Flappy Bird Returns As A Multiplayer Game… But Only For Amazon’s Fire TV

NOBODY PANIC! FLAPPY BIRD IS BACK. Kind of.

Back in February, Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen pulled his game from the store, citing his guilt for making what he considered an “addictive product”.

He later promised that the game would return in August, but with a few tweaks. It’d intentionally be “less addictive”, and would have a new multiplayer element added into the mix.

It’s August — and sure enough, it’s back. But it turns out there was another twist he didn’t mention before: at least for now, it’s exclusive to Amazon’s Fire TV box.

Now rebranded as “Flappy Birds Family“, the game tries to focus on a two-player mode that pits players against each other in a race to a pre-set finish line. In a strange move, Dong has opted to complicate the game a bit — instead of only having to worry about pipes, the game now has roaming enemies (like the little ghost dude pictured below) that try to get in your way and wreck your progress.

The decision to go exclusive to the Fire TV is also a strange one. Unless Amazon kicked down a small mountain of cash for the exclusivity, tying your game to a weird psuedo-console that not many people own doesn’t really make it less addictive — it just makes it less likely anyone will care. So did Amazon shell out? If so, how much? We’re asking around — shoot us a tip if you know anything.

Amazon’s Android App Store Opens Up Shop In Egypt, Singapore And 39 Other Countries

If you’re thinking about launching your Android app on Amazon’s App Store, your potential market just got quite a bit bigger.

This morning, Amazon is rolling out their App Store in 41 new places, bumping the grand total up to 236 countries and territories. At this point, it’s getting tough to think of a region where Amazon’s App Store isn’t up and running.

Today’s expansions are focused on Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

One catch worth noting: just because Amazon can sell your app in a new country doesn’t mean they necessarily will. If your app goes against a region’s laws or local restrictions, Amazon won’t allow it to be published there. It seems Amazon is mostly counting on developers to declare what their apps contain — but if a government comes knocking with a takedown request for a specific app, I wouldn’t expect Amazon to put up much of a fight.

Here’s the full list of countries coming online today (if you’re looking for the full list of countries supported by Amazon, that’s right here):

AlgeriaAzerbaijanBahrainBangladeshBrunei DarussalamBurkina FasoChadDjiboutiEgyptEritreaGambiaGuineaIndonesiaJordanKazakhstanKuwaitKyrgyzstanLebanonMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMauritaniaMoroccoNigerNigeriaOmanPakistanPalestinian TerritoriesQatarSaudi ArabiaSenegalSierra LeoneSingaporeSomaliaTajikistanTurkeyTurkmenistanUnited Arab EmiratesUzbekistanYemen

Amazon’s Mayday Service On Fire Phone Means It Might Be Able To Sell Its Unique New Features

Amazon has brought Mayday to the Fire Phone, it announced today. The Mayday service offers one-tap access to customer service agents who can talk to phone users via video chat, and take over the screen on their devices to show them exactly how to do something, complete with annotations. The service is available 24 hours, and service representatives will respond to requests within 15 seconds, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said on stage.

It’s accessible from any screen on the Fire Phone via a simple pull-down of the menu from the top of the screen, in the same way you’d access notifications on an iPhone or Android device. Mayday is a big deal for Amazon, which recently shared stats about use of the service on its Kindle Fire HDX tablets. The company said that customer service agents generally respond in fewer than 10 seconds, which sounds like magic when you consider how long people generally have to wait on hold — often without even talking to a human — in most customer service scenarios.

Mayday is available free to all owners of the device, but its cost may be built into the cost of ownership; AT&T is going to charge $199 for the entry-level 32GB version, which is right up there with flagship devices from top-tier Android makers and the price of Apple’s iPhone at launch, despite the fact that on paper at least, its internal specs have more in common with last year’s Android flagships than today’s Galaxy S5, HTC One and others.

Fire Phone might need Mayday, too. It has a unique perspective-shifting 3D feature that makes it quite different from ordinary phones, as well as a dedicated Firefly button to let it identify products on the fly. These are not features that smartphone owners will be familiar with, and they could well require some explaining in order for new users to get comfortable operating them.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

AT&T Will Sell Amazon’s Fire Phone For $199 On A 2 Year Contract

Given that Amazon’s newly announced Fire Phone is largely one gigantic portal for Amazon to sell things (there’s a dedicated hardware button just for recognizing products!), some folks were betting on the device itself being free — or at least really, really cheap.

Alas, no such luck. Based on product pages that have just gone up on AT&T, it looks like the Fire will sell for roughly the same price you’d expect any other phone to go for on a two-year contract. Meanwhile, product pages that have just gone up on Amazon’s own site detail the off-contract prices.

As rumored, AT&T is getting this phone as a carrier exclusive.

The breakdown, so far:

$199 for the 32GB model on a 2-year contract, $649 without contract$299 for the 64GB model on a 2-year contract, $749 without contract

These prices may change as the announcement rolls on (Amazon still hasn’t officially confirmed the prices), but for now they’re looking accurate.

