
Ask HN: Why doesn't Amazon release a phone? - Raed667
Right now there is a duopoly when it comes to smartphones. I&#x27;m just curious why doesn&#x27;t Amazon -one of the biggest companies in the world, with experience in both hardware and software- push for its own platform?<p>Is the smartphone market already THAT saturated?
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satya71
They did and failed spectacularly. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Phone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Phone)

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Raed667
It looks like they focused on 3D gimmick, instead of building a good general
purpose smartphone

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mattm
This is a pretty entertaining long read of it
[https://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-
fire](https://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire)

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RemingtonLak
It was the most idiotic thing I've ever seen. What kind of marketing research
told the Prod Mgrs that a 3D phone with 6 cameras with 3D moving like images
help a mother with screaming toddlers order more diapers?

What would have made a better phone focusing in consumables by Amzn customers
is a one handed phone with a builtin barcode reader (which is did have with a
dedicated button) that will directly find/order the item. Making buying and
ordering their priority function.

However, conjecturing, but I believe they may be working on another phone.
Lower cost focusing on the more ludicative India market. Probably also
coincides with them getting and probably launching soon their satellites for
internet. And also trying to figure how _not_ to be based on Android.

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andrefuchs
KaiOS would have been a great opportunity for Amazon. (especially for India)
They could move away from Android and boost Alexa for voice assistance.

They missed it and Google is now heavily investing in KaiOS pushing Google
Assistant and their other services.

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RemingtonLak
I believe the behemoth they are, they are working on their own. Underline hw
layer is already extracted by phone manuf and amzn wants to have their own app
store (salivating over how much aapl makes from theirs). You can pretty much
build your own phone with needed os and apps. It just won't be apple store or
google play compatible but it will be a working smartphone with all the same
look/feel. Or buy out KaiOS? :) Alternatives are coming out of the wood works
as of late.

I don't think it would be far stretch to start anew in a "new" country ripe
for new beginnings. Particularly when their gov is blocking most apps anyways.
Good way for Amzn to work into their system without offending their gov. Amzn
is a company who will sell your soul to the devil for a penny because there is
7 Billion potential new accts. Btw they have already moved away from android
on their Echo devices onto their own RTOS.

I know FB tried and failed to roll out and get adopted with their FB phone,
but that's bc they are FB. At this point, failure is their only option.
Unfortunately with 2 Billion naive users with no viable alternative, FB death
will be slow although they did just provide a "take with you" option of all of
your posts so.. may be speeding up? but again to where?

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andrefuchs
Amazon's own Android AppStore is not very popular and doesn't offer all
important apps. They would need to implement the Google Play Store to be
successful - at least in markets like North America and Europe - and they
obviously don't want that.

It's why WindowsPhone and BlackBerry10 failed - fantastic OS but a lack of
apps.

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Madeuloook
Its all about the app stores. Unless they run android like Microsoft is doing.

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maps7
Because they're bad at software judging from AWS console, Amazon prime, Fire
tablet OS

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muzani
Not sure if sarcasm. A lot of the world does run on AWS.

