let's Tango.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would buy one if it had Google's Tango technology.

Be bold.

[Anonymous Coward]

Make some with a slider keyboard.

Re:Be bold.

[Blaskowicz]

But how many weird scripts are there in the region?
How many languages are there in India and immediate neighbors that we've never heard of?

For an example there's Tamil script and language, which makes me think of Thai script - only because Thai script is different from other scripts (Thailand is far off, but so is Tamil area itself compared to other India's regions). Both are obviously different from what I will call the Sanskrit-like script : this one is the one where letters are jointed at the top - now I am 99% sure there must be several ones like that, but this description should do the job ; I am talking about what I think is the well known "Indian" script.

There will forever be an unknowable to me number of cultures, languages, regionalisms in India (e.g., in other countries : I will never know about every Chinese language, or about every German dialect) though this is balanced by nation building. (e.g., there must be a number of Chinese who learned Mandarin as a second or first language and are able to understand what's said in the news or in some official texts)

In other areas of the Earth you have similar things going : Georgian script, Armenian script. Europe has pretty mild variations of Latin script (such as Danish, French, Norwegian, other languages where "ij" might be a letter) and this makes a QWERTY US keyboard a bit of a problem already. Albeit you might use one line on the bottom of a touchscreen as a "touch bar" for accented and other letters.

I hate to be the guy that defends touch keyboards :) as I would otherwise advocate for real keyboards.
On laptops, you might standardize the keyboard a little bit (as in be able to buy a replacement keyboard and stick it on a laptop) and then have different printed letters - you might even have room for both Latin labels and non Latin labels. Even there we could make do with better standardization of keyboards i.e. imagine you can use a keyboard meant for an Acer laptop on a Dell laptop.
On phones it's harder. Or maybe we could go back to having a 12-key numpad, on which arbitrary input methods may be implemented.

Re:Be bold.

[Anonymous Coward]

kys m8

Re:Be bold.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps keys with various button lights, so the slider can be QUERTY for one area, AZERTY for another, and so on.

Re: Be bold.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/19/13328710/apple-e-ink-keyboard-macbook-sonder-rumors

Confirmed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Internally, it's known as the Amazon (r) Piece of Shit but the official name is the Amazon (r) Turd XLG (tm) with Alexa (r). XLG is for, apparently, "Extra Large Girth".

How about the Fire tablets

[onyxruby]

Fire tablets are fairly decent, however they have one major drawback. The lack of the Google play store for regular apps makes the tablets second tier for actual use. If Amazon would get the Google app store on their fire tablets they could easily become the dominant android tablet on the market.

Gee, what a 'cool' name

[drinkypoo]

Maybe after this fails they will try something that 'rocks' like... rock

And when that fails we can all call it 'brick'

Re:Gee, what a 'cool' name

[Luthair]

Ice cold, like the reception on their last phone. /rimshot

Robert Frost saw this coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.
 

Amazon Fire Phone was a good phone with ONE prob..

[PortHaven]

The restriction to Amazon's own store. They did it wrong....

The Fire phone was actually pretty nice. I later got one when they were discontinued to use as a tablet. But the issue is that they locked you into the Amazon store, and made it a hassle to use Google Play and buy standard apps. BAD!!!!

What Amazon needs to do, is include both stores, but incentivize using the Amazon store.

How would I do that? I would release my next phone in conjunction with Amazon Coin. Purchase of a new Amazon phone would include x number of Amazon coin. Amazon coin can be used on Amazon services, and be converted to Amazon gift cards.

Then explain that the purchase of apps thru Amazon's store will earn you a percentage of Amazon coin. Buy enough apps, and you can pay for your prime membership, Audible membership, purchase movie rentals....and more.

Let the user decide. But motivate the user.....don't be a !@#$ Apple.

Amazon's Android implementations are not so great

[dcavanaugh]

I had a Kindle Fire HD that went into brick mode a few years ago. Despite numerous attempts with Amazon tech support, Internet research, and all sorts of recovery procedures involving a "factory cable" to get into fast boot mode, it remains a brick to this day. It starts up OK, but when it gets to the unlock screen, it freezes after the swipe, leaving no keypad and thus no way to enter an unlock code. I have found others with the same problem, but not a single one seems to have a solution.

When Amazon elected to customize Android, they acquired the blame for any problems that vanilla Android does not have. IMHO, they have failed in this endeavor, on various devices in various ways. There are many reliable Android implementations out there, but I doubt any of them are from Amazon.

Re:THIS JUST IN:London Westminster Attack Hoax Bus

[sexconker]

Could someone watch these and summarize for me? Otherwise I'll have to wait until the end of the day to view them myself (and I'll likely forget).

I'm always open to listening to the "nutjobs" and giving them fair consideration. After all, just a few years ago you'd be branded as a "nutjob" for saying our government was reading on our emails, listening to our calls, tracking our location, hacking our PCs, etc.

They should have called it the Fyre phone!

[edtice1559]

I'm actually very happy with my Kindle Fire, though!

A pong

[Epsillon]

...of Ice and Fire. It'll go like this: They'll release it to rave reviews but as they mature they'll kill off all your favourite features. They'll also never finish them.

Just make it FOSS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow your users to do your work for you: We WANT to program these devices.

Re:Amazon Fire Phone was a good phone with ONE pro

[Anonymous Coward]

I am still using Fire Phone today, not with Amazon software but with Cyanogen. One thing I wish they did is to unlock the bootloader which would allow for the next version of android.
The hardware in this device is quite reasonable for the release time, it is the software that sucked. Also the 3d was nothing more than a gimmick which consumes battery like crazy. With Cyanogen battery life is quite good - several days with light use.
I still dont understand why they would not unlock the bootloader since the device is no longer made.

if amazon's android phones are anything like

[FudRucker]

amazon's android powered kindle book reader it is going to suck!
i bought amazon's android powered kindle and it sucked so bad i gave it away and just bought a samsung tablet and installed the kindle app, i rather kindle be just an app on a tablet than what amazon has done and totally taken control of the device's software

Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

When I saw "Fire Phone", I thought it was about Samsung.

Rodney had this...

[Bodhammer]

[on his second wife] "Oh, we were doomed from the start. I'm an Earth sign. She's a Water sign. Together, we made mud."
Thornton Melon (Rodney Dangerfield - Back to School)