Update: Amazon has now confirmed the above prices.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Who in their right mind would buy Amazon’s Fire Phone?

Who in their right mind would buy Amazon’s Fire Phone? | ExtremeTech #colorbox,#cboxOverlay{display:none !important;}#leaderboard .lboard .topad{width:auto;}.article .title h2 ,.article{font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;}.extreme-share{float:left;margin:0 5px 15px !important;}.tags .taglist li a {font:12px/15px arial !important;}.tags .title {padding:3px 0 0 !important;}.tags li a {display:inline-block !important;}.visual .switcher li {overflow:hidden;line-height:17px;}.etech-newsletter .btn-signup {cursor:pointer;}.etech-newsletter span.message {font-weight:bold;}.article strong {font: 16px/22px ProximaNovaRgBold,arial,sans-serif;}(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js' %3E%3C/script%3E")); COMSCORE.beacon({ c1:2, c2:6885615, c3:"", c4:"", c5:"", c6:"", c15:"" }); ExtremeTechTop Searches:Windows 8AutosQuantumIntelTrending:LinuxWindows 8NASABatteriesAutomobilesHomeComputingMobileInternetGamingElectronicsExtremeDealsExtremeTechComputingWho in their right mind would buy Amazon’s Fire Phone?Who in their right mind would buy Amazon’s Fire Phone?By Sebastian Anthony on June 19, 2014 at 9:38 amCommentShare This article

As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, strutted calmly around the stage in Seattle and reeled off the Fire Phone’s long, long list of features, I started to become inordinately excited. As a tech writer, I’ve always found it hard to not get excited at things like magnetic tangle-free headphones, stereo speakers, cloud-based computer vision (Firefly identification), and a head-tracking 3D interface. But as the dust settled and my pulse returned to normal and I begun to think less like techfreak and more like a rational human being, I started wondering: Who would actually buy Amazon’s Fire Phone? Would you? Would your friends? Would your mom?

On paper, the Fire Phone is a capable device. The tech specs are good, but not top-notch — for its flagship price of $200-on-contract you’d expect flagship specs, but both the screen and SoC are lacking. The camera, a 13-megapixel unit with optical image stabilization (OIS), sounds quite exciting. Curiously there’s 802.11ac WiFi, but no support for Bluetooth 4.0/LE. There’s no removable battery or micro SD card slot. Hardware-wise, the Fire Phone is a bit like a weaker, less attractive HTC One M8… but priced the same, for some reason.

Fire Phone camera, versus Galaxy S5 and iPhone 5S.

Amazon hopes that two new features will make up for the Fire Phone’s rather optimistic pricing: Firefly and Dynamic Perspective. Firefly uses the rear camera to identify objects and phone numbers. This feat of computer vision is apparently done in Amazon’s cloud, rather than on the phone (good for battery consumption, bad for data usage). The idea is that you can point your Fire Phone at a bag of jerky or a DVD, and then buy it on Amazon via your phone. Dynamic Perspective uses some forward-facing infrared cameras to track your head, and then alters the phone’s display to give the impression of 3D.

Killer features, or just gimmicks?

In the tech industry it is not unusual to unveil exciting new features to a baying audience. Over the last few years we have seen dozens of “exciting” new developments that looked great on stage, on paper, and in the store — but in practice, at home, after the honeymoon period, they sucked. I’m not saying that Firefly and Dynamic Perspective are definitely gimmicks, but they have all the usual hallmarks.

Firefly is predicated on the idea that users really want to scan and buy stuff while they walk around. Amazon would absolutely love it if we all started one-click buying things with Firefly, but I’m not sure if that’s what consumers want. I’m sure there will be times when Firefly comes in handy, but I don’t know how many people out there would buy an Amazon phone specifically for it. As we covered earlier today, you are making a big concession when you opt for Amazon’s Fire OS instead of Android or iOS. Does anyone remember Google Goggles?

Dynamic Perspective is neat, but I worry about its long-term usefulness. It’s not full glasses-free 3D like the 3DS; rather, it just lets you “peek” around objects by tilting your phone or moving your head. The problem is, apps will have to be specifically tailored to support Dynamic Perspective. On stage, Amazon showed us a single game and the Maps app. This isn’t to say that developers won’t add support to their apps and games, but don’t forget this is Fire OS, not Android. Fire OS apps are usually just repackaged Android apps; expecting developers to add something as significant as 3D support, without comparable 3D functionality in either Android or iOS, is a long shot. Unless the Fire Phone explodes in popularity (unlikely), the only developer that will embrace Dynamic Perspective is Amazon. It might be fun to look around the lock screen or a bottle of sriracha in 3D… but how long will that keep you hooked?

Next page: Who would actually buy the Fire Phone?

