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The Fire phone debacle

fastcompany.com

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Re: The Fire phone debacle

#31

Post by sekasi »

megaultra wrote: post #11
sekasi wrote: post #10

Bold or irresponsible move? Not sure. Given the incredibly low profit margin of most non-iphone smartphones on the market today (I think the average samsung profit margin on a phone is $11) I can't help but wonder what the real source of revenue was planned to be. Increased shopping through mobile? Make your android/ios products better? It just never made any sense, but I guess many successful products don't make ini…

Of course it's for increased shopping through mobile. My daughter bought a Kindle and she admitted her ebook purchases have increased tenfold . Others have told me similar. I'm deathly afraid to get one for the same reason. Frictionless purchases and vertical channel integration makes perfect sense to me.

Do you require a whole new device for frictionless shopping? I'm not so convinced that's the case.

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#32

Post by rhino369 »

sekasi wrote: post #10

Bold or irresponsible move? Not sure. Given the incredibly low profit margin of most non-iphone smartphones on the market today (I think the average samsung profit margin on a phone is $11) I can't help but wonder what the real source of revenue was planned to be. Increased shopping through mobile? Make your android/ios products better? It just never made any sense, but I guess many successful products don't make ini…

More and more digital content consumption is happening on mobile devices. And Amazon can't sell on iOS devices because Apple locks out anyone who won't pay a 30% ransom.

You can't buy a book or rent an instant movie on an iPhone. It is a big weak spot.

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#33

Post by rhino369 »

sekasi wrote: post #10

Bold or irresponsible move? Not sure. Given the incredibly low profit margin of most non-iphone smartphones on the market today (I think the average samsung profit margin on a phone is $11) I can't help but wonder what the real source of revenue was planned to be. Increased shopping through mobile? Make your android/ios products better? It just never made any sense, but I guess many successful products don't make ini…

More and more digital content consumption is happening on mobile devices. And Amazon can't sell on iOS devices because Apple locks out anyone who won't pay a 30% ransom.

You can't buy a book or rent an instant movie on an iPhone. It is a big weak spot.

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#34

Post by throwaway1x7q »

anindyabd wrote: post #29
throwaway1x7q wrote: post #25

I was there for a year. On that team. This article is quite inaccurate.

You were on the Fire Phone team? Fascinating. Care to elaborate on some of the inaccuracies?

Yes i was on the original team, before [almost] everyone walked out.

see below

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#35

Post by ctdonath »

devindotcom wrote: post #15

When I attended the launch, they had a hands-on period where I noticed a few of the issues people have pointed out in reviews. But every phone has issues. More worryingly, I asked about a few things that the unique tech in the Fire Phone could be used for - nothing groundbreaking, just little suggestions: "It'd be great to have the tilt controls do ____ here" or "Do you have plans to allow users to turn this on/off?"…

No power switch (even soft)? Really?

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#37

Post by throwaway1x7q »

fosk wrote: post #36
throwaway1x7q wrote: post #25

I was there for a year. On that team. This article is quite inaccurate.

Can you elaborate why it's inaccurate?

- team was not scrapped by jeff, at least not until large number of people walked out due to mismanagement

- prototypes that worked (and were of phone size & shape) existed more than 2 years before launch but then (as mentioned) team walked and it all had to be scrapped

- hw team often undercut sw team by replacing components and not telling anyone about it

- hw team often made mistakes of the very basic variety (two separate sets of pull-ups on a single i2c bus)

- some parts choices were motivated by personal interests of people in the hw team, even against their own data & analyses. This was allowed to proceed

- some of the management made the team look very foolish in front of vendors (asking questions that made no sense in the current millennium)

- sw team was kept busy by endless meetings with no end in sight, which significantly cut into any chance of productivity

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#38

Post by aroch »

chuckcode wrote: post #18

With apple charging 30% of revenue [1] for in app purchases I'm sure that Bezos and others will continue to be concerned about the platform as well as the content. Might be a better strategy to partner with android than start a new ecosystem but I'm sure they want to have more control over the platform. [1] http://www.macstories.net/stories/a-discussion-about-apples-...

Google[1] and Amazon[2] also charge 30%...

[1] https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

    >You receive 70% of the payment
[2] http://gameservices.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/inapp...

    >developers earn 70 percent

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#39

Post by MadManE »

ctdonath wrote: post #35
devindotcom wrote: post #15

When I attended the launch, they had a hands-on period where I noticed a few of the issues people have pointed out in reviews. But every phone has issues. More worryingly, I asked about a few things that the unique tech in the Fire Phone could be used for - nothing groundbreaking, just little suggestions: "It'd be great to have the tilt controls do ____ here" or "Do you have plans to allow users to turn this on/off?"…

No power switch (even soft)? Really?

I think he was speaking to turning the features on and off, not the phone. At least, that's how I read it.

Re: The Fire phone debacle

#40

Post by nailer »

devindotcom wrote: post #15

When I attended the launch, they had a hands-on period where I noticed a few of the issues people have pointed out in reviews. But every phone has issues. More worryingly, I asked about a few things that the unique tech in the Fire Phone could be used for - nothing groundbreaking, just little suggestions: "It'd be great to have the tilt controls do ____ here" or "Do you have plans to allow users to turn this on/off?"…

It's really weird. The FireTV voice recognition is innovative and in practice works incredibly well. Also the box is delivered already configured to your account. Both those ideas are so good they're retrospectively obvious, and you wonder why Apple and Google never did them. I'd buy it again at twice the price.

But the Fire phone? Ugly, overpriced, and nothing that's new is useful. I wouldn't buy it at half the price.

I've never seems company release two things so dramatically different in approach at around the same time before.

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