What makes the Fire Phone a particularly troubling adventure, however, is that Amazon’s CEO seemingly lost track of the essential driver of his company’s brand. It’s understandable that Bezos would want to give Amazon a premium shine, but to focus on a high-end product, instead of the kind of service that has always distinguished the company, proved misguided. “We can’t compete head to head with Apple,” says a high-level source at Lab126. “There is a branding issue: Apple is premium, while our customers want a great product at a great price.”
The Fire Phone failed not only because it was expensive, but also because its standout features were silly gimmicks, and everything else was just nondescript and boring. You can’t sell gimmicky, nondescript, and boring for that kind of money.
Strip the phone down to a midrange smartphone. Price it at $249, no discounting. Drop the free year of Prime. Phone is priced to be sold at a profit, not subsidized.
Now make Amazon into MVNO cell phone operator like Tracfone ( or OEM from them, Walmart does). Costs would then be low enough to include a free low-end voice/data plan with Prime. So instead of a receiving a free year of Prime phone owner would buy it to get the cell plan.
Sell additional voice/data minutes at a profit via Amazon.
If you could get a free basic smartphone plan as part of Prime the phone would sell like hotcakes.
Bezos built the phone he wanted, not what the middle class wants. Bezos is not your average consumer.
And put real Android on it. Without that, $249 is about $248 more than I’d pay for one.
They eventually sold an unlocked version for a “black friday” special for $199, and it did catch my attention.
But an AT&T only phone (that AT&T wasn’t pushing – the Lumia is what you get), and when it was still expensive, and when most weren’t off contract…
It didn’t have a “killer” unique feature. And because Amazon is worse than most others with anti-rooting, no one experimented with the unique features. Android is big, but Amazon’s mutant android isn’t.
I am really regretting not getting that $199 sale. I got a Fire Phone for $0.99 from AT&T with two year service plan (+40 upgrade fee and $39 tax). But if I buy a 2 year warranty with accidental damage coverage, it is $99 with a $75 deductible. A spare phone would have been better for only a little more.
I think the Fire Phone is a nice phone, but I have not been using large 4G SmartPhones before. I was actually driving down the freeway listening to a comedian do their set via Netflix.
The one negative it has is that Amazon locks you in to their appstore (I think you can use another appstore (not google but has most of the google app) – I did on my Kindle Fire HD but haven’t tried it on this phone.
For some reason WhatsApp was not in the store, but I was able to download it from some website. But I don’t miss many apps. One they don’t offer the YouTube app. I guess that is because it comes from Google, because they do offer Netflix which competes directly with their instant video.
If you sell me a phone that doesn’t run whatsapp or youtube it has to be at most $50. This can only be used as a backup phone or as an mp3 player.
Right now the most interesting Amazon Android device for me is the Fire HD 6.
Amazon drank too much of their own koolaid, and apparently someone in that organization though people would pay a premium price for a device which is mainly a glorified shopping terminal for their ecosystem. Yeaaah…