1 of 2 Next Tagged In hardwaresoftwaremobile computingsmartphonesandroidiosappsamazonamazon primee-commercefire osfireflyamazon appstorefire phoneShare This Article .article {margin:0px !important;}.AR_1 {margin :0 0 20px 0 !important;}.AR_2 {margin:0 0 20px 0;} CommentPost a Comment http://www.joncole.info/ Jon Cole

The one person I can think of that would buy this is my dad, who is already heavily invested in the Kindle UI and ecosystem from owning a Kindle Fire Tablet and using the Amazon App Store on his current Samsung phone. By the same token, however, the AT&T exclusivity means he’ll never buy it because he’s similarly invested in buying his cell service from Verizon.

http://www.korioi.net/ Korios

Only Amazon fan-boys and heavily Amazon involved users would buy this phone I think. And they are not so many. Amazon will shoot itself in the foot with this phone.

SpideyBry

I’m not disagreeing with your comment, but I am so tired of the use of “fan-boy”. Is it just me?

Zibidibodel

It’s not just you.

Mo Lillaney

They should have just created an app with all the killer amazon features for each platform. Integrate music, video, marketplace, firefly, and dynamic perspective all into a single, well developed app. Makes a lot more sense to me than an entire product centered around it.

Andrew Finkenbinder

Nobody is going to buy this thing at that price.

Ray C

Personally I have no interest in this phone, but I guess it will be great for people really into constantly buying stuff from Amazon. As far as features or gimmicks, it’s always a gimmick when it’s not your preferred platform. I really don’t care much for this phone from what I see, but I’d be willing that most people who would call any feature a gimmick, would be raving about how great it is were it on their preferred platform.

Sean O’Neill

Amen to all of the comments. This could be a big bomb for Amazon. My Nexus 5 was $350, literally half the price of this phone. Does Amazon really think that this thing is going to compete with the S5, the Iphone 6, or the Nexus? They must be insane.

Sean O’Neill

Imagine if they tried to do this with their tablets. A 16GB Kindle HDX that is Wifi only and costs as much as a comparable Ipad Air ($500) would get absolutely destroyed in the marketplace. People buy Kindles because they are cheap hardware for the features that you get.

mori bund

This thing is (very much like the FacebookPhone) DOA.

Sean Lumly

I can see this device doing very well. I don’t necessarily see this handset selling huge numbers out of the gate, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it gain significant momentum gradually as have previous Amazon devices. I suspect that the market that they are targeting is not likely the type that comment below these types of articles, and presumably pour over spec sheets.

In this case, I think that the killer feature is simplicity. The ability to get live tech-support (mayday) and training right on your device is a very powerful idea that I’m sure will make novice users much more confident. The launcher also has the impossible-to-misuse quality of the iOS launcher. The handset should be very easy to jump in and use, with less complexity than many flavours of Android.

Where the phone falls short (IMO) is the styling. It certainly looks functional, but seems very generic and bland next to some of its flagship competition. It remains to be seen if this matters to its target market, but I would guess that it would.

Moz Gren

An excellent summary of my own feelings on this subject. It looks like I’m the target customer – middle aged and middle class -
and I might have been interested. I can’t see how this is an
improvement on my almost 4 year old Nokia N8 though – and I don’t want
Amazon in my pocket.

Zunalter

I can’t really argue about your points on the price, I think there are a lot of interested people who will pass because they can’t quite stomach a $700-800 price tag, even with a free 12 months of Prime thrown in. However, as fair as your points were on their ecosystem, we were all saying the same thing about Android 4 years ago…and though Amazon is not Google, it’s still Amazon. I think they have a shot at being able to build a respectable ecosystem for themselves.

Phobos

Good luck to them, I think they should come up with this 2 or 3yrs ago. Kind of like MS, late to the party in smartphones and tablets.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Yep, indeed. I almost put in a Windows Phone comparison actually. It’s a pretty similar scenario. (But sadly, I think Amazon actually has a larger captive audience and might actually do better than WinPho.)

SpideyBry

I’m still very happy with my Windows phone. I’m excited about the upcoming Cortana feature. From what I’ve read so far about the amazon phone I am not interested in switching to it.

DustinALedonne

I’m sure there will be times when Firefly comes in handy, but I don’t know how many people out there would buy an Amazon phone specifically for it. As we covered earlier today, you are making a big concession when you opt for Amazon’s Fire OS instead of Android or iOS. Does anyone remember Google Goggles? http://sn.im/290xdj8

brekinapez

Now why would anyone want to order a bag of beef jerky from Amazon? A case, maybe, but are you really going to go in the convenience store, online order the bag of jerky SITTING ON THE SHELF IN FRONT OF YOU, add in shipping and wait for the bag to arrive? Real men don’t wait for jerky.

FollowFollow @ExtremeTech!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');
ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.

