Well, at long last we have the Amazon phone. \u00a0The Fire Phone is the Kindle Fire, shrunk to the increasingly-standard 4.7\u201d screen size. \u00a0It does have a couple of party pieces of note:<\/p>\n
* Firefly, a universal \u201crecognize everything and send you right to Amazon to buy it\u201d function that\u2019s already on the Amazon iOS app under the name of Flow. \u00a0Although the Firefly implementation looks more comprehensive and is apparently extendible via an API.<\/p>\n
* Dynamic Perspective, an approach to the UI that uses four (!) front-facing cameras with infrared lighting (!!) to do constant real-time face recognition and modify the screen display accordingly in a sort of 3-D effect (!!!). \u00a0Setting aside the \u201con camera at all times\u201d aspect that will no doubt make the Edward Snowden worshippers crap their trousers, my immediate first thought was \u201cAmazon: F Yo Battery Life, Lawya\u201d.<\/p>\n
* Mayday, the instant-tech-support app made famous during March Madness by Craig Sager\u2019s exotic fashion choices.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the thing: the appeal of the Kindle Fire was that it was the first genuinely non-shit-on-toast Android tablet. \u00a0It got there by eschewing most of what made Android Android<\/em> – carving off the UI and the Google features in place of an Amazon UI optimized for watching and reading your Amazon-purchased media, with apps bought from a curated and well-managed store. \u00a0In other words, by making a tablet that was everything the iPad was accused of being, and bringing it in at a ridiculously reasonable price.<\/p>\n But the phone is $199 with a two-year AT&T contract. And AT&T is the only launch carrier. \u00a0This sounds an awful lot like what happened with the Moto X, where a phone with less than cutting-edge specs was offered at premium price on the grounds that its Unique Selling Proposition was worth the difference. \u00a0It works with Apple, because they can offer the largest app ecosystem in mobile and the ease of use that goes along with iOS. It works with Samsung, because they max out the spec sheet and flood the zone with advertising. \u00a0It didn\u2019t work with the Moto X, because Google simply didn\u2019t put the kind of promotion behind it that it needed\u2026and because its USP remained tied to AT&T for too long.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the thing about the Fire Phone\u2026you have to really want to use the Amazon ecosystem. \u00a0I mean, really<\/em> want to use it. \u00a0Because you can buy stuff from Amazon on regular Android or iOS phones. \u00a0In fact, right now, your iOS device can be used for everything on the Fire except Dynamic Perspective – shopping, Instant Video, even an approximation of Firefly via the Flow option. \u00a0And some of the things you give up – like Bluetooth LE or even multitasking, in the first iteration – are going to be a lot to ask, especially in a world where wearables are the next great frontier. \u00a0Try telling Ed Earl Brown – or his wife, as likely as not – that they can\u2019t use the Fitbit with their Fire Phone.<\/p>\n Then again, this is not a power-user phone. \u00a0This is a phone that you can give your mother, and she can use it to make calls, take pictures, probably do text and email, watch movies, listen to music, read 50 Shades Of Unintentional Comedy on the down-low, and if she has problems or has questions, press a button and there\u2019s somebody to help instead of speed-dialing you to try to talk her through something. \u00a0Maybe there\u2019s a market there, although the jury is out until more people interact with this thing in the real world. That\u2019s actually another trick: Google\u2019s attempt to sell the Nexus One was a complete bust. This phone is going to have to be in front of people, and just having it at the AT&T store isn\u2019t going to cut it. \u00a0It needs to be in Target, in Best Buy, in Wal-Mart, and people need to be able to see how things like Firefly and Mayday and Dynamic Perspective work in the real world. \u00a0That will do more to sell it than just looking at video online and taking their word for it.<\/p>\n But right now, there\u2019s nothing that seizes me like the Moto X did and makes me think \u201cI must try this phone.\u201d Which means it\u2019s definitely not targeted for my market. \u00a0If it is, then Amazon may have just laid an egg. \u00a0It remains to be seen how it works out for everyone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, at long last we have the Amazon phone. \u00a0The Fire Phone is the Kindle Fire, shrunk to the increasingly-standard 4.7\u201d screen size. \u00a0It does have a couple of party pieces of note: * Firefly, a universal \u201crecognize everything and send you right to Amazon to buy it\u201d function that\u2019s already on the Amazon iOS … <\/p>\n