
The Fire Phone Is Officially a Failure - denzil_correa
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/fire-phone-a-failure/
======
DigitalSea
As innovative as Amazon are in the online commerce space, I think everyone
called this from the start as a massive failure. You would think with the
trove of information that Amazon have as well as the incredibly smart data
scientists they employ they could have analysed their treasure trove of info
to see that a phone with restricted access to applications, sub-par hardware
and overpriced retail cost would not sell very well. Heck, even without
analysing any data, you would have the answer. What makes this situation even
weirder is Jeff Bezos is a notorious data-driven decision maker. He is a
numbers guy, he does not usually make decisions based on impulse or the need
to compete, so I do not know how things got to this point.

Does this mean that Amazon are out of the smartphone business because of one
failure? Not necessarily. Amazon have the money, the power and means to
release something spectacular, but they will need to learn from their mistakes
as well as their competitors and go back to the drawing board. I honestly
would not be surprised if they already have a new phone in the works already.

One area Amazon could beat their competitors on is price Even though you can
already buy a whole bunch of affordable Android phones, they usually come with
horrible hardware and are made of the cheapest materials possible. If they can
release a phone with a decent camera, proper unrestricted Android OS, plenty
of RAM, removable battery, great GPU/CPU and get the cost low enough that it
wipes the floor with Google's offerings and price point, we would have a
viable fight on our hands.

~~~
mandeepj
They started development on this phone during 2010. I think it got super
delayed and that was one of the main reasons behind its failure.

~~~
hkmurakami
Having worked for a hw supplier to amazon in the past (though I had no
information on the actual products, being in Eng.), I came here to say just
that. It made much more sense when they started development.

Lab126 failed to deliver. This is why I respect Samsung, even though I am not
fond of their practices. Samsung moves extremely fast and extremely
shamelessly. Speed matters a lot, and they've proven it time and time again.

~~~
mandeepj
I completely agree. I believe in Ship fast and move quick. Anybody can deliver
in 6 years but you are a game changer if you can deliver in 6 months.

If Amazon followed iterative approach to fine tune rather than one shot with
super delay then it would have been a different story.

------
IkmoIkmo
I can't fathom why Amazon could not find the expertise to see this one coming.

I mean, let's be real here, it's an extremely restricted platform that cuts
you off from tons and I mean tons of great content on app stores we already
have, content we're already familiar with.

And then it provides you with sub-par hardware at that price level and nothing
more than gimmicks.

And one of the big reasons for all of this? To push a feature allowing people
to point their phone at something and buy it on Amazon. Surprise, that's a
software-based feature you could build for just about any phone.

~~~
amputect
The fire phone (and other failed experiments like the Kin or the various
Facebook phones) all seem like they're identifying "locking the buyer into a
single corporate ecosystem" as a feature, but consumers are treating it as a
bug.

~~~
SiVal
I think you're right, but Apple does exactly that, so it's clearly possible to
succeed that way. Whether it's possible for anyone but Apple to succeed that
way is another question. I think it might be--say a Chinese company with
Chinese customers, or a future Google-only ecosystem, or an Amazon that
negotiates a huge range of discounted offerings (20% discount at Starbucks and
thousands of other brick & mortar restaurants and shops as long as you buy
with your Amazon phone through the Amazon retail network, etc.

~~~
MBCook
With the iPhone Apple only had to be better than a smart phone, which they
did. With Android Google had to be better than a smart phone, cheaper than an
iPhone, or at least just as good and they basically did that.

Today if you launch something new you need to be able to compete with the
value in the iOS and Android ecosystems to draw people and that's a VERY big
hurdle. Microsoft is trying their hardest but can't get it done.

There is no surprise here. Amazon's software ability and follow through is
best describe as "exists" and the third party ecosystem is tiny. I'd rather
have any $200 Android phone (even a low quality one) than a free Fire Phone
and I _like_ Amazon.

"Here's a phone, it has no popular apps, and they'll probably never be
available!" Yeah. Same thing that killed the Pre. Same thing that's killing
Windows Mobile.

~~~
rational-future
You're underestimating Amazon's software muscle, they have some very hard
hitting teams. Plenty of PhDs, old-time Lispers, etc.

I have a Kindle Fire HDX 8.9' tablet, the hardware is top notch and there are
plenty of apps. From what I know, if an Android app doesn't heavily rely on
Google proprietary APIs, like Maps, it's trivial to put it on the Amazon
store.

But yeah, the phone needed to be 2-3 times cheaper to sell well.

~~~
opendais
> You're underestimating Amazon's software muscle, they have some very hard
> hitting teams. Plenty of PhDs, old-time Lispers, etc.

Call me when they can figure out that $.99 == $.99 100% of the time. [Hint: At
least once every few months, this isn't true for at least one of their back
end services and I have to clean up after it. This is just one issue of many
they have, including the fact their "primary key" for items (ASINs) can be
duplicated across multiple products.]

I think many, many people overestimate Amazon's technical capability.

They are competent but they are not _special_.

Hell, they can take up to _8 days_ to ship something from a warehouse
sometimes.