More Articles ET deals: Today only! Toshiba Satellite Core i5 laptop for $450 Jun 19How to bring back the Start menu and button to Windows 8 Jun 19Intel unveils new Xeon chip with integrated FPGA, touts 20x performance boost Jun 19The great flying car dream: With Terrafugia, Toyota, and Musk on board, has their time finally come? Jun 19Hacker hijacks thousands of Synology storage devices, forces them to mine 500 million Dogecoins Jun 19 About ExtremeTechAdvertisingContact ExtremeTechET ForumsTerms of UsePrivacy PolicyZiff DavisJobs AdChoice/**/var _bap_p_overrides=_bap_p_overrides||{};_bap_p_overrides[8]={new_window:true}; (function(s, p, d) { var h=d.location.protocol, i=p+"-"+s, e=d.getElementById(i), r=d.getElementById(p+"-root"), u=h==="https:"?"d1z2jf7jlzjs58.cloudfront.net" :"static."+p+".com"; if (e) return; e = d.createElement(s); e.id = i; e.async = true; e.src = h+"//"+u+"/p.js"; r.appendChild(e);})("script", "parsely", document);

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Copyright 1996-2014 Ziff Davis, LLC.PCMag Digital Group All Rights Reserved. ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, LLC. is prohibited.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Boot up: Amazon's challenge, 'blue packets', and disrupting disruption

A burst of 7 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Two and a half years after launching its first Kindle Fire tablet, Amazon is expected to unveil its first smartphone on June 18, 2014. Usage statistics point to the company already having made a sizable impact in North America on the strength of its existing tablet offerings, but becoming the market leader will not be quick or easy for the online retailer. Samsung users continue to generate the majority of Android-based Web traffic in North America, and LG recently overtook Amazon to become the second-largest Android traffic source across the continent.

Don't worry, you don't have to sign in to LinkedIn to read it. Rui Carmo is head of department at SAPO, a Portuguese carrier:

Once in a while, I get e-mail asking me how the telco industry works. My usual reply is "it is far, far more complex than anything else you could ever imagine", and the comeback (if any) is usually around the lines of "but isn't it just a bunch of servers like the Internet"?

Enough deeply clueless people keep doing this that I thought it worth while to try and describe how a new mobile service is designed, implemented and launched end-to-end. All five (yes, five) years' worth of it.

Year five: "The Linux guy eventually leaves the company to start his own internet venture and ends up buying Google five years later."

The Lee family may have to restructure their holdings in Samsung because of 72-year-old Lee Kun-hee's health problems:

The family's needs seem to be two-fold: to raise money to pay inheritance tax, and to maintain control of the companies while doing so. Their control of the most valuable asset, smartphone leader Samsung Electronics, rests on direct family holdings of just 4.7%, while Samsung Life Insurance has 7.6% and two other affiliated companies hold 5.3%.

Crucially, Samsung Electronics also holds an 11% stake in itself in the form of treasury shares. Under Korean securities law, companies don't have to cancel shares they buy back. These don't have voting rights while they are held by the company, but would if they were transferred, for example, to a holding company. That is a scenario tipped by CLSA analysts and would follow the model of previous Korean conglomerate restructurings.

Investors have agitated for Samsung Electronics to return part of its $60 billion cash hoard. It seems likely that a large portion of such returns would come as buybacks instead of dividends, as adding to the treasury holding would help consolidate ownership.

Have a gander at the shareholding structure. It's a doozy. But what sort of meaningless headline is "could offer opportunities"?

Kevin Kelly (and this is just one extract from a long wide-ranging interview):

There is a huge lag between the arrival and our use of something and our complete understanding of it, what its role is and what it means and its effects plus and minus. That gap, even when we speed up, is going to remain. There's still going to be a gap between our placement of it and our acceptance of it. The acceptance comes first, but this is actually important, because I did a study of technology looking at prohibitions, which don't work. Prohobitions are always just postponements. We can't regulate technology by prohibiting it. We have to only regulate it by use. We have to use things in order to steer them or rearrange them or reassign them. We can't manage our technology by not using them, by prohibiting them, by outlawing them.

Jill Lepore:

The theory of disruption is meant to be predictive. On March 10, 2000, Christensen launched a $3.8m Disruptive Growth Fund, which he managed with Neil Eisner, a broker in St. Louis. Christensen drew on his theory to select stocks. Less than a year later, the fund was quietly liquidated: during a stretch of time when the Nasdaq lost 50% of its value, the Disruptive Growth Fund lost 64%.

In 2007, Christensen told Business Week that "the prediction of the theory would be that Apple won't succeed with the iPhone," adding, "History speaks pretty loudly on that." In its first five years, the iPhone generated $150bn of revenue. In the preface to the 2011 edition of "The Innovator's Dilemma," Christensen reports that, since the book's publication, in 1997, "the theory of disruption continues to yield predictions that are quite accurate." This is less because people have used his model to make accurate predictions about things that haven't happened yet than because disruption has been sold as advice, and because much that happened between 1997 and 2011 looks, in retrospect, disruptive.

