19 Jun Fire Phone Immerses Users in Amazon’s World
David Streitfeld, a New York Times Technology Reporter, offers up some initial impressions on Amazon’s new Fire phone, announced yesterday by Amazon CEO, Jeffrey Bezos. Here are several excerpts:
Amazon on Wednesday announced a device that tries to fulfill the retailer’s dream of being integrated into consumers’ lives at every possible waking moment — whether they are deciding where to eat, realizing they need more toilet paper or intrigued by a snatch of overheard music.
The device is a cellphone, but making calls on it got almost no attention at all at the event in Seattle where it was unveiled. The Fire phone, the product of four years of research and development, offers Amazon fans the chance to live in an Amazon-themed world, where just about every element can be identified, listed, ranked, shared and, of course, ordered.
It offered a view of a mobile future that will be alluring to some but might repel others.
If the device works as described, and Amazon entices even a small portion of its 250 million active customers to buy one, the Fire could accelerate Amazon’s already intense competition with other retailers and tech companies, not to mention heightening some of its current battles with suppliers.
The Fire’s product recognition feature, Firefly, “is potentially a real threat to bricks and mortar retailers,” said Rebecca Lieb, an analyst with the Altimeter Group. “Scan a product or listen to music, and you’re delivered straight to the page on Amazon on which you can purchase it. Impulse shopping just went to a new level.”
“Our idea is to give the lowest price to the customer,” Dave Limp, an Amazon executive, said in an interview. “If we don’t have it, shame on us.”
As for whether customers will go into physical stores, check a price with Firefly, and order the item right then — inflaming Amazon’s already bitter relations with Main Street — Mr. Limp noted that people could do the reverse: Look up something on Amazon and then buy it in a store.
“Both ways are very valuable for customers,” he said.
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