------
specialp
Honestly this is no surprise. I am a big Amazon fan, but if you are selling a
restricted platform item you have to sell it at a loss. I do not know what
they were thinking. It was priced higher than comparable flagship phones while
being somewhat locked down.

~~~
moonka
Yep. Lack of Google Apps was a complete deal killer for me, even withstanding
the price. I felt the same way when I tested out a Kindle Fire tablet (opted
for a Nexus 7). You'd have to pry my Kindle reader out of my cold dead hands
though.

~~~
enlightenedfool
I bought the Fire HD 8.9", rooted and installed Play store. You can run all
the apps on play store. It was a better deal that way.

~~~
rational-future
But nobody has payed Google for store access in this scenario. They may cut
you off any time.

------
bengali3
> The Fire phone’s product page at Amazon lists over 3,000 user reviews,
> mostly negative—the average rating is two out of five stars.

This highlights Amazons commitment to their customers. This is why Amazon will
be #1 in the customer loyalty game in the long run. NO other company would
keep this many bad reviews on their OWN product page.

V2.0 will be sooo much stronger because of this. Tough lesson to learn but
invaluable internal motivation & feedback for the team.

Now if v2.0 isn't on AT&T, I will try it ....

~~~
hkmurakami
V2.0 is what I was thinking as well. Many amazon products have terrible
version 1.0s (kindle fire tablet anyone?), but improve markedly in the future.
Fire phone is terrible now, but I'm not going to let that convince me that it
will still be terrible 3-5 years from now.

------
SwellJoe
I'm surprised Amazon has doubled down on the idea of screwing their customers
out of a good Android experience. That's all this is: Amazon ignored what was
good for users (access to the whole Android ecosystem), and instead focused on
what was good for Amazon's immediate desire to extract ongoing revenue from
their customers.

Instead of making a better phone for consumers, they focused on making a
better phone for Amazon. And, it turns out, "Makes Amazon richer", is on
nobodies feature wish list for their next phone. Obviously, most folks
probably don't mind Amazon making money...but, why would anyone buy a phone
for which the _only_ major differentiation is that it sends most of the long
term app revenue to Amazon, and by doing so, limits the user to far fewer apps
and less freedom to do with the phone what you want?

I'm almost amused at the gall of Amazon thinking they had the marketing and
product chops to pull off an Apple-scale consumer-fleecing like this.

------
ufmace
What I'm really curious about, but probably won't find out anytime soon, is
what the internal politics on the development of this were like. Did somebody
high up decide that Amazon had to have a phone, no matter how bad the market
looked like for it, command that it be done, and the whole hierarchy went
along with it, even though most of the company was kinda meh about it? Or did
a critical mass of lower-level people inside the company really think that
this was a good idea?

Most of the tech press and community had a feeling that it was a bad idea that
was unlikely to ever go anywhere, and it's hard to believe that the entire
company was unaware of this and of the market facts behind it.

~~~
RyJones
I worked on this device. Every day we awaited the news that management had
come to senses and cancelled the project. It was to my great surprise that it
shipped at all.

------
meepmorp
This iteration is a failure, at least. It remains to be seen if the overall
idea of an Amazon phone is dead or not.

I personally wouldn't ever buy one, much like I'd never get a Facebook phone,
but it could be that there's people out there who might.

~~~
cwe
This seems like the only logical reason any sane person at Amazon thought this
phone would be a good idea. It's such an obvious dud in this stage. These
people aren't stupid, yet there is no way this product would ever be
successful. It would be fascinating to learn just what they are thinking.

------
FreakyT
I still find it astounding that high-ranking execs at Amazon could have
thought that this product had even the slightest chance of being successful.

If the Kindle Fire tablets had all cost the same price as an iPad, I seriously
doubt they would be enjoying the popularity that they have today. It would
appear that the thought process leading to the existence of that Fire Phone
was that the Kindle Fire's success has less to do with price and more to do
with Amazon.com ecosystem integration!

------
rohunati
How did they not see this one coming? Bezos is notoriously a data driven
decision maker, I wonder what data prompted them to build the fire phone.

~~~
dnautics
failure is a data point. As a scientist, I would say, arguably the more
important data are failures. Consider it an exercise in falsification.

~~~
rohunati
i agree that failure is an important data point, but i don't understand why
that means amazon would want to build the fire phone. their reasoning couldn't
have been "well this seems like a good idea, and if it fails, at least we'll
have a data point!" I am curious what caused them to think the fire phone was
a good idea.

------
zipop
I have to wonder if Amazon's failure to recognize the obvious here has
anything to do with Bezos' "we are willing to be misunderstood for long
periods of time." That statement has always kind of bothered me. I get what he
was trying to say but I have to think they believe they can innovate against
markets.

------
quasse
$83 million in unsold phones is a lot of inventory. I wonder if they'll end up
sold on Woot or plowed into a landfill a la E.T.

------
ihsw
It's a failure because of being associated with AT&T, plain and simple.

~~~
bengali3
this is a very large part of it