The precision with which Lepore tears apart the case studies Christensen has used is forensic and unrelenting. It doesn't destroy some part of disruption theory, but it calls a lot of it into question. Definitely a must-read.

"It's a bit of a head-scratcher for us right now," acknowledged Marcus Ash, a group program manager for Windows Phone, when he was asked about Cortana's possible future on Android and iOS at the SMX Advanced search marketing conference in Seattle today.
For example, a Windows PC user who uses an Android phone could find Cortana on the desktop or tablet to be an incomplete experience if the virtual assistant wasn't able to take into account activity on the phone, and interact with the user via that device.
However, Ash added, "It's interesting to think about the future of these assistants and whether they become a reason to buy into the ecosystem. That is the other tension we have. If you play this out five to ten years, and these assistants become the reason you choose Android or iOS or Windows, then what's our position? Could Cortana be the thing that, as a Windows user, (makes me feel like) I've got to get a Windows phone?"

Thus neatly embodying why you can't be equally a devices and services company. A services company must think cross-platform; a devices company ties services to its own platform.

Shaun McGill bought a Windows 8 laptop because his son's school required it:

I have been using a Mac for the past 4 years and a Windows 7 laptop for work, but nothing prepared me for the changes in Windows 8 and the sad news that some things never seem to change.

This laptop came with Windows 8, not 8.1, installed and despite realising that there is no start button, when I came to try to work the PC without it things immediately became confusing. After some time I realised that I could tap the Desktop tile to get back to familiarity and then I couldn't work out how to find the installed apps. A selection are shown as tiles, but that didn't help until I accidentally swiped from the top of the screen to be greeted with an 'All apps' option at the bottom. Tapping this brings up a disorganised list of apps to choose from, but at least I could pin them to the taskbar which offered a minimal shortcut setup for my needs.

And so I proceeded to install the updates that were available, all 97 of them.

Then Norton gets involved too.

You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on Pinboard

To suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Fire OS vs. Android: Can Amazon’s new Fire Phone justify its ostentatious price tag?

Fire OS vs. Android: Can Amazon’s new Fire Phone justify its ostentatious price tag? | ExtremeTech #colorbox,#cboxOverlay{display:none !important;}#leaderboard .lboard .topad{width:auto;}.article .title h2 ,.article{font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;}.extreme-share{float:left;margin:0 5px 15px !important;}.tags .taglist li a {font:12px/15px arial !important;}.tags .title {padding:3px 0 0 !important;}.tags li a {display:inline-block !important;}.visual .switcher li {overflow:hidden;line-height:17px;}.etech-newsletter .btn-signup {cursor:pointer;}.etech-newsletter span.message {font-weight:bold;}.article strong {font: 16px/22px ProximaNovaRgBold,arial,sans-serif;}(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js' %3E%3C/script%3E")); COMSCORE.beacon({ c1:2, c2:6885615, c3:"", c4:"", c5:"", c6:"", c15:"" }); ExtremeTechTop Searches:Windows 8AutosQuantumIntelTrending:LinuxWindows 8NASABatteriesAutomobilesHomeComputingMobileInternetGamingElectronicsExtremeDealsExtremeTechMobileFire OS vs. Android: Can Amazon’s new Fire Phone justify its ostentatious price tag?Fire OS vs. Android: Can Amazon’s new Fire Phone justify its ostentatious price tag?By Ryan Whitwam on June 19, 2014 at 7:31 amCommentShare This article

Everyone has been wondering what Amazon would do when it finally got into the smartphone game, and now we can stop wondering — it’s the Fire Phone. Unimaginitive name aside, this is Amazon’s attempt to expand its custom Android build (called Fire OS) from tablets to phones, which keeps Amazon’s content and shopping experience in your pocket all day. The smartphone’s specs are high-end, but it’s the experience that matters most. The $200 on-contract price tag is a premium price point for a smartphone – does Amazon’s first foray into Android phones justify that price?

If you’ve never spent time with a Kindle Fire tablet, you might not even realize that Fire OS is a version of Android. There are still hints of the little green robot peeking through Amazon’s tough gunmetal gray Fire OS theme. However, one aspect of Android you won’t find on the Fire Phone is the part everyone associates with Android — there are no Google apps or services. Amazon is forking Android for each of its devices, usually grabbing one of the newer versions of Google’s software from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) when the time comes to develop. The open source build of Android comes with none of Google’s framework built-in because those parts are proprietary. That’s fine, and maybe even preferable for Amazon’s purposes.

When you buy a Fire Phone, you get Amazon’s services in place of Google’s. That means no Chrome, Play Store, Google Play Music, Google Drive, or Gmail. Instead you get Silk Browser, Amazon Appstore, Cloud Player, Cloud Drive, and Amazon’s generic email client. Depending on how deeply embedded you are in Google’s ecosystem, that might not be the end of the world.

