21–30 of 188 posts
Jeff should spilit the Amazon in to two companies, Amazon.com and Amazon Research Labs. Amazon.com will be the old Amazon and he can continue his "copy the latest gadget or trend" in Amazon Research Labs. I think he should shut down everything and focus on AWS and Amazon.com only.
I have a Fire Phone. I couldn't resist, when they were $199 and include a year of Prime (which I already pay for), it's $100 for a quite high end piece of hardware. And, the hardware actually is really great. Camera is great, display is great, touchscreen is great. 2GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. It's very high end phone hardware at a very low end phone price. That said, it's an awful phone. The OS feels clunky and…
Amazon is attempting to do this. They have been successful in many different ways, but for every winner they create they need to create multiple losers. The fire phone seems to be one of these losers, but time will tell.
I really admire Amazon's tolerance for failure. Most large companies would never take such risks.
>"it now sells for 99 cents" (OP) // Where can I get one for 99c, in UK on ebay [new] they're about £200 (~$300) on O2 network or £250 unlocked. Lowest monthly for a contract is £28.
I'm going to guess that's 99c on contract. So not really 99c at all.
"Have you seen my phone, it was free." [ie £45 a month for 2 years]
>"it now sells for 99 cents" (OP) // Where can I get one for 99c, in UK on ebay [new] they're about £200 (~$300) on O2 network or £250 unlocked. Lowest monthly for a contract is £28.
It says that's the price with a contract. So it's not really $0.99, it's $0.99 plus a monthly installment you agree to pay over the next two years, which will be rolled into the rest of your wireless service charge. US cellular providers have very opaque pricing so it's hard to tell how much those installments really are. But usually when you have the option to buy a phone with or without a contract, the spread's $40…
>"Originally priced at $199 (with contract) and intended as an iPhone competitor, it now sells for 99 cents, and Amazon has taken a $170 million write-down largely attributable to unsold Fire Phone inventory."* //
So they are comparing '99c' to '$199 (with contract)'.
Meh, I should know better than to expect realistic reporting.
[to avoid any doubt I'm not disagreeing with you in any way]
People also fall out of love, as they have done at one point or another with many of the examples mentioned here. Be essential, that' s much better.
I have a Fire Phone. I couldn't resist, when they were $199 and include a year of Prime (which I already pay for), it's $100 for a quite high end piece of hardware. And, the hardware actually is really great. Camera is great, display is great, touchscreen is great. 2GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. It's very high end phone hardware at a very low end phone price. That said, it's an awful phone. The OS feels clunky and…
Interesting review. I haven't tried the fire phone and hadn't considered what would happen when amazon tried to redo the UI. I find the UI on amazon incredibly cluttered and nonsensical and sounds like the phone is similar in nature.
The UI is minimalist, and non-configurable, to the point of feeling like a feature phone.
I was there for a year. On that team. This article is quite inaccurate.
They thought they could execute perfectly on designing and shipping phones. I believe they can. The problem is the market for phones doesn't care about flawless execution. Legendarily the existing network providers suck and the existing phones aren't too great either but people love them anyway and never make their buying decisions based on who's most likely to ship on time or least likely to crash.
They would fail exactly the same way if they tried to sell fast food or American cars or car insurance, where nobody cares about quality and only want low price. They would be a huge success in something like medical supply logistics (don't they already sell stuff like that?) or aerospace (spaceX better look out)
The challenge for them is trying to sell perfect logistics, perfect performance, perfect execution in general to markets where people currently really don't care. I think they are running out of consumer markets that they don't already dominate where people care about flawless execution.
Its interesting that all the stuff I use with my phone comes from Amazon. Case, bluetooth ear piece, BT headphones, charger, cable... I'd even buy a phone from them, although I'd buy the phone I want, not a fire.
Also note they're good at shipping a variety but not good at making anything. I never want Amazon's XYZ, ever. I want an XYZ, and Amazon is the best in the business at getting a XYZ delivered to me.