Since Amazon is using Android as the base of its platform, the apps in the Appstore are just Android apps with a few small tweaks for Amazon’s distribution system and DRM. However, just because developers can put their apps on Amazon doesn’t mean they will. That might be the biggest issue with the Fire Phone as a premium device — the Amazon Appstore can’t hold a candle to Google Play. The Appstore only has fifteen of the top twenty free Android apps and games, and just nine of twenty top paid apps and games.

Amazon is doing much better when it comes to other types of content. Fire OS has built-in support for Amazon’s video library, which you still can’t get on regular Android devices. There is also a vast selection of music with cloud storage. However, Google now has an excellent subscription music service in Play Music. If you want to read on a smartphone, which isn’t really ideal, the Kindle ecosystem built into the Fire Phone is far superior to Google Play Books.

Amazon spent a large part of its event talking about how its massive selection of products would tie into the Fire Phone via Amazon Firefly. This is a software feature that uses the camera to instantly ID products and link you to them on Amazon. It can also figure out music and video content for you. It’s undeniably neat, but you have to wonder how much use it will get. Similar apps and services already exist for Android, though in a more limited fashion. Will Firefly be a killer feature or just a gimmick? Time will tell.

There is no analog in Google’s Android for Amazon’s head-tracking “Dynamic Perspective” tech. The company is promising a more immersive shopping and gaming experience that lets you change the view perspective simply by moving your head. If it works, that’s a good thing. If not, you might wish Amazon had skipped the quartet of IR-sensitive cameras and kept the price lower. Mayday is also unique, and the ultimate mom-friendly feature. Tap this one button and you get instant live support for your Fire Phone.

Amazon is trying to get away from selling devices so cheaply that it eats all the profit, as it does with the Fire tablets. The Fire Phone is being sold in a very traditional way on AT&T with a two-year contract (it’s $650-750 without one). The retailer is probably making money on every device instead of just hoping it hooks more consumers of its content with a cheap device. The free year of Amazon Prime does sweeten the deal, but more capable devices like the Galaxy S5 and LG G3 are selling for the same up-front price. Amazon might be paddling upstream here.

Tagged In softwaremobile computingsmartphonesandroidgoogleappsamazonopen source3Dfire osfire phoneShare This Article .article {margin:0px !important;}.AR_1 {margin :0 0 20px 0 !important;}.AR_2 {margin:0 0 20px 0;} CommentPost a Comment http://www.andyosier.com/ Andy Osier

“The smartphone’s specs are high-end, but …”

You meant to say “aren’t high-end,” right?

SuperTech

According to CNET, (which compares the specs side by side with the iphone and S5), the specs are right in line with that kind of smart phone. http://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-fire-phone-compare-apple-iphone-5s-samsung-galaxy-s5/

Of course, I guess they could be wrong.

http://www.andyosier.com/ Andy Osier

I guess the 720p screen is what makes it seem subpar to me.

SuperTech

I’m actually in the market for a smart phone. I’ve had the same old flip phone for over 10 years now. I don’t even think it texts. Now I have been for 6 months but have been waiting for something to ‘blow me away’ with something amazing. The HTC One M8 in champagn gold was the first one to make me sit up and take notice, but just shy of ‘must have’. I use Amazon services a lot, and I shop with Amazon quite a bit, so I would really like to see this phone up in close and in person.

ShanieOneillnuc

my classmate’s aunt makes $68 every hour on the computer . She has been
fired for 7 months but last month her paycheck was $15495 just working on the
computer for a few hours. visit the site R­e­x­1­0­.­C­O­M­

ShanieOneillnuc

just before I looked at the receipt ov $8130 , I didn’t believe that my
sister woz like actualy bringing in money part-time from there pretty old
laptop. . there aunts neighbour has been doing this 4 only about 22 months and
at present repayed the mortgage on their appartment and bought themselves a
Chrysler . see here M­o­n­e­y­d­u­t­i­e­s­.­C­O­M­

Ray C

I really don’t shop Amazon as much as I used to, so this is of no value to me. Now I guess this could also be Apple and Google fans distorting to way the device can be used. But from what I can tell this phone is mainly beneficial to people who will be using Amazon services a lot.

Mo Lillaney

I think its more important for amazon to roll out amazon fresh then it is to have a smartphone imo.

Michael Clapp

I was hoping Amazon would do something disruptive to the big carriers but instead this is really just a me too paired with AT&T. The features aren’t unique enough to make me want on and in fact are too unique in the wrong way without having the Google apps. This one is going to whiff IMO.

brekinapez

Due to Amazon’s treatment of book publishers and authors, I will not purchase any of their products.

Fortunately there is no shortage of options.

Anton

Hi brekinapez – I thought Amazon were a reputable company? I’m interested to know how publishers and authors were are being maltreated. Can you shed some light please?

brekinapez

Amazon has a huge share of the retail book market – they pretty much dominate it now. They have lately been using this fact to try and force extremely favorable contracts for buying titles from the various publishers. The rates are along the lines of those Wal-Mart demands of many of its vendors and some smaller companies have been wrecked by this. Those who don’t play along find their authors get removed from discount programs all other books usually get which makes them less attractive to buyers, they stop featuring them on recommended lists, and other tactics mainly directed at affecting the publisher’s bottom line. It is a dilemma for them as Amazon is in control of much of their revenue stream now. In fact, I used to work at Borders Books and we gave them control of our web site when corporate decided to farm out the online sector (which was really stupid, IMO) and eventually Amazon got big enough to tell us to get another online sales outlet, which by that time we were too late to re-enter the game and we know where Borders is now.

FollowFollow @ExtremeTech!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');
ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.

More Articles ET deals: Today only! Toshiba Satellite Core i5 laptop for $450 Jun 19How to bring back the Start menu and button to Windows 8 Jun 19Intel unveils new Xeon chip with integrated FPGA, touts 20x performance boost Jun 19The great flying car dream: With Terrafugia, Toyota, and Musk on board, has their time finally come? Jun 19Who in their right mind would buy Amazon’s Fire Phone? Jun 19 About ExtremeTechAdvertisingContact ExtremeTechET ForumsTerms of UsePrivacy PolicyZiff DavisJobs AdChoice/**/var _bap_p_overrides=_bap_p_overrides||{};_bap_p_overrides[8]={new_window:true}; (function(s, p, d) { var h=d.location.protocol, i=p+"-"+s, e=d.getElementById(i), r=d.getElementById(p+"-root"), u=h==="https:"?"d1z2jf7jlzjs58.cloudfront.net" :"static."+p+".com"; if (e) return; e = d.createElement(s); e.id = i; e.async = true; e.src = h+"//"+u+"/p.js"; r.appendChild(e);})("script", "parsely", document);

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Copyright 1996-2014 Ziff Davis, LLC.PCMag Digital Group All Rights Reserved. ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, LLC. is prohibited.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Amazon’s Fire Phone Uses Depth And 3D Effects To Stand Out

We’ve been hearing about head-tracking technology on phones for a long time now. Some have ventured into this territory already, with Samsung releasing camera-based head tracking in earlier generations of the Galaxy S phones.

Today, Amazon is trying out its own version of the gimmick with new 3D effects enabled by four cameras on the front of the phone. (We totally called this, btw.)

Bezos explained that, back in the 14th century, perspective changed the way we look at and create art. “There’s always more to see,” he said. “So what if there were a thousand artists standing by to redraw the picture every time you moved your head?”

The 3D effects features will be present throughout the phone to not only offer a more life-like experience in various apps, but also to provide the opportunity for tilt-based gestures.

It works by having four 120-degree, front-facing cameras on the phone, in each corner. At any moment, two of them are working to constantly know where you head is at any given time.

Even if you’re using the phone at night, each camera has it’s own infrared light to shine on you so the phone knows what’s going on. Amazon is calling the tracking feature “dynamic perspective.”

Amazon spent a lot of time developing this system so that the phone can always tell the difference between a picture of your face and your actual head.

Paired with Dyanamic Perspective, Amazon has also introduced 60fps 3D effects, and they aren’t just for certain applications. Amazon is currently using them to provide interesting 3D lock screens, and the effects are littered throughout the UI. For example, icons in the user interface float above other layers of the screen to provide a parallax-like effect.

Pairing these effects with tilt controls will let users switch between web pages and perform other commands, too, by simply tilting purposefully to the left or right. As we’ve seen with other phones, you can tilt to scroll through an article or web page vertically, as well.

We previously reported that Amazon is using Omron’s face-sensing technology.

A Dynamic Perspective SDK is available now to developers.

We haven’t actually tested any of it out ourselves, obviously, but the folks in the audience at the event are certainly impressed.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Amazon’s Fire Phone Introduces Firefly, A Feature That Lets You Identify (And Buy!) Things You See In The Real World

With the debut of the Amazon Fire Phone this afternoon, the company introduced a new feature called Firefly, which is largely designed to let you identify — and then, of course, buy — things you see out in the real world. Firefly takes advantage of the smartphone’s camera to let you identify things like phone numbers, movies, books, games, CDs, food and more just by pointing your camera at them.

The feature is a key part of the new phone, in fact, as it even has a dedicated button on the side – a perfect example of how much this new hardware is about bringing customers into Amazon’s ecosystem and turning them into regular online shoppers.

A Firefly button is sort of like “instant gratification” built into your device.

During the demonstration on stage, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos showed off how Firefly can be used to scan barcodes on items, a book cover, a CD and more. There’s a Shazam-like audio recognition-component, as well. Firefly can identify songs you’re listening to, and it can even listen to a show, and then let you access that specific scene on Amazon, which is a clever trick. Naturally, you’re directed to buy the tracks and shows and movies on Amazon.

To some extent, Firefly looks like a feature built on top of Flow, Amazon’s visual-recognition technology that used to reside in its own standalone mobile app before more recently being introduced into the main Amazon native application.

Flow, which was run by Amazon subsidiary A9 (the search and advertising wing of Amazon), was first launched over two years ago. That app, and now Amazon.com’s flagship app, work by identifying media package covers, logos, artwork and other unique visual features.

So by Amazon’s description of Firefly, it’s clearly an extension of Flow, though that was not said outright. (It’s unclear why the company decided to rename it. But “Firefly” does sound cooler.)

Firefly can also recognize art, and then pull up the associated Wikpedia entry, which is something Apple’s Siri and Google Now can’t yet do.

At launch, Firefly is capable of recognizing over 100 million items, said Bezos. That includes 245,000 movies and TV episodes, 160 live TV channels, 35 million songs and 70 million products.

It’s worth noting the Firefly feature isn’t only about finding things you can buy, although clearly that’s its larger goal.

Under the hood, the technology being used includes “semantic boosting,” Bezos continued, which is a fancy way of saying it can smartly identify and understand text based on the context. It can identify phone numbers using image-to-text conversion and can determine if a phone number doesn’t exist. This feature was demonstrated by pointing the phone at a sign for a pie shop, which then allowed you to kick off a phone call to that store.

The feature works for signs, posters, magazines or business cards, and it lets you send emails, save as a contact, or go to a website without typing a URL.

In addition, developers will be able to tap into Firefly, which makes the feature even more promising.

An SDK will allow third-parties access to all the functionality in Firefly itself. One company, the health-focused MyFitnessPal, has already taken advantage of the feature to create an app that can determine the nutritional information from the food your camera sees. Today, users have to manually enter this data or select a food from a set of search results. Firefly makes MyFitnessPal’s food diary “point and shoot.”

Included in the SDK are text, audio and image recognizers, content databases and support for custom actions allowing developers to bend Firefly to their own personal needs.

In another example, Vivino is releasing an app that gives you information about the bottles of wine you scan. Other early adopters include iHeartRadio and StubHub.

While Flow functionality may have seemed gimmicky at times — after all, it’s not that hard to enter a search query — opening up Flow (via Firefly) to a wider audience of developers has effectively just created a new app category, and something that —  for now at least — is exclusive to Amazon’s platform.

While Google has also experimented with visual recognition technology in the past (remember “Google Goggles?“), it hasn’t really been a huge focus for the company. Meanwhile, it makes sense for Amazon to pursue this feature, as the company sees identification as the first step in the purchasing process, not just another cool trick you can do with your phone.

The Firefly SDK is being launched today, said Bezos.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Amazon’s Shopping Phone Comes With Free Prime Membership For A Year

Amazon has just announced its head-tracking, shopping-focused $199 smartphone, the Fire Phone. And for those who might be wavering about shelling out top dollar (it’s $649 off contract) for a newbie smartphone, the company is currently throwing in a free year of its Amazon Prime membership service to sweeten the deal.

A statement on an Amazon product page notes: “For a limited time, Fire phone includes a full year of Prime.”

So if you factor in the cost of Prime then a Fire Phone could be considered to cost your wallet $100 — at least until this offer ends.

Those who are already Prime members can still get in on the deal — with Amazon saying it will extend Fire Phone buyers’ Prime memberships for a full year “at no additional cost.”

And if you buy multiple Fire Phones with the same account, that account will receive free Prime memberships for the corresponding number of years.

Prime Membership in the U.S. costs $99 per year and includes free two-day shipping on products sold by Amazon, as well as access to Amazon’s video- and music-streaming services and the Kindle e-book lending library.

Free Prime is one way for Amazon to differentiate the Fire Phone, but it evidently does not yet feel it needs to make this a permanent feature of its debut smartphone. That of course may change, depending on demand for the device.

Other (permanent) features of the Fire Phone that Amazon is hoping will make what is, at bottom, a forked Android phone stand out from the extant smartphone crowd include 3D depth effects, thanks to quad cameras on the front of the device that watch where the user is looking; access to Amazon’s Mayday 24-hour customer service video channel; free unlimited Amazon Cloud Drive storage; and a hardware button for accessing an app called Firefly that lets users point the phone’s camera at real-world objects to identify things they might want to buy or learn more about.

Amazon is also throwing in a smattering of its virtual currency, Amazon Coins, for early Fire Phone buyers. “For a limited time, Fire phone comes with 1,000 Amazon Coins (a $10 value) for apps, games and in-app purchases,” it says.

It will be interesting to see whether Amazon ends up offering more lasting ecosystem incentives to try to drive Fire Phone sales – by, for instance, making a year of free Prime membership a permanent offer. Or giving away a more substantial quantity of Amazon Coins.

That’s likely going to depend on how much demand it can drive with the existing feature set of the device and the prime promotional channel that is the front page of its own e-commerce website.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.